5 places your web shop is leaking sales - and how to fix them

When a shop owner writes to me, it almost always sounds the same: “We get decent traffic, but people don't buy.” It's rarely one big problem. It's five small ones, working together to send your customers back to Google.

1. The cart forgets what the customer was doing

A customer adds three items to the cart on their phone on the bus. In the evening they open the shop on their laptop - and the cart is empty. It feels like a detail, but it's one of the most expensive moments in the entire flow. The cart has to survive reloads, and ideally follow the customer across sessions.

2. Shipping costs show up as a last-minute surprise

The single most common reason for abandoned carts: unexpected costs at the final step. Show the shipping price - or better, how much is left until free shipping - on the product page and in the cart. It's one line of text, and it pays for itself every single day.

3. Checkout demands an account

Forced account creation is a paywall on your customer's patience. Guest checkout first, account afterwards. You can always offer to save their details once the order is complete - the moment when trust is at its highest.

4. The product page doesn't answer the nervous questions

• When will it arrive? (delivery time, visible, no clicks required)
• What if it doesn't fit? (returns, in words that don't sound like legal copy)
• Can I trust you? (reviews, trust marks, real photos)
• What do others do? (frequently bought together, popular choices)

Every unanswered question is friction. The customer feels it as a vague unease - and unease never converts.

5. The site is slow exactly where it hurts

It's not the homepage that needs to be fast. It's the product page and the checkout. One extra second of waiting in the checkout flow feels like resistance - and resistance right before payment is poison. Measure your Core Web Vitals on the pages where money changes hands, not on the homepage.

A web shop rarely leaks sales in one place. It leaks a little in six places - and the sum is the difference between 1.2% and 2.4% conversion.

Where to start

Run through your own checkout flow on your phone tonight. Add three items to the cart, close the browser, open it again, and try to complete a purchase with Apple Pay or your local wallet. Every time you hesitate, you've found a leak. Fix the biggest one first - and measure the effect before moving on to the next.