Gourdanen Ventures · Free seed

The ecommerce usability checklist

Twenty-four checks I run before I let anyone spend another dollar on traffic. Product page first, then checkout, trust, speed, and how you measure. They are in the order they usually pay back. Work through them with your own store open in another tab. Anything you tick no on is a job for this week.

Product page

This is where the sale is won or lost. Most stores over-invest in the homepage and under-invest here.

  1. The first screen answers what it is, who it is for, and what it costs, without scrolling.
  2. The main photo shows the product in use, at the size it really is. Lifestyle shots come second.
  3. Sizing, dimensions, materials and what is in the box are one tap away, never buried in a tab.
  4. Reviews are real, recent, and include at least one that is not five stars.
  5. Shipping cost and delivery time appear on the product page, before the cart.
  6. The add-to-cart button is visible on mobile without scrolling, and it stays visible when you do.

Checkout

Every field is a place to leave. Count them.

  1. Guest checkout exists and is the default. Account creation is offered after the order, never before.
  2. The order summary, including shipping and tax, is visible on every step. No surprises on the last screen.
  3. Address autocomplete works and the form remembers what was typed if someone goes back.
  4. Express payment (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay, PayPal) is offered first on mobile.
  5. Error messages say what to fix, next to the field, in words a human would use.
  6. The discount code field is quiet. A big empty box sends people off to hunt for codes.

Trust

People do not buy from stores they do not believe. Belief is built in small, boring places.

  1. Returns policy is one sentence, easy to find, and does not read like it was written by a lawyer.
  2. A real person, address or phone number appears somewhere. Faceless stores convert worse.
  3. Product pages carry a plain answer to the top three questions support actually gets asked.
  4. Nothing on the site is broken. One dead link on the FAQ costs more than it looks.

Speed and mobile

Most of your traffic is on a phone, on a mediocre connection, with one thumb.

  1. The product page loads in under three seconds on a mid-range phone over 4G. Test it, do not guess.
  2. Images are sized for the screen they are shown on. A 4MB hero photo is the most common quiet killer.
  3. Tap targets are big enough for a thumb, and nothing important hides behind a hover.
  4. Pop-ups wait until someone has actually seen the page. A discount modal at zero seconds is a bounce.

Channels and measurement

You cannot fix what you cannot see, and most stores are half blind.

  1. You know, per channel, what a visit costs and what a visit is worth. If you do not, that comes first.
  2. Analytics tracks add-to-cart, checkout started and purchase, and the numbers reconcile with the store's own.
  3. The channel sending the most traffic is not automatically the one earning the most money. Check.
  4. One person owns the weekly look at the funnel. Unowned numbers do not get acted on.

Ticked no more than you would like?

Send me your store and your analytics read access and I will do the full audit, sized by payback, with a short plan you can run yourself or hand to me. It starts with an intro call, free.

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