How do I use this e-commerce CRO checklist?

Go page by page and tick every checkpoint your store already meets. As you tick, your CRO score and per-page progress update, so you can see which pages are strongest and which have the most untapped wins. Your progress is saved in your browser, so you can return and finish later.

What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of improving the share of visitors who take the action you want, such as buying, adding to cart, or starting checkout. Instead of paying for more traffic, you remove the friction, doubt, and confusion that stop the people who are already on your store. This checklist turns that work into concrete, page-by-page checks.

How can I improve my e-commerce conversion rate?

Start with the pages that carry the most weight: product, category, and checkout. Make pricing, shipping, and returns clear, put trust signals next to the buy button, speed up your pages, and cut steps and form fields in checkout. Work down this checklist page by page, fix the biggest gaps first, then test the changes. If you want a second pair of eyes, get a free CRO audit.

What are the most common e-commerce conversion blockers?

The usual culprits are unclear pricing or surprise shipping costs, weak or missing product images and reviews, slow pages, a confusing path to checkout, forced account creation, and too many form fields. The checkout and product pages tend to leak the most revenue, which is why their checks carry the heaviest weights here.

Which pages affect e-commerce conversion the most?

The product page, category page, and checkout tend to move conversion the most, and their Critical checks carry the heaviest weights in your coverage score. The cart, landing pages, and general site experience matter too. This checklist covers all of them so you can find the biggest leak.

What is a good conversion rate for an online store?

Most stores land between 1% and 3%, and strong stores push past that, but the range varies widely by category, price point, and traffic mix. A store selling 40 GBP candles and a store selling 2,000 GBP beds should not chase the same number. Benchmark against your own history, fix the Critical checks first, and measure the change.

Is the checklist free, and can I download it?

Yes. The interactive checklist is completely free and needs no sign-up. If you also want it as a Google Sheet to work in a spreadsheet, we will send you a copy in exchange for your email. It is published by Just Lead Market, a Google Ads and CRO agency, so store owners can self-audit before they scale spend.

How is the CRO score calculated?

Your score is weighted coverage. Critical checks count three times as much as Standard checks, and High checks count twice, so fixing the checks with the strongest evidence moves your score fastest. The score measures how much documented best practice you cover. It does not predict your conversion rate, because that also depends on your offer, your prices, and your traffic. Use the Fix First list, which gathers every unticked Critical check, as your working order.

Why does this checklist warn against tactics other checklists recommend?

Because some of them are now illegal. Fake countdown timers, invented "only 2 left" messages, fabricated reviews, and hidden mandatory fees are banned practices under the UK's DMCC Act 2024 and, for reviews, under the US FTC rule that took effect in October 2024. The UK regulator's first investigations under its new powers target furniture and appliance retailers, and it can fine up to 10% of global turnover. Real urgency, real stock counts, and real reviews remain effective and legal. Section 9 shows you the difference.

FREE. NO SIGN-UP. 293 CHECKS, EVIDENCE GRADED.

The Ecommerce CRO Checklist

Most CRO checklists treat every box the same. This one does not. Every check is graded by the evidence behind it, and a handful of popular tactics are flagged because they are now illegal in the UK and the US. Tick what your store already does, fix the Critical gaps first, and ignore the total score until your Fix First list is empty.

Built by Just Lead Market, a Google Ads and CRO agency. We wrote this the way we audit client stores: biggest leaks first, no fake urgency, nothing we could not defend to a regulator.

Your progress saves in this browser. Nothing is uploaded.

How the grades work

Every check carries one of three grades.

Critical. Backed by large-scale research, a legal requirement, or a documented major reason shoppers abandon. Fix these before anything else.
High. Strong evidence or consistent results across stores.
Standard. Sensible polish. Do these once Critical and High are handled.

Where a check comes from published research or law, the source sits next to it: Baymard (Baymard Institute usability research), Google (Core Web Vitals), CMA (UK Competition and Markets Authority rules under the DMCC Act 2024), FTC (US rule on consumer reviews, 16 CFR Part 465), WCAG (accessibility guidelines), UK law (Consumer Contracts Regulations). Checks tagged Field come from patterns we see across our own client builds. No tag means standard practice we consider low risk.

Grades:Critical: research, law, or a major abandonment reasonHigh: strong evidenceStandard: polishSource tags explained below

Thank You Page

Section 8 · 9 checks

Facts block

Resource	Ecommerce CRO Checklist, interactive
Checks	293, graded Critical / High / Standard
Sourced from	Baymard Institute, Google, UK CMA, US FTC, WCAG 2.2, UK consumer law, JLM client work
Covers	Site-wide, home, category, landing, product, cart, checkout, thank you, risky tactics, paid traffic
Cost and access	Free, no sign-up, progress saved in browser only
Publisher	Just Lead Market, a Google Ads and CRO agency
Compliance angle	Flags tactics banned under the UK DMCC Act 2024 and the US FTC reviews rule
Last updated	2026-07-05

How this checklist was built

Every graded check traces to one of these sources. Where we had no proof for a claim, we removed it.

Baymard Institute. Large-scale ecommerce UX research across thousands of hours of user testing. Key figures used here: documented cart abandonment averages around 70% across published studies; among fixable reasons, extra costs lead, followed by slow delivery, payment trust concerns, forced account creation, and checkout length; better checkout design alone can lift conversions by up to 35%; the average checkout shows about 11 form fields while the best flows run 7 to 8.
Google. Core Web Vitals thresholds: LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP within 200 milliseconds, CLS within 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits.
UK Competition and Markets Authority. Unfair commercial practices rules under the DMCC Act 2024, in force since 6 April 2025, plus the CMA's fake reviews guidance (CMA208) and its price transparency guidance.
US Federal Trade Commission. Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, effective 21 October 2024.
WCAG 2.2. Contrast and target size requirements.
UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. The 14 day cancellation right for distance sales.
Just Lead Market client work. Checks tagged Field come from patterns across our Google Ads and ecommerce builds. We do not attach numbers to them because we will not publish metrics we cannot show you.

Last updated: 5 July 2026. Laws and thresholds change. We review this page when they do.

Want help acting on it? Start with a free CRO audit, see how we run conversion rate optimization, or explore our Shopify development work.

CRO checklist FAQs

Your score is weighted coverage. Critical checks count three times as much as Standard checks, and High checks count twice, so fixing the checks with the strongest evidence moves your score fastest. The score measures how much documented best practice you cover. It does not predict your conversion rate, because that also depends on your offer, your prices, and your traffic. Use the Fix First list, which gathers every unticked Critical check, as your working order.
Because some of them are now illegal. Fake countdown timers, invented "only 2 left" messages, fabricated reviews, and hidden mandatory fees are banned practices under the UK's DMCC Act 2024 and, for reviews, under the US FTC rule that took effect in October 2024. The UK regulator's first investigations under its new powers target furniture and appliance retailers, and it can fine up to 10% of global turnover. Real urgency, real stock counts, and real reviews remain effective and legal. Section 9 shows you the difference.

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How the grades work

General Website

Header

Navigation

Footer

Search

Performance and accessibility

Overall

Home Page

General

Trust

Category Page

Product list

Filters

Overall

Landing Page

Page structure

Call to action section

Product Page

Page structure

Title and summary

Photo gallery

Call to action section

Social proof

Average order value

Detailed information

Cart

Call to action section

Cart behavior

Checkout

Login and registration

Form

Order bumps

Flow

Thank You Page

Risky Tactics, Verify or Remove

Paid Traffic Readiness

Facts block

How this checklist was built

The checklist, on camera

CRO checklist FAQs

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