E-Commerce Strategy and Shop Design that Sell: From UX to Checkout Optimization

There’s a moment we often see in e-commerce projects: The shop gets visitors, maybe even quite good ones. Ads are running, SEO brings traffic, social causes peaks. And yet the feeling remains: There should be more.

Then you look at the numbers – and find no single problem, but many small frictions. Mobile conversion much weaker than desktop. Products are viewed but rarely added to the cart. Or the cart fills up, but suddenly there’s radio silence at checkout.

This is not an exception. On average, around 70% of all filled carts are abandoned. Baymard Institute And the bitter part of it: Some reasons are not “lack of willingness to buy,” but an experience that becomes tedious at the wrong moment. Already 3 seconds of loading time can lead to mobile drop-off – Google has published the well-known figure that 53% of mobile users leave a page if it takes more than three seconds to load. Marketing Dive

Our first “secret ingredient” at Pola is therefore not a design trick, but a change of perspective: We don’t treat your shop as a pretty surface, but as an sequence of decisions. Every page is a question a person asks themselves: “Am I in the right place?” “Will I find what I’m looking for?” “Can I be sure?” “Is the next step easy?”

When we look at the shop in this way, typical blockages become clearer. Too many options without orientation (Choice Overload). Fake urgency or hidden costs that cost trust. Lack of accessibility, which not only excludes people but also makes “normal” use difficult. And often: a checkout that feels like filling out forms.

You don’t have to solve everything at once. But you need a clear plan where to start – and how to make progress visible.

When a shop doesn’t sell, the reflex often seems like a sprint: new theme, new homepage, new product images. That can help – but only if it fits the strategy.

We, therefore, like to start with a simple but honest question: What should your shop stand for if no one knows the price? Because as soon as you buy reach through ads or marketplaces, you compete not only on assortment but also on trust, orientation, and meaning.

Strategy for us means: You bring offer, brand, and channel mix into a coherent context. Does your shop sell through repeat purchases (e.g., consumables) or through rare, considered purchases (e.g., furniture)? Do you need advice during the process – or rather speed? Is your growth set on D2C, or is the shop a strong brand hub alongside wholesale?

This is where a fresh perspective comes into play: Purpose is not decoration, but conversion. Many articles about shop optimization ignore values and sustainability – yet they are a criterion in practice. If you really work sustainably, it doesn’t belong in a footer link but in the structure of the shop: clear information about materials, supply chain, repair, return and shipping.

At the same time, values only work if they are easily accessible. We have learned that “explaining too much” sometimes hinders just as much as “saying too little.” Therefore, we like to think in small, distributed proofs: a short sentence on the product page, transparent shipping info in the cart, a credible “About Us” section with faces instead of stock photos.

From strategy arises UX: If your business model, for example, targets repeat purchases, the repurchase experience is more important than the heroic homepage. If you have products that need explanation, the product page is more important than a perfect Instagram grid.

In the end, our goal is not “more features”, but a shop that works like a good conversation: You come in, are understood, find quickly, gain confidence – and the purchase feels like a logical continuation.

Many shop teams think in page types: homepage, category, product, checkout. We prefer to think in movements: How does someone get in? How do they find the right thing? How does security arise? And how does the conclusion feel?

This may seem like wordplay at first, but it’s our quickest path to effective decisions in practice. Because UX is not about “making it pretty.” UX is what happens when a person with a goal lands on your shop—often with little time, sometimes with a tired thumb on the phone.

We like to see the journey in five phases: Entry, Finding, Deciding, Buying, Post-Purchase. In each phase, there are typical breakpoints.

At the entry it’s often the first impression: A layout that seems cluttered, or images that look like “yesterday’s catalog” immediately raise doubts. There are studies that show people judge credibility strongly by design. Trustify Review

In finding, it’s about orientation. A search that doesn’t forgive typos, or filters that are hard to use on mobile devices, feel like a closed shelf.

In deciding, clarity wins: What do I get? Does it fit me? What happens if it doesn’t fit? This is where accessibility is a quiet strength. Our third fresh perspective: Accessibility is not just a duty, but reach and calm in the interface. When contrasts are right, buttons are big enough, and forms have clear labels, everyone benefits – especially mobile and in stressful situations.

In buying, it’s often not the price that breaks the deal, but the effort. Baymard reports that 18% of shoppers have already abandoned because the checkout was too long or too complicated. Baymard Institute

And in post-purchase, loyalty decides: A clear confirmation, transparent tracking info, and support that seems reachable are the start of the next order.

When you view the journey this way, it suddenly becomes clear why individual “conversion tricks” rarely work. Not because they are wrong—but because they are often used in the wrong place.

“I can’t find it.” That’s the phrase that is rarely spoken in shops—because it usually doesn’t reach support. The person is simply gone.

In our audits, findability is a perennial favorite. And it doesn’t start with design but with a decision: Do you arrange your shop by internal structures—or by how people shop?

If categories are named after departments, it feels like a warehouse plan to customers. If categories are named after needs, it feels like a store where someone has thought things through. It’s a fine difference with significant impact.

An example from practice: A sustainable D2C shop had “Materials” as main navigation. That made sense to the team because it was the brand’s core. But for new visitors, it was no starting point because they were actually searching for “Everyday,” “Sports,” “Travel.” When we tied navigation more closely to usage situations and anchored “Materials” as a filter and story element on the product page, the shop didn’t become less value-oriented—it became more understandable.

The search is also often underestimated. If you only have a standard search field but no fault tolerance, no synonyms, no autocomplete, you force people into exact terms. Yet searching is often a sign of buying intent: Those who search usually want to reach their goal faster.

With filters, it’s about choice reduction: Provide enough options, but not in a way that feels like Excel. We favor filters that first query the most important decisions (size, price, availability) and only then the finer details.

And please: Think mobile. Filters that are okay on desktop can become a patience test on mobile when they fold over multiple levels or have small checkboxes.

If you work cleanly here, something reassuring happens: The shop suddenly feels “light.” Not because it has fewer products, but because it creates less cognitive load. That’s conversion—without needing to touch a single discount banner.

The product page is where doubt either shrinks—or grows. We often find that shops either say too little here (“here’s a photo, trust us”) or too much (“here’s a novel, find the answer yourself”).

A sales-strong product page helps in decision-making. It makes the most important information immediately visible, without hiding the rest. This sounds simple, but it’s real craftsmanship: What information is at the top? Which becomes crucial only when scrolling? What is different for first-time buyers than for regular customers?

In fashion, it’s often questions of fit, size, and returns. In cosmetics, it’s ingredients and compatibility. In tech, it’s compatibility and warranty. In all cases, the principle is: Reduce uncertainty, and action increases.

We, therefore, like to build product pages like a small, calm argument. First, “What is it?” and “Why is it worth it?”. Then “Does it fit me?”. Then “What if not?”.

Social proof is part of it, but please, genuinely. Reviews work because people orient themselves on others. At the same time, trust collapses immediately if reviews seem generic or only five-star without content are present.

A detail often underestimated: Images and media weight. High-quality photos are important—but five large, uncompressed images are a performance obstacle and thus a conversion risk. Especially on mobile, this is noticeable.

If you have products that need explanation, a short video is often worthwhile. In tests, we’ve repeatedly seen it can improve the “Add to Cart” rate because it provides a sense of size, material, or application. It’s no guarantee, but a good candidate for a clean A/B test.

And another angle from Pola that we rarely see in standard articles: Show your impact where the decision falls. If you produce fairly or ship carbon-neutral, don’t just place this information on a subpage. Make it tangible on the product page—with concrete statements, not big promises.

Because in the end, a product page is not a prospectus. It’s an answer to an inner dialogue. The better you understand this dialogue, the less you need to “persuade.”

Checkout is the moment where all your work either comes to fruition—or fizzles out. And it is surprisingly often the place where teams quickly pile on requirements: phone number, date of birth, newsletter, account, second address line, three CAPTCHAs.

Baymard regularly shows how high cart abandonment rates are on average and that a significant portion of this results from checkout friction. Baymard Institute Yet this is the good news: Friction is changeable.

Our proven method number two we call the Receipt Test. We print (or sketch) the checkout like a receipt: What information is really needed to get the package shipped and the payment processed? Everything else is optional and belongs to a later moment.

Almost always, this results in a similar picture:

1) Allow guest purchase and offer accounts only as an option after the order.

2) Reduce fields and explain errors immediately, friendly, and specifically.

3) Offer payments how people want to pay. When the preferred method is missing, about 7% abandon according to Shopify. Shopify

4) Use mobile wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) because typing on a mobile device is real work.

An example we often see in a similar form: A shop had 14 required fields and demanded registration. After reducing to a few core fields, guest checkout, and PayPal Express, the abandonment rate decreased significantly—not because suddenly more people wanted to buy, but because the process no longer felt like a bureaucratic task.

And something else: Checkout design is also brand work. If the checkout suddenly looks different from the rest of the shop, a subtle break occurs. People notice, even if they can't name it.

A good checkout is not the most creative place. It's the calmest. If it feels easy, it’s no coincidence—it’s a decision to respect the person who is just putting their trust and money on the table.

E-commerce optimization rarely fails due to a lack of ideas. It fails because teams either don’t test at all—or change everything at once.

We prefer to work with small, clear hypotheses. Not “We’re making the shop more modern,” but: “If we remove the mandatory registration in checkout, the completion rate will increase.” Or: “If we place the delivery time right next to the price on the product page, the cart abandonment rate will decrease.”

This seems unspectacular. But it’s the only way to cleanly understand changes.

Baymard describes the potential of checkout improvements very clearly and arrives at a possible average conversion increase of around 35% if checkout usability is consistently improved. Baymard Institute This number isn’t a promise. It’s a reminder: Even small changes can have large effects—if they address the right spot.

For testing and analysis, teams often use a mix of tools. For behavior and friction, Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity are helpful because you see heatmaps and session recordings. For performance, we use WebPageTest or Lighthouse. And for accessibility checks, WAVE is a good start.

What’s important to us is an attitude you can easily adopt: Testing is not a tribunal. It’s a way to listen.

And please don’t expect an A/B test to “spit out the truth.” In many shops, traffic for great significance isn’t immediately there. Then qualitative signals help: support tickets, user feedback, replays. That’s data too.

When you accept this as a process, something nice happens: Your shop not only gets better—it becomes more stable. You make decisions that you can explain—and you build a system that’s allowed to grow without having to flee into a risky complete redesign every two years.

2026 is a mature yet moving e-commerce landscape. AI features, social commerce, new payment standards, stricter privacy expectations—all feels like a stream of possibilities.

We believe: You don’t have to swim everywhere. But you should know which developments truly have substance.

AI will be notably useful in the shop where it increases relevance without losing control: better searching, more suitable recommendations, support answers that truly help. At the same time, data protection stays a trust topic. If personalization seems like secret spying, it’s counterproductive.

AR and better product visualization can reduce returns—especially for products that need to be “seen” or “imagined”. Our advice here is pragmatic: Stabilize the basics first (performance, product info, checkout), then specifically invest in visualization where it truly reduces uncertainty.

Social commerce continues to grow, but it’s no replacement for your shop. Your shop remains the place where you maintain relationships, responsibly collect first-party data, and truly explain your brand—especially as cookies and tracking have become more sensitive.

And we expect that accessibility will become more central—not only as an attitude, but as a market expectation. Those who already design inclusively today will have to rebuild less when requirements increase.

If you want a priority list for the coming months, we deliberately keep it small: First ensure a lightweight, mobile, accessible experience. Make checkout calm. Measure only what you need. And then build step by step on things that truly differentiate you: content, values, community, service.

This way, your shop becomes future-proof without being driven by trends.