If you’re not sure what to test first on a Shopify store, start where buying decisions happen: product pages, the cart, and shipping messaging. The twelve ideas below are grouped by page, each with the reason it’s worth testing and what to measure. Don’t run all twelve. Pick the three that match the biggest drop-off in your own funnel, write a clear hypothesis for each, and run them one at a time per page with a Shopify A/B testing tool that tracks real orders.
A word on expectations. Many tests won’t produce a clear winner, and that’s normal. The goal is to learn what your shoppers care about, quarter after quarter.
How to choose from this list
Before picking, open your analytics and look at four numbers by device: product page views, add-to-cart rate, checkout starts, and orders. The step with the steepest drop is your starting point. Then score candidate ideas with something more objective than gut feel. CXL’s PXL prioritization framework works well here. It asks yes-or-no questions like whether the change is above the fold, whether it’s noticeable within five seconds, whether it runs on a high-traffic page, and whether user research or analytics support it. Ideas backed by evidence rise to the top.
Start with the product page
1. Answer “when will it arrive?” before they ask
Plenty of shoppers scroll the whole page hunting for a delivery date. Save them the trip. Put an estimated date or range right under the add-to-cart button and test it against wherever that information lives now, watching add-to-cart rate and orders. In my experience it matters most for gifts, where “arrives by Friday” can decide the sale.
2. Move key reviews higher on mobile
On mobile, reviews often sit far below the fold. Try a short summary near the top, like the star rating, review count, and one strong quote, with a link to the full section. Measure mobile add-to-cart rate.
3. Rewrite the first two lines of the description
Most visitors read a sentence or two, if that. Test leading with the main benefit and who the product is for, versus a feature-led opening. This is a cheap test with a surprisingly large effect on some stores.
4. Answer the top pre-purchase question on the page
Look at support tickets and chat logs for the most common question about a product. Sizing, ingredients, compatibility, care. Then test answering it directly on the page versus leaving it in an FAQ tab.
5. Test the image order
Many stores lead with a white-background product shot. Test leading with a lifestyle or in-use image instead, or a short video. Measure add-to-cart rate and watch bounce rate.
Collection page ideas
6. Default sort order
Test “best selling” versus “featured” or “newest” as the default sort on your top collections. It changes what most shoppers see first without touching design.
7. Show more information on product cards
Test adding a short benefit line, star rating, or “low stock” indicator to collection grid cards. More information can help, or it can clutter. That’s exactly why you test it.
Cart and checkout ideas
8. Free shipping progress bar
A message like “You’re $9 away from free shipping” can raise average order value. Test it against no message. Measure revenue per visitor rather than conversion rate alone, because the goal is a bigger basket.
9. Show total cost earlier
Surprise costs are a top reason for abandonment. Baymard Institute’s cart abandonment research lists extra costs being too high as the leading reason among shoppers who weren’t just browsing. Test showing estimated shipping and taxes in the cart rather than waiting for checkout.
10. Cut friction before checkout
Baymard’s research also found the average US checkout displays 23.48 form elements by default, while an ideal flow can be as short as 12 to 14. Shopify’s checkout is already fairly lean, so on Shopify the friction often sits before checkout: a cart drawer with too many upsells, or a required account login. Test a simpler cart drawer with one upsell versus three.
Offer and pricing ideas
11. Bundle framing
If you sell items that go together, test showing a bundle saving in dollars versus as a percentage, or test a “complete the set” block on product pages. Judge it on average order value and revenue per visitor, since a bundle that converts at the same rate but sells two items is still a win.
12. Move the free shipping threshold (carefully)
This is the riskiest idea here. Try a threshold set a little above your current average order value against the one you have today. Say your average order sits around $42 and free shipping starts at $40: a $50 line might push baskets up, or it might simply cost you orders. That’s why I’d judge this one on profit per visitor, never on conversion rate.
Running the tests so the results mean something
Before building anything, write down why you expect the change to work. A usable hypothesis reads something like this: “Because support tickets show sizing confusion, adding a fit note beside the size selector will raise mobile add-to-cart rate.” Choose one primary metric before launch. Use a sample size calculator, run for full weeks, and don’t stop early because the dashboard looks exciting on day three.
Run one test per page template at a time, whichever Shopify CRO app you use. On Shopify, many products share one product template, so a template-level test reaches significance faster than testing a single product page, and the learning applies across your catalog.
If you want a fuller walkthrough of the process on Shopify, from hypotheses to reading results, this guide to Shopify A/B testing software and how to run tests goes deeper.
What to do with the results
When a test finishes, write down three things in a shared log: what you changed, what happened to the primary metric, and what you think it says about your customers. That last part is the one people skip, and it’s the most valuable. “Moving reviews up won” is a result. “Mobile shoppers want reassurance before they see the price” is a lesson you can apply to five other pages.
Next, look at the result by device and by new versus returning visitors. Don’t treat those splits as proof, since slicing data many ways will always turn up something. Treat them as ideas for the next test.
Finally, decide what to ship. A clear winner goes live. A clear loser gets reverted, and the reasoning goes in the log. A no-difference result usually means keeping whichever version is simpler, then moving on to a bigger lever. Over a quarter, this log becomes a playbook that’s specific to your store, which beats any generic list of ideas, including this one.
When to go beyond simple A/B tests
Some of these ideas, like product page layout, involve several elements at once: image order, review placement, and description length. If you have plenty of traffic, a multivariate test can show which combination works best. If you don’t, run them as a sequence of A/B tests instead. Tools that offer both A/B and multivariate testing let you choose based on your traffic rather than forcing one approach. If you go that route, check that your multivariate testing software reports revenue for each combination rather than only clicks.
A tool to run these ideas
All twelve ideas can be built without code in a capable testing app. CustomFit.ai is one option for this. It’s a no-code A/B testing, personalization and CRO platform for D2C and Shopify brands, it covers element, template, theme, price, discount and shipping tests, and its AI Copilot can turn a prompt or a screenshot into a test draft, which speeds up building variants for ideas like the ones above.
Key takeaways
Start with the step in your funnel that loses the most shoppers, then pick the ideas from this list that target it. Prioritize with evidence using a framework like PXL. Write hypotheses with reasons, choose one metric, and run tests for full weeks. Test templates rather than single pages when you can, and treat no-difference results as learning, not failure. Three well-run tests this quarter will teach you more than twelve rushed ones.