BigCommerce CRO
BigCommerce CRO Audit for category, product and checkout pages
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Where BigCommerce stores lose the sale
BigCommerce is often the platform a store moves to when it has outgrown a simpler one: thousands of SKUs, several customer groups, wholesale and retail on the same site. The checkout is fast and well tested, so the leaks are usually upstream. Shoppers cannot find the right product among 400 in a category, cannot tell which option is in stock, or cannot see what they will pay once a customer group price or shipping is applied.
Stencil themes such as Cornerstone give every store a solid start, but they are built to show every feature at once: quick view, compare, wishlist, share, reviews, related products. On a product page with long names, many options and a promotions banner, Add to cart competes with a dozen other elements before the shopper has decided anything.
What the audit measures on a BigCommerce page
Two layers. The first is measured in code and comes out the same every time you run it: which elements rank highest in visual weight on the page, whether Add to cart wins that ranking, how many elements compete with it in the decision zone, whether the contrast passes legibility thresholds, what is visible without scrolling and what is not, and how the page on a phone differs from the page on a laptop. The second layer is interpreted: what each measured fact means for a BigCommerce site like yours, which change is worth making first, and what the page would look like fixed. A finding that cannot point at a measured element is dropped before you see it.
The BigCommerce CRO checklist we audit against
Category pages come first on purpose: on a large catalogue most visits land there, not on a product.
Category and search
- Faceted filters for the attributes buyers use, with result counts, that work on mobile without a full reload
- Product cards that show price, stock and the main option, not only a product name
- Search that handles SKUs, part numbers and misspellings, and suggests categories when nothing matches
- Sorting and pagination that keep the shopper's place when they come back from a product
Product page
- Price, stock and Add to cart on the first screen on mobile
- Options such as size, colour or pack size as buttons or swatches, with unavailable ones disabled before the click
- Bulk pricing or quantity breaks shown next to the quantity field
- Delivery estimate and returns in one line near the button
- Reviews with an average and a count near the price
- Quick view, compare and wishlist visually quieter than Add to cart
Cart and checkout
- One primary checkout button, with the shipping estimate and total visible
- Guest checkout on, with account creation offered after the order
- Express payment buttons visible at the top of checkout
- Promotions and the coupon field placed so they do not push the checkout button down
B2B and trade buyers
- A clear path to prices for signed-out trade buyers: sign in, apply for an account or request a quote
- Quote and quick-order entry points visible where buyers look for them
- Minimum order quantities and lead times stated before the cart
Speed and apps
- Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on mobile for category and product pages
- Scripts from apps and tracking tags loaded after the page is usable
- No layout shift from banners, review widgets or chat that load late (CLS under 0.1)
Big catalogues need category pages that decide for the shopper
On a large catalogue the category page does most of the selling. The audit treats it as a decision page: can a shopper narrow 400 products to 10 in two taps, does each card give enough to choose without opening it, and does the phone show products on the first screen or a wall of filters and banners before the first one. Findings on category pages usually move more revenue than any change to a single product page.
To see where shoppers drop between the category, the product and the cart, run a funnel audit across the three pages.
How to run a BigCommerce CRO audit
- Paste the URL of your busiest category page, then your best-selling product page.
- Confirm the business model (e-commerce) and the page type the scan detected.
- Read the verdict, the attention heatmap for desktop and mobile, and the fixes in order.
- Make the top changes in the theme editor or Page Builder and run the audit again to confirm them.
- Finish with the cart and checkout. The audit adds a product to the cart before it captures them.
See the plans, read the e-commerce CRO guide, or benchmark a category page against a competitor with competitor comparison.
Sample report
See what the audit finds on a product page
Q FAQ
BigCommerce CRO audit: common questions
See what your pages are losing
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