We do store audits. Merchants send us their URL and ask what's off. Sometimes they're chasing a low conversion rate. Sometimes they're about to increase ad spend and want to know the store is ready. Sometimes they just have a feeling something isn't right.
After years of doing this, the same issues come up again and again. Nobody's store is fundamentally broken. It's almost always a collection of small things, each minor on its own, that add up to a store that works but doesn't work well.
Apps that aren't used anymore but are still loading
This is in almost every audit. A merchant installed a pop-up app six months ago, tried it for a week, didn't like it and moved on, but never uninstalled it. Or they did uninstall it, and the app left code in the theme that still loads on every page. Shopify's own help center warns that some apps add theme code that isn't removed automatically when you uninstall them.
Each one adds JavaScript and CSS that the shopper's browser has to download and run. One forgotten app might not matter. Three or four start to show up in your page speed and your bounce rate.
The fix is simple. Go through your installed apps and remove anything you're not actively using, checking each app's uninstall instructions first. Then check your theme (or have someone check it) for leftover snippets from apps that are already gone. We explain why this matters in why a Shopify app can slow down your store.
Nobody tested the store on a phone
The merchant built the store on a laptop, got everything looking right on a big screen, and never checked it on a phone, even though for many stores most of the traffic is mobile. Buttons too close together, text overflowing its container, images that don't scale well, a hero banner whose text is unreadable at small sizes.
Shopify themes are responsive, but “responsive” doesn't mean “good on mobile.” It means the layout adjusts. Whether it adjusts well depends on how the sections are configured, which images you used, and how much text you put in places designed for short headlines.
Open your store on your phone right now. Go through the homepage, a collection page, a product page and checkout as if you'd never seen the store before. Every time you squint, pinch to zoom or hesitate about where to tap, your customers are doing the same. Our mobile optimization guide has the full checklist.
No real meta descriptions
If you don't write a meta description, search engines have to make one up, usually from whatever text comes first on the page. On product pages that's often a shipping line or the top of a supplier description. On collection pages it may be blank.
That matters because the description sits under your title in search results. It's your one line to convince someone to click your link rather than the next one. If every product page starts with “Free shipping on orders over $50,” you're wasting it.
Write real descriptions for your homepage (in Online Store → Preferences), your top collections and your best sellers (in each page's Search engine listing section). It takes a few minutes per page. Our beginner's guide to Shopify SEO covers what to write.
Product descriptions copied from the supplier
This hurts SEO and conversion at the same time. If you use the manufacturer's description, so does every other store selling the same product. Search engines see the same text on many sites and have no reason to rank yours first.
Supplier descriptions are also written for buyers, not shoppers. They list specifications. They don't answer what your customer actually wants to know: what does it feel like, how does it fit, what's it like to use, who is it for, what goes with it?
Rewriting a large catalog takes time, so start with your top 20 sellers. Write as if you're explaining the product to someone standing in front of you. That alone sets those pages apart from every other store carrying the same items.
Shipping information buried or missing
A surprising number of stores either have no shipping policy or hide it so deep in the footer that nobody finds it. Unexpected shipping costs and unclear delivery times are classic reasons people abandon checkout. If customers can't tell what shipping costs or when the order will arrive, some of them won't get to checkout.
Put the basics where the decision happens: on the product page, near the add-to-cart button, in a short line or a collapsible section. “Free shipping over $50. Ships in 1–2 business days.” The details can live on a shipping policy page. Shopify can also show estimated delivery dates at checkout, which we cover in competing with Amazon Prime delivery.
No redirect plan when URLs change
Merchants reorganize: they rename collections, restructure navigation, rebrand product lines. All of that can change URLs, and when a URL changes without a redirect, every link to the old address, whether from Google, social posts, your own blog or other sites, lands on a 404 page.
We regularly find stores with dozens of broken URLs that used to get traffic. A collection renamed from “Summer Sale” to “Seasonal Collection” moves from /collections/summer-sale to /collections/seasonal-collection, and every link to the old one is dead.
Whenever you rename or remove a page, collection or product, add a redirect from the old URL to the new one. In your Shopify admin go to Content → Menus, click View URL redirects, then Create URL redirect. Redirects start working immediately.
A return policy that doesn't build confidence
Some stores have no return policy at all. Others have one that reads like a legal document designed to discourage returns. Neither helps you sell.
Your return policy isn't just legal protection. It's a sales tool. A customer on the fence is looking for a reason to feel safe. “30-day returns” is a reason to buy. “All sales final” is a reason to close the tab.
Even if your policy has conditions (unworn items, 14-day window and so on), how you present it matters. Write it in plain language, put a summary on product pages, and add it in Settings → Policies so it's linked at checkout. Shopify's self-serve returns let customers start a return from their order page, which saves you the emails too.
Too many fonts, colors and styles
Some stores look as if three different people designed them on three different days. One font on the homepage, another on product pages, a third in the announcement bar. Colors shift between pages. Buttons don't match. Customers pick up on it even if they can't say why.
Shopify's theme editor makes customizing easy, which also makes over-customizing easy. Pick two fonts (one for headings, one for body text), stick to your brand colors, and make buttons look the same everywhere. Theme settings apply these store-wide, so set them there rather than section by section.
Most of this is fixable in a day
That's the point about most audit findings. It's rarely “your store needs a rebuild.” It's “here are a dozen specific things you can fix this week that make the store faster, more trustworthy and easier to buy from.”
None of these changes is dramatic on its own: a faster page, a clearer shipping line, a better mobile layout, real meta descriptions. Fixed together, they change how the store feels. And many of them come down to doing less: fewer apps, fewer fonts, fewer surprises. That's the idea behind our name, which you can read about in the story behind Pasilobus.
If you'd like us to look at your store, we offer store audits. We'll tell you exactly what we find and what to fix first.