Fix the funnel between traffic and checkout
before buying more of it.

Which ecommerce metrics show where the funnel is leaking?

Look at step-to-step rates, not only overall conversion rate. Compare product page to add-to-cart, cart to checkout, checkout to payment and payment to order, split by device, traffic source and new versus returning visitors. The step that's dropped most against your own history is usually where to start.

• Add-to-cart rate by product, to find pages that get views but no adds
• Cart abandonment and checkout abandonment, tracked separately
• Payment failures by method, such as UPI, card and COD
• Conversion by landing page and traffic source
• For COD-heavy stores, delivered orders rather than placed orders

Overall conversion rate hides too much. A good month for one channel can mask a broken step for another, and a sale can lift the average while a slow checkout keeps losing buyers underneath. These are the numbers I pull first:

When is a store ready for A/B testing?

A store is ready for A/B testing when each version can collect enough conversions to give a clear answer within a few weeks. Below that, tests either run for months or end on noise. Lower-traffic stores get more from fixing obvious friction and comparing before-and-after periods carefully.

When a store does have the volume, test where the traffic is: product pages and cart before anything else. Test changes big enough to matter, such as a new offer layout or a shorter checkout, rather than button colours, and pick one main metric before the test starts.

The common ways tests mislead are stopping early because one version looks ahead, running two tests on the same page at once, and testing through a sale period that changes how everyone behaves. Write down the hypothesis and the stop date before launch, then stick to both, even when the early numbers look exciting.