Ecommerce The 20-minute phone test: find where your store leaks sales

It’s Week 1 of the Black Friday countdown, and this week’s job is to find what’s leaking: the moments where a shopper who wanted to buy gives up instead.

You don’t need a tool or an agency to start. You need your phone, 20 minutes and a real order. Many of your Black Friday shoppers will arrive on a phone, from an ad, an Instagram story or a link in a WhatsApp group. So that’s exactly how you should test your store.

Before you start

• Use your phone, on mobile data. Switch off Wi-Fi. Your shoppers won’t all be on fibre.
• Open the store from a link, the way a shopper would: send yourself a product link on WhatsApp or tap your own Instagram bio.
• Buy something real and cheap. You can refund it afterwards. Stopping at checkout hides half the problems.
• Keep a note open. Write down every moment you hesitate, squint, scroll back or wonder. Each one is a leak.

{01} The first five seconds (2 minutes)

Tap the link and start counting. Does the page show something useful within about three seconds, or a blank screen and a spinner?

Then ask yourself, without scrolling: what is this, what does it cost, and how do I buy it? If you can’t answer all three on the first screen, a shopper from an ad won’t either.

{02} Finding the product (3 minutes)

Now pretend you came in on the homepage. Find a specific product in under 30 seconds.

• Is the search easy to spot, and does it find the product if you misspell it slightly?
• Does the menu use the words your customers use, or your internal names?
• On a category page, can you filter by size, price or type without the page jumping around?

{03} The product page (4 minutes)

This is where the decision is made. Check that you can see:

• clear photos that you can zoom into
• the price, and whether it’s on sale
• delivery cost and delivery time, before the cart
• whether it’s in stock, and sizes or options that are easy to choose
• the returns policy, in a line or a link
• reviews or some other proof that real people bought it

Then tap Add to cart. Did anything happen that told you it worked?

{04} The cart (3 minutes)

• Is the delivery cost shown here, or does it only appear at the end? Surprise costs at checkout are one of the biggest reasons shoppers leave.
• If you offer free delivery over a certain amount, does the cart say how far away the shopper is?
• Can you change the quantity or remove an item without the page reloading?
• Is there a big promo code box? It sends shoppers off to search for codes. Keep it small or tuck it behind a link.

{05} Checkout (5 minutes)

• Can you check out as a guest, or are you forced to make an account?
• Count the fields. Every one you can remove is one less reason to stop.
• When you type your phone number, does the number keypad come up?
• Are the payment options the ones your customers expect: card, instant EFT, and buy now, pay later if you offer it?
• Make a deliberate mistake, like a missing street number. Is the error message clear, and does it keep what you typed?

{06} After the order (3 minutes)

• How quickly did the confirmation email or WhatsApp arrive?
• Does it say what was ordered, what it cost, and when it will arrive?
• Is it obvious who to contact if something goes wrong?

The order isn’t over when the payment goes through. It’s over when the customer trusts that it’s on its way.

Now score it: fix the top three

You’ll end up with a list of leaks. Don’t try to fix them all. Rank them with two questions:

1. How many shoppers hit it? Problems early in the journey, like a slow first screen or hidden delivery costs, affect everyone. Problems in rare edge cases affect a few.
2. How easy is it to fix? A clearer line of text is an afternoon. A new checkout is a project.

Fix the three that score highest on both this week. Then hand your phone to someone who has never used your store, ask them to buy something, and don’t help. Watch where they get stuck. It’s the most useful 10 minutes you’ll spend before November.

What the phone test can’t see

The phone test shows you how the store feels. It won’t tell you what your speed scores are, or which of the dozens of smaller checks you’ve missed. That’s what our free CRO audit is for: it checks your store against 125 checkpoints, plus Google’s speed test, and emails you a report with the top fixes.

Do both this week. Next week: plan the offer, and check the maths before you promise a discount.