Conversion Rate Optimisation
Most agencies optimise the website. We look at what's upstream of it: the product clarity, the pricing communication, the brand story. Then we fix the right thing.
Conversion rate optimisation has changed. The era of button-colour tests and checkout countdown timers is over. The brands growing consistently are the ones who treat CRO as a discipline that runs deeper than UX, into how their offer is built, how their brand communicates trust, and whether the right customers are finding the right experience.
At Eastside, we've been building and optimising Shopify stores for over a decade. The thing most CRO agencies won't tell you is that a low conversion rate is almost always a symptom of something else entirely. It might be a UX problem. More often it's a pricing problem, a product presentation problem, or a brand problem. Knowing which one before you run a single test is the difference between a programme that compounds and one that just keeps itself busy.
What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?
At its core, CRO is the practice of understanding why visitors leave without buying, and systematically removing the reasons they do. For Shopify merchants, that means looking honestly at the whole purchase journey and asking what builds confidence, what creates doubt, and where good intent quietly falls apart before the checkout.
It is also one of the few levers in ecommerce that gets more valuable over time. Unlike a spend increase that generates traffic only while the budget runs, CRO improvements keep generating returns from every visitor that follows, regardless of where they came from. The longer the programme runs, the better the return on it.
Our Approach
Over 500 Shopify stores built and optimised across more than a decade, in fashion, beauty, homeware, food and drink, luxury and subscription. At this point, we have seen nearly every conversion problem this platform produces.
As a Platinum Shopify Partner, our CRO work is built on the same foundation as our development work. When a test requires a custom implementation, it does not get handed off. We do it.
Honesty is part of the service too. If your biggest conversion barrier is your product photography, your pricing strategy, or the clarity of your brand story, you will hear that from us. An uncomfortable truth early is worth more than a programme that moves your conversion rate two tenths of a percent while the real problem stays untouched.
There is no best practice playbook here. Best practices are averages, and your store is not average. Every recommendation is grounded in your data, your customers, and where your brand actually sits in its market.
The measure of a test is what it does to revenue, not what it does to click rates. And the goal is customers who convert because they feel confident and well-served, not because a countdown timer pressured them into it. The first kind come back. The second kind mostly don't.
What Kind of Results Can CRO Generate?
The results vary by store, by category, and by where the real friction sits. But here is what the work looks like when it lands.
For one client, a structured programme of testing and funnel improvements delivered a 48% increase in conversion rate and 58% growth in revenue within a year. For another, subscription presentation changes alone drove a 100% increase in subscriptions within the first eight weeks.
Those are outcomes, not projections. They come from identifying the right problem first, then testing the solution properly.
"Working with Eastside Co was an absolute game-changer for my business. They dove deep into my website, leaving no stone unturned. Their attention to detail was beyond impressive and their recommendations were spot-on." Marnie Madras, CEO and Founder, Rumbly
Our Process
1 Discovery and Audit
Before we form a single hypothesis, we understand your store. That means analytics, session recordings, heatmaps, and funnel data, but also the things most CRO programmes never look at: how your product is presented, how your pricing is communicated, whether your brand gives a new visitor any reason to trust you. Everything gets mapped, prioritised by revenue impact, and put in front of you plainly.
2 Research and Hypothesis
Findings become hypotheses, and every hypothesis follows the same structure: if we change X, we expect Y, because of Z. That last part is the one most agencies skip. We use an ICE framework to sequence the roadmap — impact, confidence, effort — so the work that matters most gets done first.
Next we...
3 Design, Build and Test
Our design and development team builds test variants directly in your Shopify theme. We calculate the sample sizes needed before we launch, not after, and tests run until they reach statistical significance. You have visibility on performance throughout.
4 Analyse, Implement and Iterate
Winning variants go live. Losing variants get documented. We record what we tested, why we thought it would work, and what the result tells us about the next test. Both outcomes move the programme forward.
CRO is not a project. It is a continuous practice. The stores that compound their gains over time are the ones that treat it that way.
Our CRO Services
CRO Audit and Recommendations
A thorough review of your store, your customer journey, and the upstream factors most audits never reach. You get a prioritised roadmap of what is holding your conversion rate back, what it is likely costing you, and what to address first. A standalone piece of work you can act on immediately, with or without us.
CRO Retainer
For brands who want to move beyond the audit and into continuous improvement. We handle strategy and implementation, running a structured test and learn programme month on month. You get regular reporting on what moved, what we learned, and what comes next.