7 Signs Your Ecommerce Website is Costing You Sales

You're spending money on ads. You're posting on socials. You're sending emails. Traffic is coming in.

But the sales? They're not keeping up.

Before you blame the algorithm or hire another marketing agency, there's a question worth asking: What if your website is the problem?

Not "broken" in the obvious sense. It loads. It works. People can buy things. But somewhere between landing on your site and completing a purchase, you're losing people.

1. Your site takes more than 3 seconds to load

You know the feeling. You click a link, the page hangs, and you're already reaching for the back button. Your customers do the same thing.

You'll see it as high bounce rates on landing pages, ads that "don't convert" (they do, your site doesn't), and mobile visitors leaving faster than desktop.

Your site might feel fast to you, but you're probably on good wifi, looking at cached pages. Your customer is on mobile data, seeing it fresh.

2. Your checkout feels like a job application

Every extra step in checkout is a chance for someone to leave. Every unnecessary field is friction. Every surprise is a reason to abandon.

The top reasons for abandonment:

• Extra costs appearing at checkout
• Being forced to create an account
• A checkout process that's too long or confusing

If your checkout takes more than 2 minutes or requires more than 3 screens, you're losing sales to competitors who make it easier.

3. Every content change requires a developer

Want to update a banner for your sale? That's a ticket to your developer. Need a new landing page for a campaign? Two weeks. Spot a typo? Good luck.

This isn't just annoying. It's expensive.

Delayed campaigns mean missed revenue windows. Developer time on simple changes means expensive hours wasted. And your marketing team's frustration? That's how you lose your best people.

Ask yourself: when was the last time your marketing team launched something without waiting on anyone?

4. Your site looks dated compared to competitors

Pull up your website. Now pull up your top competitor's. Be honest: which one would you buy from?

This isn't about having the fanciest design. It's about trust. Customers make snap judgments. A site that looks like it was built in 2018 feels like a company that might not be around next year.

There's a hidden cost too: you're probably discounting more than you need to. Customers negotiate harder when the brand doesn't look premium.

5. Your site struggles during busy periods

You run a successful campaign, traffic spikes, and suddenly the site is slow. Or worse, down completely.

The real cost isn't just the lost sales that day. It's the customers who will never come back. The word-of-mouth that turns negative. The ad spend wasted driving traffic to a broken experience.

Your website should handle 10x your normal traffic without sweating. If that sounds impossible with your current setup, that's your sign.

6. Mobile visitors convert way worse than desktop

Check your analytics. What percentage of traffic is mobile? For most brands it's 60-80%. Now check conversion rate by device.

If mobile is significantly lower than desktop, your site isn't "mobile friendly." It's "mobile tolerant."

The usual culprits:

• Buttons too small to tap easily
• Images that take forever to load
• Navigation frustrating on small screens
• Checkout painful without a keyboard
• Pop-ups that take over everything

7. You've got traffic but it doesn't turn into sales

This is the big one. Traffic is up. Maybe way up. But revenue isn't following.

Something is broken between "visit" and "purchase" — you just can't see exactly what. Could be the wrong people landing. Or the right people not convinced. Maybe they can't easily buy. They start but bail. They buy once but never return.

The pattern is always the same: you keep investing in getting more traffic when you'd get better returns from converting the traffic you already have.

Is Your Website the Bottleneck?

If you recognized yourself in 3 or more of these signs, your website is probably the problem. Not your marketing, not your product, not your team.

The good news: These are solvable problems. Brands fix them every day and see real jumps in conversion, revenue, and growth.

The less good news: They rarely fix themselves, and they usually get worse as you grow.

What to Do Next

1. Audit it yourself — Go through your site like a customer. On mobile. On slow wifi. Try to buy something.
2. Ask your customers — Post-purchase survey: "What almost stopped you?" You'll get uncomfortable but useful answers.
3. Get an outside perspective — Fresh eyes catch what you've stopped seeing.