Before you start Set your phone up like a real customer's
- Wifi off. Mobile data is what people are on in the school pickup line.
- A private tab, logged out. No saved cart, no admin bar, no autofilled login.
- Start from the link in your Instagram bio (or one of your ads). That's how people actually find you, and a bookmark skips the homepage entirely.
Every time your thumb hesitates, even for a second, write it down.
How to place a test order safely
Buy something with a real card, then cancel and refund the order. That's one of Shopify's official ways to test, and it's the only one that shows you Apple Pay, Shop Pay and the rest working exactly as a customer sees them.
One thing to know. Your payment processor might keep its fee on the refund (Shopify says this up front), so call it the price of a coffee.
Please read this before you touch test mode. Shopify also has test modes for payments. While one is switched on, real customers can't place live card orders. In Shopify Payments test mode, someone using Apple Pay or Google Pay can get all the way through checkout with no money taken, so they think they've bought and you've been paid nothing. Shopify's own advice is not to turn test mode on for a live store. If you ever do, pick your quietest hour, switch it off straight after and place one real order to confirm.
The mobile checkout checklist 20 checks
Go through these as you buy, and write down anything that's broken, missing or makes your thumb hesitate.
Find it
- The page loads in a few seconds on mobile data
- No pop-up covers the screen before I've seen a product
- Menu and search are reachable with one thumb
- I can get to a product in 3 taps or fewer
- Collection pages show price and a clear photo for each product
Product page
- Price is visible without scrolling
- Picking a size or color is easy, and sold-out options are obvious
- Add to cart is visible without hunting for it
- Photos swipe properly and zoom
- Shipping cost, delivery time and returns are stated before the cart
Cart
- It's obvious the item was added
- The total is clear, shipping included or estimated
- I can change the quantity or remove an item without a fight
- The discount field works, and an old code gets blocked
- No cost appears here that I haven't already seen
Checkout
- Guest checkout is obvious, no account needed
- Express pay buttons show (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay)
- The right keyboard comes up for email and phone, and autofill works
- Error messages tell me what to fix
- The confirmation email arrives and reads well on a phone
What to fix first Sort your list into three piles
You don't have to fix everything you wrote down (please don't!). Sort it like this:
| Pile | What goes in it | When |
|---|---|---|
| Broken | Anything broken or missing. Anything that stops or surprises a buyer. | Straight away |
| Annoying | Things that work but made you hesitate, when the fix is a setting or a theme editor change | Only if it takes under an hour |
| Redesign | New layout, new theme, new navigation, "the whole product page feels off" | January |
If your shipping cost only shows up at checkout, that goes straight in Broken. In Baymard's research, extra costs like shipping, tax and fees are the number one reason people abandon a checkout: 40% of shoppers who'd got past "just browsing" gave it as a reason. The second biggest was slow delivery, at 20%.
And the Redesign pile really does wait. If your day-to-day isn't broken, the weeks before your biggest sale are for small fixes, building your list and getting your offer ready. A new theme in November is a gamble you don't need. 👀
Even better Get a friend or a stranger to run it too
You built your store, so your thumb already knows where everything is. For true insight, hand the same test to someone who has never shopped with you: a friend, a family member or, even better, a total stranger.
Send them the link, ask them to find a product and get as far as the payment step, and stay quiet while they do it (the hard part!). Every spot where they slow down, squint or ask you a question goes on your list. If their phone is the other kind to yours (iPhone if you're on Android), you'll catch even more.