Your ECommerce Store Has Traffic But No Sales: Here’s Why (And How to Fix It)

You spent $5K on ads last month. Traffic jumped 40%. Your team celebrated. Then you checked the bank account. Revenue? Up just 2%.

That’s the gap nobody talks about. The traffic trap.

You’re not alone. The average eCommerce store converts just 2.35% of visitors into buyers. 

The top stores? 5-11%. That’s the same traffic, but 3 to 5 times more revenue. 

For a store doing $10K per month, that gap means leaving $48K-$60K on the table every year.​

This isn’t about driving more traffic. It’s about converting the traffic you already have.

The Conversion Reality Nobody Shows You

Let’s be clear about what conversion means. It’s not clicks. It’s not engagement. It’s not time on site. 

Conversion is a customer. One visitor, one purchase. One email signup. One lead.

Most store owners track the wrong metrics. They see “10,000 visitors” and think of success. They see “90% bounce rate” and accept it. They watch their cart abandonment hit 70% and assume that’s normal.​

It is normal. But normal isn’t good.

Here’s the breakdown:

• 70.19% of people add something to their cart and leave without buying. (source)  
• On mobile, it’s worse. 78.74% to 85.65% of visitors abandon. (source) 

That’s not a bug. That’s a leak in your funnel.​

Now look at where those people come from. If your traffic is mostly from social media, your conversion rate is probably around 0.7% to 2.4%. 

Email traffic converts at 5.3% to 10.3%. Direct traffic sits around 3.3%. Organic search lands at 2.1% to 3.1%.​

The channel matters. But not as much as what you’re asking people to do.

Where your Conversions actually Drop

Here’s what separates stores making money from stores just making traffic. They know exactly where visitors leave.

Most don’t. They guess. 

• They redesign their homepage because it “feels outdated.” 
• They change their checkout because they heard it should be faster. 
• They rewrite their headlines because a competitor did. 
• Then they wait three months to see what happened. 

Sometimes nothing. Sometimes worse.

The 70% of customers who abandon don’t leave because your site looks bad. They leave because of these three things.

Reason 1: Your Headlines Don’t Make a Promise

Your headline is the first thing someone reads. If it doesn’t match what they searched for, what they clicked on, or what they need, they leave. It’s that simple. 

Most store owners spend weeks designing a hero section and 10 minutes writing the headline.

Headlines drive conversions more than any other element. A single word change in a headline can increase conversions by 104%.

Not 10%. Not 20%. 104%.​

That’s not luck. That’s the difference between a promise and nothing.

When people arrive at your store, they ask one question: “Is this for me?” 

If your headline doesn’t answer it, they’re gone. You’ve lost them before they scroll. Before they read a single product description. Before they see your pricing.

Most stores fail here because they optimize for brand voice instead of visitor intent. They use clever copy when they should use clear copy. They say “Elevate Your Space” when they should say “Modern Couches That Fit Any Room.”

Reason 2: Your CTA Isn’t Clear or Urgent

After the headline, visitors quickly decide whether to take action or not. That action lives in your call to action button, your CTA.

Most CTAs are weak. They say “Submit” or “Learn More” or “Shop Now.” They don’t tell you why. They don’t create a reason to click now instead of later. Or never.

Optimized CTAs convert 10% to 21% better than generic ones. Even changing the button color alone can lift conversions by 21% to 34%.​

The best CTAs are specific and urgent. “Grab Your Free Gift Today” converts better than “Learn More.” “Claim Your Spot Before Spots Fill” works better than “Sign Up.” 

The words matter. The timing matters.

Reason 3: Your Checkout Is Costing You Sales

70% of cart abandonment happens because of costs, complexity, or friction. 

Specifically:​

• 39% to 48% of people bounce when they see total costs including shipping and taxes. 
• 17% to 18% abandon because checkout feels too complicated. 
• 23% to 24% leave when forced to create an account.​

These aren’t opinion. They’re data. And they’re fixable.

A single-page checkout beats multi-page checkout by 21.8% to 37%. 

Guest checkout without forced registration lifts conversion by 23%. 

Showing shipping upfront instead of at the end reduces abandonment because people aren’t surprised by extra costs.​

Checkout optimization alone can increase conversions by 15% to 37%.​

Why Redesigns Fail Without Testing

Here’s where most store owners get stuck. They know something isn’t working. So they hire a designer, rebuild their homepage, and rewrite their copy. 

Launch in two months, only to end up waiting for the results.

If they’re lucky, nothing changes. If they’re unlucky, conversions drop.

Why? Because they changed everything at once. They guessed instead of tested. They replaced an unknown with another unknown.

You can’t know which change actually moved the needle. Did conversions drop because of the new layout? The new copy? The new product images? 

You don’t know. So you panic and revert. Or you abandon the project. Or you hire another consultant.

This is where most redesigns fail. Not because the design is bad. But because there’s no data behind it.

The stores that win do the opposite. 

They change one thing. They measure it. They keep what works. They remove what doesn’t. 

Then they change the next thing. This process is called A/B testing, and it’s the only way to know for sure what drives conversions.

The 2-Week Headline Test: How To Actually Know If Your Copy Works

Let’s say you run an online store. You get 1,000 visitors a day. Your conversion rate is 2%. 

That’s 20 sales per day, $600 per day (assuming $30 average order value). $18,000 per month.

Now let’s say your headline doesn’t clearly tell people what you sell or why they should buy. 

It’s clever but unclear. You hypothesize that a clearer, more specific headline could increase conversions to 2.3%. That’s just a 15% lift.

If it works, that’s 23 sales per day instead of 20. That’s $90 more per day. $2,700 more per month. $32,400 more per year.

That’s worth testing.

Here’s How To Do It:

Step 1: Identify Your Current Headline

Write down the headline of your homepage right now. Take a screenshot. Note the exact wording. This is your control.

Step 2: Write a New Headline

Don’t make it clever. Make it specific. Make it benefit-focused. 

Instead of “Discover Premium Quality,” try “Shop Modern Couches That Fit Any Budget.” 

Instead of “Transform Your Life,” try “Lose Weight Without Hunger or Exercise.”

The new headline should make an immediate promise the rest of the page delivers.

Step 3: Set Up the Test

This is where most store owners get stuck because they think they need a developer. You don’t. You need a testing tool that connects to your store and your data.

1. With a tool like Sigmize, you create a new experiment. 
2. You choose which page to test. 
3. You edit the headline directly in the page builder or through the dashboard.
4. You set the traffic split to 50/50. 
5. You press start.

Sigmize routes half your visitors to the original headline. Half see the new headline. 

It then tracks which version creates more conversions, more revenue, more of what actually matters to your business.

Step 4: Run the Test for 2 Weeks

Don’t stop after one day. Don’t make a decision after one week. Run the test for two full weeks. 

Why two weeks? Because traffic patterns vary by day. Monday looks different from Friday. Week one looks different from week two. 

After two weeks, you have enough data to know if the change actually works.

During this time, the tool shows you real-time data. You see which version your visitors prefer. 

More importantly, you see which version makes them buy.

Step 5: Implement the Winner

After two weeks, check the results. If the new headline won, turn it on for 100% of traffic. If it is lost, revert to the original. 

If there’s no clear winner yet, run the test for another week.

You’re not guessing. You’re not redesigning based on instinct. You’re making a decision based on real visitor behavior and real money.

Many A/B testers report headline changes improving conversions by around 10–20% in real campaigns, especially when the new headline is more specific and emotionally clear. That means you could go from 2% to 2.4% to 2.8% conversion rate. 

For a $18,000 per month store, that’s an extra $3,600 to $7,200 per month. $43,200 to $86,400 per year.​

From testing one headline. For two weeks.

The 90-Day Roadmap: How To Turn Traffic Into Revenue

One test changes everything. But one test isn’t enough. The stores making 5% to 11% conversion rates aren’t running one test. They’re running dozens. 

They’ve built a testing culture.

Here’s how to do it:

Month 1: Headlines

Your first month focuses on the most impactful element, your headline. 

Test your homepage headline. Then your product page headlines. Then your checkout headlines.

Each test runs for two weeks. By the end of month one, you’ve identified the clearest, most benefit-focused headlines that move visitors to action. 

If each test lifts conversions by 12% to 20%, your overall conversion rate could climb from 2% to 2.4% to 2.8%.​

Month 2: CTAs

Now your headlines are clear, focus on your calls to action. Test button text. Test button color. Test button placement.

Most CTAs are generic. “Click Here.” “Learn More.” “Shop Now.” 

Replace them with specific, urgent language. “Claim Your Free Gift Today.” “Reserve Your Spot Before It’s Gone.” “Get 20% Off Today Only.”

CTA optimization lifts conversions by 10% to 21%. Even button color alone adds 21% to 34%.​

By the end of month two, combined with month one improvements, you could be at 3.2% to 4.8% conversion rate.

Month 3: Checkout

Your final month focuses on the checkout funnel. Test guest checkout vs. required account creation. Test single-page checkout vs. multi-page. Test showing shipping costs upfront vs. at the end.

Checkout optimization lifts conversions by 15% to 37%. Guest checkout without forced registration adds 23%.

​One often-overlooked element: how you present the final price. Your brain compares prices to nearby references, so showing “Regular $129, today $89” makes the checkout feel less painful than just “$89” alone.

Small tweaks like positioning the price at the top of your order summary instead of the bottom also reduce how “heavy” the number feels.

Test these alongside your checkout changes to see which version closes more orders. (source).

By the end of month three, a realistic improvement is 3.5% to 5.2% conversion rate. 

For an $18,000 per month store, that’s an additional $6,300 to $10,800 per month. $75,600 to $129,600 per year.

From following a structured testing roadmap. In 90 days.

The Tool That Makes It Happen

Here’s the trap most store owners fall into: they know they should A/B test. They know it works. They know the upside. But they don’t do it.

Why? 

• Because existing A/B testing tools are too complicated. 
• They require developer time. 
• They require code. 
• They require integrations that break your site. 
• They slow everything down.

Or they track the wrong metrics. 

They tell you how many people clicked a button but not how many people bought something. They show you engagement instead of revenue.

Sigmize addresses these shortcomings. 

It’s built specifically for WordPress and WooCommerce stores. That means it understands your store from day one.

With Sigmize, you don’t need a developer. You launch an experiment in minutes, not weeks. You test any page element. Headlines. Buttons. Images. Layouts. Colors. Copy. 

Anything you can edit in WordPress, you can test.

More importantly, Sigmize connects to your actual business data. 

• It tracks WooCommerce revenue. 
• It shows which variant creates more sales, not just more clicks.
• It integrates heatmaps and session recordings so you see not just the numbers but why visitors are deciding to buy or leave.

The dashboard is designed for store owners, not data scientists. You log in, you see which variant won, you see how much money the winner made, you implement it. That’s it.

This is why we built it. We were store owners too. 

We sat in front of dashboards that showed data but no meaning. We waited weeks for developers to launch tests. We paid for tools that tracked metrics nobody cared about.

Sigmize is what we wished existed.

Your Next Move

You have traffic. That traffic is worth money. Right now, you’re leaving 60% to 70% of that money on the table.​

You don’t need more traffic. You need to convert the traffic you have.

Start by testing a headline. Pick your highest-traffic page. Write a clearer, more specific headline. Test it for two weeks.

If it wins, you’ve just proven the concept works. You’ve proved that testing lifts conversions. You’ve proved that small changes create big results.

Then do it again. And again. And again.

After 90 days of structured testing, stores see 40% to 100% conversion rate increases. That means you could double your revenue without spending another dollar on ads.​

Ready to start? Install Sigmize.

Test your headline. See what happens next.