Fashion store owners: what actually helped your conversion rate?

A question from a new store owner in our community. We're sharing it because the answer is rarely the one you read in generic CRO advice.

If you run a fashion store, what actually helped you increase your conversion rate? I keep seeing the same advice everywhere: improve your product pages, add more reviews, offer free shipping, make your site faster, add social proof. Sure, it probably all helps a bit. But when you're running a real store, it's not that simple.

I'm fairly new to Shopify and my conversion rate is around 0.5%. I'm trying to work out what really matters and what is just generic e-commerce advice. So, what worked for you?

• What was your conversion rate when you started?
• Where is it now?
• What did you change that made the biggest difference?
• What did you try that you were sure would work, but didn't? Maybe you redesigned the whole site and saw almost no change, bought a review app and nothing happened, or offered free shipping and the rate barely moved. Or maybe something really simple made a huge difference.

One thing I'm starting to realize

Sometimes the problem isn't the website. It might be the traffic. You can have thousands of visitors, but if they come from the wrong audience, they may never buy. Someone might click a TikTok video because the product looks interesting without ever seriously thinking about buying it.

So instead of "How can I convert more visitors?", maybe the better question is: am I getting the right visitors in the first place?

That seems especially true for fashion, where people want to see how the clothes actually look and fit:

• How does the fabric feel?
• How does it fit?
• What does it look like on someone who isn't a professional model?
• How long does shipping take?
• What happens if the size doesn't fit?

All those little questions can stop someone from buying.

Real numbers, please

Not necessarily perfect success stories. Even if your store went from 0.5% to 0.8%, or from 1% to 1.5%, it's interesting: what did you change, what worked, what didn't, and what would you do differently if you started again?

There's already a ton of generic CRO advice online. What's much more useful is what happened when someone tested these things on a real store. So, fashion store owners: what really moved the needle for you?