Shopify store getting traffic no sales: find why

Product pages often open on the first variant in the list, which the store picks. If that variant has no stock, the add to cart button may say sold out or stay disabled, while the other sizes are a tap away. A shopper who came from an ad for a shirt sees a grey button and assumes the whole product is gone. They leave without scrolling to the size list, and the store's orders stay flat while its traffic looks healthy. Traffic counts show the visit, but not the grey button.

• Open each product page on its default variant, then select each size and color in turn.
• Check that add to cart works for every variant, including the ones that are out of stock.
• Compare visits to product pages with add to cart counts in your analytics for the same days.
• Look for shipping costs that first appear on the checkout step, not on the product or cart page.
• Check the cart shows the size and color the shopper picked, not the default one.

A shopper from an ad or a search does four things in order: lands on a product, picks a variant, adds it to the cart and starts checkout. Each step has its own counts in your analytics and its own cause when it fails. Count sessions at each of those steps for the same days and the same traffic source, and write down the drop between each pair. The largest drop is where to start, even if another screen looks worse.

The count does not give the reason. A step that loses shoppers can be a grey button, a price that changes between screens, or a shipping cost that appears late. Each one looks different on the screen and needs a different fix. Walk the path on a phone yourself first, then send simulated shoppers through the same path. Their screens give you the reason the count cannot.

In many themes the size list sits below the add to cart button, so on a phone a shopper sees the button first. If the default size is sold out, the button is disabled before the shopper has seen the other sizes. A shopper who expected the product to be available tends to assume the whole item is gone, and that assumption is what ends the visit. The stock setting is the cause, and the fix is an in-stock default or a button that keeps working.

Test every variant on the page, not only the first. Select each size and color, press add to cart, and check the cart line matches the choice. A variant that adds the wrong item, or does nothing at all, is a separate fault from a sold-out default, and both can exist on one product. Keep a short list of the variants you tested, with the result for each, so the next fix can be checked against it.

Some stores show the shipping cost only at checkout, which is late enough for a surprise to feel like a trap. Whether that happens depends on your shipping rules and on whether an estimate is shown earlier. A simulated shopper reports the first screen where a shipping figure appears, and the cart total before and after it, so you can see the jump the shopper saw.

A restock, a new size or a new product can change which variant a product page opens on, and that can put a grey button back in front of a shopper. Rerun the same simulated shoppers through the product pages after each change, then compare add to cart counts with the same days in your analytics. Repeat this after any app that edits product options, since those apps can reorder them.