Vegepod Shopify CRO Case Study: Results After 3 Months

The Approach

We started by using the CRO audit to identify where Vegepod’s Shopify customer journey was losing intent.

Rather than approaching the first three months as a collection of isolated site changes, the Blend team prioritised the work around three connected questions:

• Could more shoppers find the right product faster?
• Could the PDP help shoppers feel more confident before adding to cart?
• Could the checkout path feel faster, clearer and easier for high-intent buyers?

The roadmap was then sequenced around the areas where the data showed the clearest friction: mobile usability, product discovery, PDP confidence and cart-to-checkout momentum.

This meant the first stage of the CRO program focused on strengthening the customer journey as a system. We worked on clearer routes into products, stronger product evaluation on the PDP and fewer unnecessary steps between purchase intent and checkout.

What The Data Revealed

The audit showed that Vegepod did not have one isolated conversion issue. Friction was appearing across multiple stages of the journey.

Mobile accounted for 63.5% of traffic, but mobile conversion rate was 1.64% compared with 3.15% on desktop. Mobile add-to-cart rate and reached-checkout rate were also lower than desktop, showing that the challenge was not only happening at checkout.

Search was another important signal. Search converted at 14.29%, significantly higher than the strongest landing page conversion rate, but only around 1 in every 2,000 sessions used search. This suggested that shoppers who knew what they wanted were highly valuable, but the site was not making that discovery path visible enough.

Cart and checkout data also pointed to lost purchase momentum. Over the previous 90 days, 2,568 users added items to cart but only 1,043 completed checkout — a drop-off of nearly 60%.

For the CRO roadmap, this shaped a clear strategy: make product discovery easier, support stronger decision-making on the PDP and reduce friction for shoppers who were ready to buy.

Making Mobile Product Discovery Easier

One of the first priorities was to improve how mobile shoppers moved through the site.

Mobile was Vegepod’s largest traffic segment, but it was underperforming desktop across key shopping actions. At the same time, search users showed strong purchase intent, yet search was hidden behind an icon and rarely used.

To reduce mobile discovery friction, we implemented a series of improvements across the header, navigation and search experience:

• Exposed the mobile search bar so high-intent shoppers could find products faster.
• Restructured the navigation menu around observed customer behaviour.
• Cleaned up the mobile announcement bar and header layout.
• Moved the currency selector into the mobile menu so the announcement message could fit on one line.
• Improved the visibility and usability of core navigation, search and cart access on mobile.

This work supported the start of the customer journey. For a product range that includes multiple sizes, stands, covers, accessories and starter kits, shoppers need to orient themselves quickly. By reducing mobile clutter and making search easier to access, we helped create clearer routes into the products shoppers were most likely to consider.

Reducing Checkout Friction With Express Checkout

Express Checkout A/B Test

One of the strongest A/B test wins during the three-month period focused on checkout momentum.

The audit had shown that many shoppers were adding products to cart but not completing checkout. We also identified that express payment options were only visible later in the checkout journey, even though faster payment routes can be particularly useful for shoppers who are already confident enough to buy.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis was that adding an express checkout option directly below the Add to Cart CTA on the PDP would reduce friction for high-intent shoppers.

The goal was not to rush undecided users. It was to give ready-to-buy customers a faster and more familiar payment path at the point where they were already considering purchase.

What Changed

The original experience required shoppers to move through the standard Add to Cart route before seeing express checkout options.

The variant added an express checkout button below the Add to Cart CTA on the PDP, making the faster checkout route visible earlier in the buying journey.

You can read the dedicated A/B test micro case study here.

Results

The test reached 99.36% statistical significance and delivered strong results:

• +35.80% increase in Conversion Rate
• +40.13% increase in Revenue per Visitor
• +7.54% increase in Add to Cart CTA clicks
• -24.23% decrease in Abandoned Checkout Rate
• +3.19% increase in Average Order Value
• +12.20% increase in Average Units per Order

Why This Mattered

The result suggested that earlier access to express checkout helped reduce purchase friction without weakening basket quality.

AOV and units per order also increased, which indicated that shoppers were not simply checking out faster with smaller baskets. Instead, the test supported a stronger path for confident shoppers who were ready to act.

For Vegepod, this was commercially important because the product still required consideration. The winning variant did not replace the need for product education; it gave high-intent shoppers a clearer route to purchase once they had enough confidence to buy.

Building Product Confidence On The PDP

For a product like Vegepod, images play an important role in helping shoppers assess size, fit, contents and suitability.

The audit identified that image browsing could be improved, particularly on mobile, where thumbnails were not as easy for shoppers to access. For a higher-consideration product, that matters. If customers cannot quickly inspect the product and understand what is included, they may hesitate before adding to cart.

To support PDP decision-making, we improved the product image thumbnail experience around the main gallery.

This helped shoppers browse product visuals more easily and gave them a clearer way to evaluate whether the product suited their garden, space and needs. It also supported the wider CRO strategy by strengthening confidence before the Add to Cart action.

Testing Purchase Momentum On Mobile

Sticky Add-to-Cart A/B Test

Mobile PDP performance was a clear opportunity, and one hypothesis was that shoppers may lose access to the Add to Cart CTA while scrolling through product information.

To test this, we ran a mobile Sticky Add-to-Cart experiment.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis was that keeping the purchase action visible as users scrolled would make it easier for mobile shoppers to add to cart when they were ready.

What Changed

The variant introduced a sticky Add-to-Cart button on mobile PDPs, making the CTA persistently available as shoppers moved through the page.

Results

The variant did not improve performance:

• -2.83% decrease in Conversion Rate
• -15.8% decrease in Revenue per Visitor
• -13.34% decrease in Average Order Value

What The Test Revealed

The result suggested that Vegepod shoppers may need more education, context and product confidence before being pushed toward a faster purchase action.

For a considered product, CTA visibility is only useful if the shopper has enough information to act. Showing the purchase action too early may have created pressure before users had fully understood the product, compared options or reviewed the information they needed.

This was a useful CRO learning. It showed that the opportunity was not simply to make the CTA more visible, but to better match the purchase action to user readiness. That insight helped reinforce the wider strategy: improve product confidence first, then reduce friction once shoppers are ready to buy.

Creating A Stronger Multi-Store CRO Foundation

Although the headline results in this case study relate to Vegepod Australia, Vegepod operates across multiple regional Shopify stores. That meant consistency and scalability were important to the long-term CRO program.

During the case study period, the Blend team also completed work to align Vegepod’s regional stores around a shared codebase.

This created a stronger foundation for future CRO implementation across markets. It helped reduce theme drift, improved consistency between stores and made it easier for successful improvements to be rolled out more carefully across the wider Vegepod ecosystem.

For a multi-market Shopify brand, CRO becomes more valuable when learnings can be applied with control and consistency. The shared codebase work supported that longer-term optimisation foundation.