The Shopify product page checklist we run before every launch
Twenty-three things we check on a Shopify product page before it goes live, grouped by what they actually affect — trust, clarity, speed and search.
The product page is where the decision happens. Everything upstream — ads, collections, search — only exists to get someone here. This is the checklist we run before any store we work on goes live.
It is deliberately specific. “Improve trust” is not actionable. “Put the returns window within one scroll of the buy button” is.
Above the fold
1. The main image loads first and loads fast. It is the LCP element on almost every product page. Eager loading, high fetch priority, sized for the device.
2. Price is visible without scrolling on a 375px screen. Test on the smallest phone you support, not on your laptop with DevTools at 375px — those are not the same thing once the browser chrome is included.
3. The product title reads like a person wrote it. “Merino Crew Neck — Charcoal” beats “MCN-2847-CHR-M Wool Sweater Mens Winter Warm”.
4. Variant selection is obvious and reflects availability. Out-of-stock variants should look out of stock before they are tapped, not after.
5. The add-to-cart button says what it does. “Add to cart” is fine. “Submit” is not. If there is a subscription option, the button should change to reflect the selected purchase type.
6. There is one primary action. A buy button competing with a wishlist button, a compare button and a “notify me” button of equal weight is three ways to not buy.
Trust and objection handling
7. Shipping cost and timing are answerable in one interaction. Not a link to a policy page in the footer. A line under the button, or an accordion one tap away.
8. The returns window is stated in a number of days. “Easy returns” means nothing. “30-day returns, we pay the label” means something.
9. Reviews are on the page, not in a tab that requires loading. If you have fewer than ten reviews, show them anyway — sparse and real beats absent.
10. Review content is skimmable. A rating distribution bar and the ability to filter by star rating does more work than a chronological list.
11. Sizing guidance is specific to this product. A generic size chart for the whole store is a returns generator. Model height and worn size is the single highest-value line of copy on an apparel PDP.
12. Payment options are shown as icons near the button. This is the one place trust badges genuinely earn their space — people want to know if their preferred method works before they invest in checkout.
13. Nothing on the page is false. No fake countdown, no invented “12 people are viewing this”, no scarcity that is not real. Shoppers recognise these and the ones who do not are being misled. Neither outcome is good.
Content and clarity
14. The first paragraph answers “what is this and who is it for”. Not brand story. Brand story goes further down.
15. Specifications are in a table, not a paragraph. Materials, dimensions, weight, care. Scannable.
16. There is at least one image showing scale. A product in isolation on white has no size. Show it held, worn, or beside something familiar.
17. There is at least one image showing detail. Texture, stitching, finish. This is what replaces touching it.
18. Alt text describes the image. Both for screen readers and because image search is a real traffic source for physical products.
Technical and search
19. Product structured data is valid. Schema.org Product with offers, price, priceCurrency, availability and aggregateRating where you have reviews. Test it in Google’s Rich Results Test. Rich snippets in search results measurably improve click-through.
20. The canonical URL is clean. Shopify serves products at both /products/x and /collections/y/products/x. Make sure the canonical points at the former, consistently.
21. The meta description is written, not generated. 150 characters that give a reason to click, not the first 150 characters of the description.
22. No layout shift when reviews or badges load. Reserve the space.
23. It works with JavaScript disabled — or at least degrades honestly. You do not need full no-JS support, but a page that renders as a blank white rectangle when a script fails is a page that loses every visitor on a flaky connection.
The one that is not on the list
We deliberately do not include “add urgency” as a checklist item. Real urgency — genuine low stock, a genuine campaign deadline — is worth communicating. Manufactured urgency converts slightly better in the short term and costs you the customer’s trust permanently, which is a bad trade for anyone planning to still be selling next year.
If you want the honest version of that pattern, Countly reads your actual Shopify inventory rather than a number you type into a settings field. It converts less than a lie would. That is the point.
Running the checklist
Print it, or copy it into a Notion doc. Run it on your three best-selling products first — that is where a two-point conversion improvement pays for the afternoon.
Then run it on a product you have not looked at in a year. That one is usually more instructive.