In the eCommerce world, technology changes, customer preferences shift, and design trends come and go quite frequently. Your Shopify store might have been a hit when you launched initially, but does it still stand out today?

As a Shopify web design agency with over 17 years of experience, we’ve seen how a simple redesign can transform a low-performing store into a conversion powerhouse.

Redesigning your Shopify website isn’t just about making it look pretty—it’s about aligning your online presence with the needs and expectations of your audience.

But how do you know it’s time for Shopify website redesign? That is what we will cover in this post. By the end, you’ll understand:

The common signs that shout, “I need a new design!”
The factors driving the need for an update.

Whether your sales are slowing down, your site feels outdated, or your customers are complaining about their experience, we’ll walk you through the red flags and provide examples to make things crystal clear.

So, grab a coffee (or tea!), and let’s dive into the signs that could mean it’s time to give your Shopify store the upgrade it deserves.

1. Your Store Looks Dated

The user’s first impression is what matters!

You have a few seconds to make that impression whenever a user lands on your online store and decides to stay or leave.

Think about it—would you trust a store that looks like it hasn’t been touched since 2010?

Here’s the Walmart website design from 2010. Would you shop on their website if it had not been redesigned?

Old Walmart website design example : (Source: webdesignmuseum.org)

Signs Your Design is Outdated:

Heavy gradients, large fonts, or old-fashioned colour schemes.
Too little use of whitespace, making the page feel busy.
Excessive use of flashy animations or banners that distract the user instead of engaging.
Design elements that are misaligned with current branding or target audience preferences.
The website doesn’t look great or function smoothly on mobile devices.

2. Poor Mobile Experience

Did you know that over 70% of users buy online on mobile devices?

Today, mobile optimization is no longer a choice. It’s necessary for excellent customer experience and ranking high on search engines (Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in search rankings).

If your Shopify store isn’t optimized for mobile traffic, you’re likely losing sales opportunities and your SEO ranking.

Signs of a Poor Mobile Experience:

Your website pages take more than 3 seconds to load on mobile devices.
Navigation menus or buttons that are too small or hard to tap.
Fonts that are too small or don’t adjust to different screen sizes.
Images, buttons, or text that don’t align properly.
Complicated checkout or doesn’t support mobile-friendly payment methods.

If a poor mobile experience is the first red flag, slow page load speeds are often the next big culprit behind declining sales and frustrated customers.

3. Slow Page Load Speeds

Every second counts in the world of eCommerce, and mobile shoppers are less likely to wait for slow pages to load.

The different studies show that 40% of online buyers leave online stores that take longer than 3 seconds to load.

Result?

Loss of sales.

And, in many cases, these shoppers never return to the same website.

So, for an excellent user experience and high SEO ranking, a fast-loading Shopify store is a must to keep shoppers engaged.

Signs Your Page Load Speeds are Too Slow:

High Bounce Rates: Bounce rates are increasing, and customers leave your online store without exploring further.
Low Conversion Rates: Slow loading product or checkout pages increases cart abandonment rate.
Slow Loading Images: Large, unoptimized images take forever to load.
Poor Performance Scores: Low website performance score when checked through tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix, which are directly tracked by search engines like Google.

Slow page load speeds frustrate the users and impact your revenue. Each additional second of load time reduces conversions by up to 7%. Also, search engines like Google prioritize faster faster websites over slower ones. So, slower websites rank lower, thus fewer customers can even find your store in the first place.

4. Low Conversion Rates

Is your Shopify website getting a good amount of traffic but experiencing poor sales? If so, now is the time to look at your online store’s design and functionality. The average conversion rate for eCommerce stores is 2%-3%.

If your conversion rate is lower than the average, it clearly indicates friction. Something is preventing customers from completing their purchases.

It could be the confusing layout or navigation, an outdated design lacking trust signals, insufficient or incomplete product information, or a complicated checkout process.

Signs of Low Conversion Rates:

Abandoned Carts: More and more customers are adding products to the cart but are not completing the purchase.
Short Session Durations: Visitors leave after spending only a few seconds on your site.
Limited Interaction: Few clicks on product pages, reviews, or call-to-action buttons.
High Drop-Off in Funnel Stages: Visitors leave before reaching the payment page.

A low conversion rate means you’re missing out on potential revenue despite the hard work you’ve done to drive traffic to your site. Your users are sensing a disconnect and are hesitant to buy.

Navigation is like the map of your site; it should get the users in the right direction on your store.

If your website has poor or messy navigation, this may frustrate your customers.

Sadly, 76% of e-commerce websites have mediocre-to-poor navigation performance, indicating a widespread issue in the industry.

However, a user-friendly navigation system makes it easier for customers to find the products quickly and enhances the user experience.

Example of an eCommerce website with poor navigation

Signs of Poor Navigation:

Too Many Choices: When your main menu appears overcrowded or complicated, customers may be confused even before they begin to search.
No smart search functionality: This is 2025, and people are accustomed to the advance search options available, like predictive search, showing matching options or products while the user starts typing. No smart search will make the process of finding what they are looking for rather difficult and can cost a potential loss of customers.
No Voice Search Capability: We live in the world of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. With more than 60% of e-commerce transactions happening on mobile devices, without a voice search option, you might be missing opportunities to serve tech-savvy shoppers.
Hidden or Hard-to-Find Pages: Your website’s key pages, such as product categories, FAQs, policy pages, and contact forms, should never be more than a click away.
Broken Links or Dead Ends: Clicking a link leads to an error page, which hurts the user experience.
Confusing Layouts: Are your categories and subcategories aligned with how customers shop? If not, they may abandon their buying journey on your store entirely.

A properly structured navigation helps customers navigate seamlessly through your Shopify store. However, inconsistent, outdated, and misleading content does the complete opposite: it creates confusion, eliminates trust, and just fails to engage your customers.

6. Low or Declining SEO Rankings

Approximately 26.1% of e-commerce orders are directly linked to organic traffic. If you recently noticed that your Shopify store’s SEO rankings are declining, it’s a clear sign that your website needs your attention and perhaps a redesign.

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just about keywords—it’s also influenced by your site’s performance, structure, and user experience. An outdated or poorly optimized design can cause your rankings to decline, making it harder for customers to find you.

Signs of Low or Declining SEO Rankings:

A drop in the number of search engine visitors
Using vendor-supplied product data, which is also used by hundreds of other websites (duplicate content)
Missing or outdated Meta data
Slow website speed
Non-responsive design or not fully optimized for mobile and tablet devices
Broken links or errors such as 404 pages, duplicate content, or missing alt text for images.
Your store’s SEO rankings are stagnant or declining.

While improving your SEO rankings brings more visitors to your Shopify store, the real challenge is keeping them engaged once they are on your store. This brings us to our next critical sign: a high bounce rate or poor engagement rate.

7. Using a Free Theme with Limited Features

Free Shopify themes are an excellent place to launch for any startup or small business.

However, as business grows, most online store owners find that they don’t have the advanced features or flexibility and become a roadblock.

The limited design options, performance optimization and lack of integration options hold back your store’s growth.

Signs Your Free Theme is Holding You Back:

Limited Customization options present a roadblock to creating a custom layout for home, collection or product pages needed to handle large catalogues.
Basic Functionality: This does not include advanced features such as mega menus, product filtering, or upselling tools.
Outdated Design: Free themes may not follow modern design trends or be optimized for mobile devices, leaving a poor first impression on your customers.
Performance Issues: Some free themes can be slower or less optimized, affecting load times and SEO.
Costlier to run: Limited inbuilt theme features mean you must rely on additional Shopify apps, adding cost and performance issues.

8. Your Online Store is Still Using Shopify 1.0 Theme

In 2021, Shopify launched its improved Online Store 2.0 (OS 2.0) version. This version is designed to give Shopify store owners advanced features, design flexibility, improved performance, and many more. Unfortunately, you cannot simply upgrade your Shopify store from 1.0 to 2.0.

Signs You’re Still Using Shopify 1.0:

Your store was designed before mid-2021.
Limited Design Options: If you can’t customize sections on pages other than the homepage, your store is likely built on Shopify 1.0.
Outdated Speed and Performance: If your store feels sluggish compared to competitors, it could be due to the older framework.
Difficulty Integrating New Apps: If you encounter compatibility issues or notice limited functionality with newer apps, it’s a sign that your store isn’t built on Shopify 2.0.
No Access to Metafields: Your store doesn’t have access to Metafields. You cannot easily add custom content fields to product or collection pages.
Developer Dependence: If your online store is on Shopify 1.0, it will often require developers to make even simple changes.

Using Shopify 1.0 in a Shopify 2.0 world is like running outdated software—it works, but you’re missing out on critical tools and efficiencies that could grow your business.

Shopify 2.0 improves your store’s performance and makes it easier to customize and expand as your business evolves.

9. Your Brand Has Evolved

Consistency in branding is key to building trust and loyalty, and your Shopify store should reflect your brand. As time passes, your business may expand its products, target new audiences, or completely shift its branding strategy.

So, it is time to ask yourself: Has my website changed alongside my brand? If not, it’s time to redesign it and reconnect with your ideal audience.

Wendy’s website in 2015

Wendy’s website in 2025

Signs Your Branding Has Outgrown Your Website:

Mismatch Between Design and Products: Selling luxury items in a store with a budget, casual aesthetic.
Inconsistent Branding: Logos, colours, and fonts that don’t align with your current brand style.
New Target Audience: Your original design catered to a demographic different from your current customer base.
Expanding Product Lines: Your current site design makes it hard to showcase or organize a growing inventory.

A mismatch in branding and Shopify store design can create confusion, diminish trust, and affect your bottom line.

10. Inconsistent or Outdated Content

When was the last time you updated the content of your website? Does your website still show incorrect product descriptions and size charts, or that Black Friday promotion?

Your website content is how you communicate with your customers. Outdated promotions, incorrect product information, mismatched graphics, or inconsistent messaging can diminish trust in your brand.

Signs of Inconsistent or Outdated Content:

Outdated or Incorrect Product Information: Are you like 52% of e-commerce site owners who don’t sufficiently post-process vendor-supplied data? It leads to missing details that are critical for your customers when making purchase decisions.
Mismatched Tone and Style: If you use product data from different suppliers, likely your product data has inconsistent language and tone, confusing our customers and weakening your brand identity.
Old Promotions Still Live: It’s like having Christmas decorations outside your house in February (trust me, we have seen numerous such online stores). Having expired sales, promotions, or seasonal content visible on your website gives customers the impression that your store isn’t well-maintained.
Poor-Quality Images: Are your product photos blurry, inconsistent, or outdated? High-quality visuals are critical for building trust and effectively showcasing your products.
Irregular Blogging: If your blog hasn’t been updated in years and looks outdated, it’s time to refresh it.
Lack of Policy Updates: Missing, incomplete, incorrect policy pages (like shipping, returns, or FAQs) raise serious doubts about the reliability of your service.

11. High Bounce Rate or Poor Engagement Rate

Is your website getting visitors, but they leave shortly after arriving without exploring beyond the home page? If so, it is an indicator that something is missing. Most of the time, this is good, clean design, user-friendly navigation, engaging content, and more; it can be addressed by redesigning the website.

Benchmarks for E-commerce Stores

Bounce Rate

Good Bounce Rate:

20% to 45% is generally considered excellent for e-commerce websites.

Average Bounce Rate:

45% to 55% indicates an acceptable, though improvable, engagement level.

Bad Bounce Rate:

Above 55% is concerning and may signal issues with user experience, page load speed, or irrelevant content.

Critical Bounce Rate:

Above 70% is often alarming for e-commerce stores and indicates a need for immediate fixes.

Engagement Rate

Good Engagement Rate:

20% to 30% is generally considered excellent for e-commerce, indicating strong user interaction.

Average Engagement Rate:

10% to 20% suggests moderate engagement but room for improvement.

Poor Engagement Rate:

Below 10% signals weak engagement and potential user experience issues.

Signs of High Bounce Rate or Low Engagement:

Your website visitors spend only a few seconds on your site and then leave. In other words, the bounce rate is high.
Low Click-Through Rates (CTR)
Users only view the home page and leave without exploring the other pages.
Website visitors browse your products but they don’t add anything to their cart.

These signs indicate that your website has design flaws, poor user experience, irrelevant content, or slow load times. Whatever the cause, these indicate missed opportunities to convert visitors into customers.

12. Frequent Customer Complaints

Your customers are your most valuable source of feedback. If you’re regularly receiving complaints about your eCommerce store—whether it’s about usability, navigation, complicated checkout, or broken features—it’s a clear sign of a problem with the website. And ignoring them could lead to lost sales and a damaged reputation.

Difficult Navigation or Broken Links
Slow Loading
Not Mobile Friendly
Website Design Looks Outdated
Incomplete or Outdated Product Information

Signs Frequent Complaints Are a Problem:

Complaints on difficult navigation, broken links, 404 errors, or complicated features to use.
Your website is slow or has unresponsive elements.
Complicated or multi-step checkout with no guest checkout option.
The website doesn’t work very well on mobile devices.
High cart abandonment rate
The website looks outdated. It doesn’t instill confidence to shop.
Incomplete, confusing, or outdated product information that confuses customers.
Can’t pay with the regional popular payment gateway.

13. You’re Expanding to International Markets

Are you expanding into international markets? Is your website ready to do business in the international market?

Selling to customers worldwide is a huge opportunity for growth, but it comes with its own challenges. From managing multiple currencies to adopting local regulations, languages, and taxation laws, your Shopify store must support a seamless international shopping experience.

Signs Your Store Isn’t Ready for International Markets:

No Multi-Language Support: Your store doesn’t provide translations to customers who speak other languages.
No Multi-Currency Options: 76% of shoppers prefer to pay in their local currency when they buy online. So, if pricing is not displayed in the local currency, it can impact your conversion.
Complicated Shipping Information: Region-specific shipping rates or delivery options are not available.
No Localized Payment Methods: Your store doesn’t offer local payment methods popular in target markets (e.g., Alipay, Klarna, etc.).
Tax Configuration issues: Difficulty managing taxes or duties for international orders.

Is It Time to Redesign Your Shopify Store?

Your Shopify store is the face of your online business. It is your brand’s online performance and the base for the user experience.

If you’ve recognized one or more of the signs we’ve discussed—whether it’s outdated design, poor mobile performance, declining SEO rankings, or frequent customer complaints—it may be time to take the next step.

Here’s what you stand to gain with a redesign:

Higher Conversion Rates: A modern, user-friendly design helps convert more visitors into buyers.
Stronger Branding: A fresh look ensures your store aligns with your brand’s evolution and stands out in the market.
Better Customer Experience: Improved navigation, mobile optimization, and faster load times create a seamless journey from homepage to checkout.
Future-Readiness: Upgrading to Shopify 2.0 and integrating the latest features will set your store up for long-term success.
Global Reach: A redesigned store that supports multiple currencies, languages, and localized features helps you connect with customers worldwide.

The 13 signs we’ve discussed are designed to help you evaluate whether a redesign is the right move for your Shopify store to achieve online success.

How many of these signs resonate with your current website's experience?

13 Signs It is time to redesign your Shopify Website