Your ecommerce site is one of the most valuable assets in your business, but even the best-built stores don’t remain effective forever.
As technology, customer expectations and competitors evolve, what once worked can quickly start costing you sales. At Design Box, we often see small issues on ecommerce sites can quietly grow into bigger problems, leading to drops in performance, conversions, or customer trust.
If you’ve been wondering whether it’s time for an ecommerce website redesign, here are five clear signs your store might be holding you back.
Sign 1: Your Conversion Rate has Stalled or Dropped
A healthy ecommerce site should gradually improve its performance over time, especially if you’re investing in traffic, SEO or paid ads. When conversions stall or plateau, the issue is often less about marketing and more about how users experience your site.
Some common signs that your user experience is holding back sales include:
- High cart or checkout abandonment
- Steady traffic, but very few completed purchases
- Product pages with low engagement
- Confusing layouts or dated visual design
- Calls to action that don’t stand out
- Long or multi-step checkout processes
- Users dropping off before adding items to the basket
When customers hesitate, it’s usually because the site isn’t guiding them confidently toward a purchase. Research shows that even a one-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by up to 7%, according to Portent, so small friction points quickly add up.
A redesign gives you the chance to remove those friction points, modernise the user experience and align the site more closely with how people actually buy.
Sign 2: Your Site Looks Outdated Compared to Competitors
First impressions count, and visitors make a judgment on your brand within seconds. If your website still features an outdated layout or dated styling, it can make your business appear less credible compared to competitors with more modern designs.
Visual elements like cluttered pages, outdated colours, awkward spacing or old typography can signal that your site hasn’t been updated in years. According to Adobe, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive.
It’s not just about how your site looks. Many ecommerce brands are now using features such as personalisation, dynamic content and AI-driven experiences to improve the customer journey. If your competitors are adopting these features and your site isn’t, you risk looking outdated, even if the rest of your business isn’t.
Sign 3: Performance Issues are Affecting User Experience
Speed and stability play a huge role in how users interact with your store. If your site takes too long to load, freezes or glitches during browsing or checkout, users are far more likely to drop off before completing a purchase.
Over time, older themes, outdated plugins and technical issues can slow a site down. As you add new features, performance often declines further if the underlying setup isn’t built to scale.
Sign 4: Mobile Experience is Weak or Frustrating
Mobile traffic now accounts for more than half of ecommerce visits, and according to Statista, is expected to reach 62% of all online sales by 2027. Yet, many stores still treat mobile as an afterthought.
When the mobile experience isn’t seamless, shoppers are quick to abandon their journey.
If any of these sound familiar, your mobile experience may be costing you sales:
- Pages load slowly on mobile
- Layouts or images don’t adapt well to smaller screens
- Checkout feels awkward or hard to complete on a phone
Shoppers have less patience on mobile, and even minor friction points can lead to an instant drop-off.
Sign 5: It’s Hard to Make Updates or Add New Features
As your business grows, your website needs to grow with it. However, many ecommerce brands are still using platforms that worked when they first launched and now feel restrictive or outdated.
What starts as a small inconvenience quickly becomes a major blocker. If you need a developer to change a banner, add a product or publish a landing page, it slows everything down and limits your ability to react to trends, campaigns or customer demand.
Older ecommerce sites also tend to become fragile over time. Themes, plugins and add-ons that once worked smoothly can start clashing as the platform ages. Adding new features like a loyalty programme, subscription or alternative payment option can feel risky in case it breaks other parts of the site.
When simple updates take too long or cause issues, that’s when growth stalls, customer experience suffers, and competitors pull ahead.
Ready to Upgrade Your Ecommerce Website
If you recognised even one of these signs, your website may already be limiting your growth. An ecommerce redesign doesn’t just fix what’s broken, it removes friction, improves performance and sets you up for better results in 2025 and beyond.
At Design Box, we help brands upgrade outdated ecommerce sites with modern design, scalable platforms and conversion-focused user experiences.
Not sure where to start? We can audit your current site and highlight the quickest opportunities for improvement.
Whether you’re ready for a complete rebuild or want an expert audit first, we can guide you through the next step.
Meet The Author
Kelsey Bridge
Digital Marketing Executive
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