The UX-Conversion Rate Connection: An eCommerce Web Design Case Study

Stortz, who has partnered with us as a long-term strategist for eCommerce web design, noticed that improvements could be made to slim down and improve their checkout experience.

Why a checkout review matters for a specialist tool retailer

John Stortz & Son is a long-established maker and seller of specialty hand tools — slate, roofing, and trade implements that buyers research deliberately before purchasing. For a catalogue like this, the checkout is rarely where the visitor decides whether to buy; it is where a decided buyer can still be lost to unnecessary friction. A checkout flow with more steps, fields, or page loads than the purchase actually requires adds drop-off risk without adding value, particularly for trade customers ordering from a workshop or job site rather than a desk.

An engagement of this kind begins by mapping the existing flow exactly as a customer experiences it — counting the discrete steps, identifying every required field, and noting where the path forces a decision or a reload that the order does not strictly need. The goal of that audit is not a cosmetic refresh but a structural one: remove what does not earn its place, keep what protects order accuracy, and leave the customer with the shortest credible path from cart to confirmation.

1Digital^® Agency redesigned their checkout page, creating a simpler experience with fewer steps. Conversions increased after only a short time, with additional improvements slated for their Account pages and mobile design that will further improve the user experience.

How a checkout-focused web design engagement works

When 1Digital takes on a checkout simplification for a WordPress storefront, the design work is treated as a sequence of deliberate reductions rather than a single redesign. A typical engagement of this type involves consolidating multi-step flows where the steps are not load-bearing, trimming form fields to those genuinely needed to fulfil and ship the order, and making the remaining path legible at a glance so a returning trade buyer can move through it without re-reading it.

Because Stortz is a long-term design partner rather than a one-off project, the work is also staged. The checkout is addressed first because it sits closest to completed revenue; the Account pages and the mobile experience are then sequenced as follow-on phases so that each change can be shipped, observed, and built on rather than bundled into one disruptive release. This phased approach is standard practice for an established store: it lets the design improve continuously while keeping the storefront stable for the customers using it every day.

The constant across every phase is the same discipline — a clearer, shorter, more trustworthy path for a buyer who has already chosen the product and simply needs to complete the order without being made to work for it.

What a checkout engagement does and does not promise

It is worth being precise about what work like this can and cannot claim. A checkout simplification does not manufacture demand; it removes friction from buyers who already intend to purchase. For a specialist hand-tool seller like John Stortz & Son, that distinction matters — the customer arriving at the cart has typically already researched the specific tool they need, so the value a redesign can honestly add is making the final step proportionate to a decision that has already been made, not persuading an undecided visitor.

Because Stortz works with 1Digital as a continuing design partner rather than on a single engagement, the relationship is structured around iteration: ship a focused change, leave the rest of the site stable, and let each phase inform the next. The Account-page and mobile work being sequenced after the checkout follows the same logic — they are separate, addressable surfaces, each handled when it is the next most valuable thing to improve, rather than bundled into one disruptive overhaul. For an established retailer, that steadiness is itself a deliverable: the storefront keeps working for the customers using it while it is being improved.