Ecommerce UX Audit
Packages from $2,500 AUD. Results from 15 business days. Backed by 200,000+ hours of usability testing.
More ad spend won't fix UX leaks.
Australian ecommerce stores convert at around 1.8%, below the global average. For a store doing $5M in annual revenue, the difference between 1.8% and 2.5% conversion could represent hundreds of thousands in additional revenue from the same traffic you're already paying for.
Most retailers respond to flat conversion rates by spending more on acquisition: more Google Ads, more social spend, more SEO. That brings more people to a store that's already failing to convert the ones it has. Others discount their way to higher conversion, trading margin for volume and training customers to wait for a sale.
The result is ad costs that keep climbing. You've redesigned the homepage, switched platforms, and installed every plugin that comes recommended, and the conversion rate still sits somewhere between 1.5% and 2%. There are often clear causes.
The common thread is that these are all responses to a symptom. The conversion rate isn't the problem. It's the signal that something in the buying experience is creating friction, and until you identify exactly what that friction is, every dollar you spend on traffic and discounts is partially wasted.
There is friction in your store. A UX audit finds it.
Cart abandonment runs at roughly 70% across ecommerce globally. Baymard Institute's research, based on more than 200,000 hours of usability testing, has documented exactly why. Checkout forms with too many fields. Shipping costs that appear too late. Forced account creation. Navigation that doesn't match how customers think about your products. Product pages that don't answer the questions buyers actually have. Mobile experiences that are technically responsive but functionally frustrating.
These aren't obscure problems. Baymard has identified over 500 measurable UX parameters across the ecommerce journey, and their research shows that the average site has 39 areas where checkout UX alone could be improved. Addressing these issues can lift conversion rates by up to 35%, and that figure comes from testing the checkout flows of high traffic enterprise sites like Walmart and Amazon, where incremental improvements deliver millions in revenue.
A UX audit is a structured, systematic review of your store against these research-backed benchmarks. It identifies the specific friction points costing you sales and prioritises them by revenue impact so your team knows exactly what to fix first. It's the diagnostic step most retailers skip: jumping straight from "our conversion rate is low" to "let's redesign the site" without understanding what's actually broken.
Baymard methodology.
Engineering depth. Australian delivery.
Baymard-Certified UX Professional
Melbourne, Australia
The Fontis UX audit is led by a Baymard Institute Tier 2: UX Professional.
Requirements involve completing Baymard's 75-hour certification programme and passing all six ecommerce UX exams covering homepage and category navigation, on-site search, product listing and filtering, product pages, cart and checkout, and accounts and self-service. Our professional team members hold active Baymard Research Access, meaning every recommendation is grounded in current, research-backed findings rather than personal opinion or outdated best practices.
Baymard's methodology is used by 71% of Fortune 500 ecommerce companies and by more than 29,000 UX professionals worldwide. Their client list includes Staples, Sony PlayStation, Harley-Davidson, and Columbia Sportswear. The Fontis audit makes that same methodology accessible to Australian retailers at a price point that makes sense for your business.
Where Fontis differs from a pure UX consultancy is what happens when the audit finds problems under the surface.
Sometimes a slow checkout isn't a UX problem: it's a payment gateway integration adding latency. Sometimes product pages load slowly because the PIM isn't serving data efficiently. Sometimes the mobile experience breaks because of frontend code that hasn't been touched since the last replatform.
With 20+ years of ecommerce engineering experience and a team of senior developers, Fontis can diagnose what's behind the UX issues, not just describe them. And if you need help implementing the fixes, the engineering team that identified the problems is the same team that can resolve them.
Not Just Theory
Brands We've Helped
The methodology behind the audit.
On average, clients who complete a Baymard-methodology audit implement more than 21 UX improvements from a single engagement. The Fontis UX audit applies this same research-backed methodology to Australian retailers. Every recommendation is grounded in findings from Baymard's research library, not personal opinion or generic checklists.
29,000+
UX professionals across 80+ countries use Baymard Institute's ecommerce UX research, including 71% of Fortune 500 ecommerce companies.
200,000+
Hours of large-scale usability testing underpin the Baymard methodology. Every recommendation in your audit report is grounded in this research library.
35%
Potential increase in checkout conversion rate by addressing documented usability issues - based on Baymard's testing of large ecommerce sites including Walmart and Amazon.
Three packages. Choose what fits.
Starter Audit
$2,500 AUD
Suited to stores under $2M revenue
A focused review of the three highest-impact areas: product pages, cart, and checkout. Mobile and desktop.
Expert UX review by a Baymard-certified UX Professional against research-backed guidelines.
Written report identifying your top 8 UX issues, each with the problem described, the research evidence behind it, and a specific recommendation.
UX severity scoring (critical, major, minor) so your team can prioritise by impact.
60-minute walkthrough of the findings with your team (phone or video call).
Turnaround: 15 business days.
Get startedEssential Audit
$5,000 AUD
Suited to stores doing $2M–$10M
A broader review covering the five highest-impact areas: homepage and navigation, product pages, product listing and filtering, cart, and checkout. Mobile and desktop.
Expert UX review by a Baymard-certified UX Professional against research-backed guidelines.
Written report identifying your top 15 UX issues with problem descriptions, research evidence, and specific recommendations.
UX severity scoring (critical, major, minor) so your team can prioritise by impact.
60-minute walkthrough of the findings with your team (phone or video call).
One 30-minute follow-up call to discuss implementation questions.
Turnaround: 20 business days.
Get startedComprehensive Audit
$7,500 AUD
Suited to high-volume or multi-channel retailers
A full review across all six Baymard ecommerce UX areas plus a technical performance layer and competitor benchmarking. Mobile and desktop.
Full expert UX review by a Baymard-certified UX Professional across all six ecommerce areas.
Written report identifying your top 25 UX issues with problem descriptions, research evidence, and specific fix recommendations.
UX severity scoring for each issue.
Competitor UX comparison against two nominated competitors.
Technical performance review covering page speed, Core Web Vitals, and backend or integration issues affecting the user experience.
Prioritised implementation roadmap categorising every fix as a quick win, medium effort, or strategic change.
60-minute walkthrough of the findings with your team (phone or video call).
Two 30-minute follow-up calls to support implementation.
Turnaround: 30 business days.
Get startedAll packages are one-off engagements with no ongoing retainer. Implementation support is available separately at standard Fontis development rates.
Free Consultation
A 30-minute call to understand your store's current performance, agree on scope, and confirm which package is the right fit. No obligation.
Audit
We review your store across the agreed UX areas - both mobile and desktop - against Baymard's research benchmarks. Depending on your package, this covers product pages, checkout, navigation, search, filtering, and more.
Written Report
You receive a structured report detailing each identified issue: the problem, the research behind it, a specific recommendation, and a severity score. Delivered within your agreed turnaround window.
Walkthrough & Follow-Up
A 60-minute call with your team to walk through the findings and answer implementation questions. Essential and Comprehensive packages include additional follow-up calls.
The problems hiding in plain sight.
Every ecommerce store has UX friction. Even well-designed stores on modern platforms carry issues that have been there so long nobody questions them anymore. Individually, each one might cost a fraction of a percent in conversion, but together they compound into the gap between a 1.8% and a 3% conversion rate. These are the patterns a Fontis UX audit commonly identifies:
Bloated Checkout
Checkout flows that require 20+ form fields when research shows 12–14 is the ideal range.
Hidden Costs
Shipping costs that aren't visible until the final checkout step: the single most common reason customers abandon a purchase.
Forced Registration
Forced account creation before checkout, which Baymard's research identifies as a leading cause of abandonment.
Mobile Friction
Mobile navigation that technically works but requires too many taps to reach a product.
Poor Search
On-site search that returns irrelevant results or lacks autocomplete functionality.
Missing Information
Product pages missing the specific information buyers need: dimensions, compatibility details, materials, close-up images.
Broken Filtering
Filter and sort options that don't match how customers actually think about the product category.
Buried Trust Signals
Trust signals (returns policy, security indicators, customer reviews) that are present on the site but placed where nobody sees them.
Before you book, here's what to know.
"We already know what's wrong with our site."
You probably do know some of it. Most ecommerce teams have a mental list of things they'd like to fix. A UX audit validates which of those instincts are correct, identifies issues you haven't noticed, and, critically, tells you which fixes will have the most revenue impact. In our experience, internal teams are often aware of some friction points but tend to miss the issues that become invisible when you look at your own store every day.
"A UX audit is a significant investment."
It is if the report goes unutilised. The Fontis audit is built to be acted on. Every recommendation includes severity scoring and a specific fix. The Comprehensive package includes an implementation roadmap that categorises findings by development effort. To put the cost in context: a single percentage point improvement in conversion at a $3M store is worth $30,000 in annual revenue. Most audits identify enough quick-win improvements to pay for themselves within the first quarter of implementation.
"We don't have the development resources to implement the findings."
The audit prioritises fixes by impact and effort. Quick wins typically require minimal development time: repositioning a trust badge, simplifying a form, adjusting the order in which shipping costs are displayed. Your existing team or agency can handle these. For any size and number of fixes, Fontis has a team of senior ecommerce developers who can implement the recommendations directly.
"Our platform limits what we can change."
Every recommendation accounts for what's achievable within your platform's constraints. Whether you're on Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Magento, or WooCommerce, the audit focuses on changes you can actually make, not theoretical improvements that would require a replatform.
"We had a CRO consultant look at this already."
A CRO engagement typically focuses on A/B testing specific elements such as button colours, headline copy, page layouts. A UX audit is a different exercise. It systematically evaluates your entire customer journey against a body of research built from 200,000+ hours of usability testing. It identifies the structural friction in your store, not just the surface-level optimisations. CRO works best after an audit has identified what to test.
Why Fontis
Built by engineers.
Led by research.
Find out where your store is losing sales.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We'll discuss your store's current performance, walk through what a UX audit would cover for your specific situation, and help you decide which package is the right fit.
No obligation. No sales pitch. Just a clear conversation about whether a UX audit makes sense for your business.
Packages from $2,500 AUD
Turnaround from 15 business days
Australian-based. Baymard-certified.