Discovery findings
Prepared for
Kirsty Drever, Head of Ecommerce
Discovery ran
5 to 16 April 2027
Issued
Tuesday 20 April 2027
Your decision
Choose a route by 26 April
Why the jacket sells on desktop and stalls on phones
You asked us to find out where phone customers drop away, and what to rebuild first before US shipping opens on 1 November.
Over two weeks we read 90 days of GA4 data, watched 400 session recordings, interviewed 12 customers, sat with your support team for a day, audited 214 URLs and tested on five mid-range phones on 4G.
We need one decision from you: which route to take into Structure. We recommend Route B, and an answer by Monday 26 April keeps the Tuesday 4 May start. If anything here contradicts what you see day to day, tell us. You know this customer better than a two-week study does.
Four numbers that frame the project
GA4 and field data, 1 January to 31 March 2027.
0%
Sessions on a phone
Most of them arrive from Instagram and land directly on a product page.
0.0%
Mobile conversion
Desktop converts at 2.6% on the same products and the same prices. That gap is the project.
0.0s
Product page LCP
Measured on a mid-range phone on 4G. We would hold the new build to under 2.5s.
0
Pages nobody visits
Of 214 URLs, 61 had no organic visits in the 90 days. We would retire them with redirects.
Where the phone sessions go
Of every 1,000 mobile sessions, 96 reach the bag and 9 end in an order. Source: GA4, 1 January to 31 March 2027.
Sessions by device
Share of all sessions, percent
1,000 mobile sessions, step by step
Sessions remaining at each step
What we found
Four problems, in the order they cost you orders. The images show the direction we would test in Structure, not finished design.
The size guide is a PDF
Tap Size guide on a phone and a 2MB PDF opens in a new tab. Fit drives 41% of support tickets and 68% of returns. Eight of the 12 customers we interviewed order two sizes and send one back.
Add to bag sits three screens down
On a phone the product photo fills the first screen and weighs 3.1MB, which sets the 4.8s LCP. Price and size follow on the second screen. Add to bag is on the third, and most visitors never scroll there.
Checkout leads with an account
Guest checkout exists, but on phones it sits below the sign-in form. Of the 41 sessions in every 1,000 that reach checkout, 22 leave at this step. Apple Pay and Google Pay are switched off.
The catalogue has outgrown the navigation
The menu was built for nine products and now holds 46. Of 214 URLs, 61 had no organic visits, including 38 duplicate colour pages. Retiring them leaves 153 to migrate and a much shorter redirect map.
Three routes into Structure
All three are workable. They differ in what you get by 1 November and what you pay for later. We recommend Route B.
Route A: patch the current store
Replace the size guide, pin the buying bar and turn on express checkout on the existing Squarespace site. Three weeks and £14,640 plus VAT. Conversion would improve, but the theme keeps LCP around 3.4s on 4G and multi-currency stays out of reach. You would reach November without a store ready for US customers.
Route B: product page and checkout first (recommended)
Move to Shopify Plus, and design the product page, fit finder and checkout before anything else. The remaining 153 URLs follow on the same design system. It stays within the signed £68,400 plus VAT, and it holds the 1 November date. The trade-off is that editorial pages launch simply and get their full treatment in a second release.
Route C: everything at once, fully headless
Next.js, Sanity and Shopify Plus together, with every page redesigned for launch. This gives you the most freedom later. It adds £31,250 plus VAT and nine weeks, so US shipping would open in January 2028 rather than November. We would pick this if editorial mattered more to sales than it does today.
What we did not look at
US sales tax, duties and returns logistics, which your operations lead is scoping with the 3PL. Paid media performance beyond its landing pages. Accessibility beyond a first pass: we found 14 WCAG 2.2 AA failures, and the full audit sits in Build.
How far to trust these findings
Twelve interviews show why people behave as they do. They do not tell you how many behave that way, and that is what the GA4 data is for. Where the two disagreed, we have said so in the workspace notes. The funnel figures cover one quarter and include your January sale.
What happens after you choose
These dates assume Route B. Route A or C would change them, and we would reissue the plan within two working days.
You choose by 26 April
A confirmation below is enough. If you would rather talk it through, Ailsa has held Thursday 22 April at 10:00 for a call.
Structure starts 4 May
Sitemap, content types and the redirect map for all 214 URLs, led by Ruaridh Moir. Two weeks.
Fit finder tested by 21 May
A working Figma prototype with your real size data, in front of eight customers on their own phones.
Fit notes written by 11 June
Your team writes fit notes for all 46 products, because nobody else knows them. Each week they run late moves Build by a week.
One decision, by Monday 26 April
Approving below accepts these findings and chooses Route B, within the signed £68,400 plus VAT, with Structure starting on Tuesday 4 May. If you prefer Route A or C, tell Ailsa and we will reissue this page with that route's figures and dates. After 26 April the start date is at risk.
Prepared by
Ailsa Cruickshank Founder, Cruickshank Moir
14 Esslemont Lane, Aberdeen AB10 1XF ailsa@cruickshankmoir.co.uk
For decision by
Kirsty Drever Head of Ecommerce, Vestray Outerwear
Copied to Magnus Flett, Founder
Confirm Route B
By confirming, you accept these findings and choose Route B: product page, fit finder and checkout first, on Shopify Plus, within the signed fee of £68,400 plus VAT. Structure starts on Tuesday 4 May 2027 and US shipping stays on course for 1 November.