Homepage, two tall columns
Homepage in two tall columns: the whole page from the first screen to the footer, so you can read the order of the story.
CRO teardown
Air-Roasted Specialty Coffee
248 Roasters CRO Audit
A 28 minute teardown of 248 Roasters, a Michigan air-roasted coffee brand, covering the homepage, the shop coffee collection, a product page, and a redesigned guided buying journey.
15
Issues found
19
Fixes proposed
28
Minutes of tape
3.8
Overall / 10
28 min watch
01The teardown
Watch the full 28-minute recording.
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02Executive summary
What we found.
248 Roasters has a real brand behind it. Michigan rooted, air roasted, stronger coffee and higher standards, and the design carries that through. The site looks fresh and it looks like coffee. The photography of the bags is genuinely good, there are reviews on the homepage, and subscription is already offered on product pages, which is the right call for coffee and the industry standard.
What the site does not do is give a visitor enough reason to feel confident about buying. There is no guided buying experience anywhere in the journey. The homepage shows a best seller and asks for a click on shop without first establishing who the roaster is, what the coffee is, or why this bag suits this person. Nothing is set up before the ask.
The same gap repeats at every step. The shop coffee page puts ten coffees in a grid with a name, an image and a price, and nothing that separates Heavy Torque from the Ballet Isles edition, so the visitor has to open tabs and self diagnose. The product page carries a subtitle, format, quantity and subscription, but no reviews, and the selling points sit far below the point where a visitor has already decided to leave.
Think of the website as the salesperson in a physical shop. This one is well dressed and says nothing useful; when a visitor picks up a bag and asks about it, the answer is read the description. The fix is a connected journey: a homepage that routes, a collection page that sorts by how people brew, and a product page that answers the objections before the card comes out.
03The verdict
Problem, opportunity, impact
Core problem
The site has no guided buying experience. Visitors land on a flat grid of blend names like Heavy Torque and have to work out on their own which coffee suits how they brew and what they like.
Main opportunity
248 Roasters already has the brand, the story and the product. Adding a coffee finder, a collection page that sorts by job rather than name, and a product page that answers objections turns browsing into a routed path to one bag.
Estimated impact
Visitors reach a product page already knowing why that bag is right for them, fewer leave at the grid, and bundles plus subscriptions lift the value of each order that does land.
04How we audited
Scored across five dimensions.
3.8
Overall
Five dimensions, each scored out of ten.
The five passes
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01
Homepage & PDP review Where attention leaks and buyers hesitate, section by section.
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02
Mobile UX audit 70% of your traffic — judged on its own terms.
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03
Trust & credibility check The signals that make first-time buyers convert.
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04
Collection & discovery Filtering, merchandising and guidance from browse to buy.
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05
Prioritized CRO roadmap Ranked by impact vs. effort, ready to ship.
4 of 5 dimensions scoring four or below
Branding
7/10
UX
3/10
Trust
3/10
Product Page
3/10
Conversion
3/10
05What we'd fix
Every issue, paired with its fix.
15 issues found, 19 fixes proposed.
Problems identified
No Guided Buying Experience Anywhere On The Site
Nothing on the site helps a first time visitor find the right coffee for how they brew or what they like. Every visitor lands in the same flat grid and has to self diagnose.
Every Product Option Showed As Sold Out
On the Ballet Alkenea product page, whole bean, every grind and both K cup sizes all read as sold out at the time of review, with no alternative offered in place of them.
Blend Names Carry The Whole Decision
Names like Heavy Torque and Corked On Caffeine mean nothing to someone new to the brand. They are the main thing distinguishing one coffee from another in the grid.
Catalog Page Shows Only Name, Image And Price
The shop coffee page lists ten coffees side by side with a photo of the pouch and a price. Nothing explains what separates a twelve dollar bag from a sixty dollar bundle.
Nothing Explains The Difference Between Blends
To learn how Heavy Torque differs from the Ballet Isles edition, a visitor has to open both product pages and compare them manually. The collection page does none of that work.
No Reviews On The Product Page
The product page shows no reviews or customer feedback at all, so there is no signal that anyone has bought and enjoyed this coffee before.
Selling Points Sit Below The Decision Point
The description and the reasons to buy appear well down the product page, after the point where a visitor whose questions went unanswered has already decided to leave.
Common Objections Go Unanswered
What happens if the taste is wrong, whether it can be returned, and how shipping works are all left unaddressed on the product page where the buying decision is made.
No Strength Or Roast Cues In The Grid
A visitor who wants a light roast has no way to tell from the collection page which coffees are light and which are dark. The information is not on the cards.
Homepage Asks For The Sale Before Establishing Anything
The homepage shows the signature roasts and a shop now path without first saying who the roaster is, what the coffee is, or why a stranger should trust it.
No Average Order Value Mechanics In Place
There is no bundling, no multi bag saving and no gift framing on the product page, so every order stays at whatever single bag the visitor happened to pick.
No Safety Net When A Choice Is Unavailable
When a visitor's first choice is out of stock, nothing routes them to a comparable coffee. The page simply has nothing to sell them.
Reviews On The Homepage Are Underused
Reviews exist on the homepage but they are presented in a way that does little work. The proof is on the page without being placed where a decision is being made.
The Story Is Not Used To Sell
248 Roasters has a real story and a Michigan air roasted position, but it is not built into the buying path where it would give a new visitor a reason to choose this roaster.
Paid Traffic Lands On An Unguided Page
Visitors arriving from ads meet the same flat grid as everyone else. The cost of getting them there is paid before anything on the site starts working to convert them.
Recommendations
Open The Homepage With Find Your Roast In Thirty Seconds
Lead the hero with a routing offer rather than a best seller. Ask what the visitor needs and hand them a path, the way a salesperson greets someone at the door.
Answer Who You Are, What You Sell And Why Trust You
Cover those three questions in the first screen of the homepage, using the Michigan air roasted position and the reviews already on the site as the proof.
Build A Coffee Finder Quiz
Ask how they brew, the roast they lean toward and what they want from the cup, then land them on one matched coffee so they arrive at the product page already convinced.
Add Shop By Blend With Strength And Roast Cues
Show each blend with its roast level, strength and what is in it, so a visitor who wants light or dark can see the answer without opening a single product page.
Add Shop By Format As A Separate Doorway
Give K cups, whole bean, ground and gifts their own entry points from the homepage so visitors who already know their format skip straight to it.
Sort The Collection Page By Job, Not By Name
Let visitors start from what they want, pods, gifting, something sweeter, rather than from blend names that mean nothing to a first time buyer.
Put Brew Method And Roast Filters On The Collection Page
Add an I brew with filter and a roast filter so the ten coffees narrow down to the two or three that actually fit before anyone opens a product page.
Add A Side By Side Comparison Of The Blends
Give the collection page a comparison view that sets the coffees against each other on roast, strength and use, so the difference is visible in one place.
Add Reviews To Every Product Page
Show customer feedback where the buying decision happens. Where a coffee has none yet, borrow reviews from other products with the source clearly labelled rather than implying they are for that bag.
Move The Reasons To Buy Above The Fold
Lift the description, origin and selling points up to where the decision is made instead of leaving them below the point a visitor has already left.
Answer Taste, Returns And Shipping On The Product Page
State plainly what happens if the coffee is not right, how returns work and when it ships. These are the objections standing between the visitor and the card.
Say Who Each Coffee Is Not For
Tell the visitor to buy this bag only if certain things are true, and point them to the right one if not. Being honest about the mismatch makes the match more believable.
Offer One, Two Or Four Bags With A Saving
Ask how much coffee they drink and price the quantity tiers against that, so the visitor chooses a bigger order because it suits them, not because it was pushed.
Bundle Small Add Ons With The Main Bag
Attach K cups, the 248 experience and gift framing to the product page so one customer can buy four things instead of waiting for four customers to buy one.
Build A Build Your Own Box
Let visitors pick around five coffees into one box at a multi item discount. It raises order value and solves the choice problem by letting people try several.
Keep And Feature The Subscription
Subscription is already on the product page and it is the right standard for coffee. Keep it and give it a clear place in the new layout rather than folding it in as a radio button.
Add Yield And Brew Time To The Product Page
Tell visitors how many cups a bag makes and how long it takes to brew. Small practical facts settle the value question that price alone leaves open.
Give Out Of Stock Options A Route Out
When a grind or K cup size is unavailable, put the nearest alternative on the page instead of leaving a dead sold out button as the whole answer.
Add A Brew Guide And Origin Detail
Publish a buying and brewing guide, and put the region and origin on each product page. It builds authority and gives the coffee something to be judged on beyond the bag.
06The redesign
The version we'd build.
A concept redesign created by Convertica Studio from this audit. It shows how the store could work, it is not the live store.
Homepage centre, product left, collection right
Three pages side by side: the homepage in the centre, the product page on the left and the collection page on the right.
Bag slide over open over the page, whole screen
The bag open over the page: the whole screen with the page dimmed behind it, so the bag and its items can be seen from top to bottom.
Coffee Finder quiz, step by step
The Coffee Finder quiz, step by step: four quick questions about how she brews, who it is for, taste, and what to avoid, then one match with the grind already set.
Product page, two tall columns
Product page in two tall columns: the buy box at the top, then the details down to the footer.
Product page first screen: header and buy box
Product page first screen: the header and the buy box, with size, price, button and delivery lines in view together.
Collection page first screen: header, filters, first row
Collection page first screen: the header, the filters and the first row of coffees.
Three phone screens: home, collection, product
Mobile: three phone screens, home, collection and product.
07Key takeaways
The teardown in 7 lines.
- 248 Roasters has a real brand and a design that looks and feels like good coffee; what is missing is the buying journey.
- The website is the salesperson, and right now it is well dressed and answers every question with read the description.
- The biggest opportunity is not more traffic, it is helping the traffic already arriving feel confident enough to buy.
- A grid of blend names asks the visitor to diagnose themselves against words like Heavy Torque with nothing to go on.
- A collection page should narrow the choice down, not hand over ten coffees and a price list.
- Every unanswered objection on a product page is a reason not to hand over a credit card.
- Conversion is not one page; the homepage, the collection page, the product page and the quiz are one engine or none of them work.
08Questions
Questions this audit answers.
No. The look and feel of 248 Roasters is genuinely good and the audit says so. The subject is revenue: whether a visitor who lands on the site gets enough help and enough reason to buy. Design only comes up where a layout decision is keeping information away from a decision.
It means the site does the work a good salesperson does. It asks what the visitor needs, explains who the roaster is and why the coffee fits, then routes them to the right collection or the right bag. The opposite is a flat grid that leaves the visitor to figure it out alone.
On the Ballet Alkenea page at the time of the review, whole bean, every grind and both K cup sizes showed as sold out. It may have been location related or a genuine stock out, and the add to cart option appeared to be back later. Either way the page had no alternative to offer.
Because it is where the choice should get easier and instead it gets harder. Ten coffees sit side by side with a name, a photo and a price, and nothing that says which is light, which is dark, or which suits a given brew method. A visitor has to open every page to compare.
Nothing, as branding. The problem is that they carry the whole decision. Heavy Torque and Corked On Caffeine are memorable to someone who already knows the range and meaningless to a first time visitor. The job of the coffee should sit alongside the name.
By borrowing from elsewhere in the range and labelling it clearly, for example feedback on the roaster overall or on a closely related blend. The audit is explicit that this must be done honestly, never by presenting other products' reviews as if they were for this bag.
No. It is a strategic prototype, not a finished design. It exists to show what a guided buying journey looks like in practice rather than describing it in the abstract. Plenty would change once implementation starts.
The current product page sells one bag at a time. The redesign adds quantity tiers with a saving, small add ons like K cups and the 248 experience attached to the main product, gift routing, and a build your own box. The aim is selling four things to one customer instead of waiting for four customers.
Yes. Subscription is already on the product page and the audit calls it out as a good decision and the industry standard for coffee. It was left out of one redesign screen for clarity only, and the recommendation is to keep it in place.
Because the cost of the visit is already spent by the time someone lands. If ads bring a visitor to a page that does not guide them, the money has bought a browse rather than an order. Fixing the journey once changes the return on every visit after that.
No, and the audit is direct about it. The homepage routes, the collection page narrows, the product page closes, and the quiz suggests. Changing one of them in isolation improves that page without moving conversion, because they only work as a connected sequence.
The recording runs 28 minutes. It covers the 248 Roasters homepage, the shop coffee collection page and a product page as they stand today, using a salesperson analogy to frame what a visitor experiences. It then walks through a redesigned homepage, collection page and product page, an interactive quiz and box builder, and the revenue calculator, before the next steps.
Related audits
More teardowns from the library.
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What's included
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5-minute video teardownA personalized walkthrough of your store, recorded by Eva.
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Homepage & PDP reviewWhere attention leaks and buyers hesitate.
-
Mobile UX audit70% of your traffic — judged on its own terms.
-
Trust & credibility checkThe signals that make first-time buyers convert.
-
Prioritized CRO roadmapRanked by impact vs. effort, ready to ship.