A Love Soaping Co CRO Audit
A CRO audit of a handmade soap store whose homepage shows two collections and no path to the right bar, with a redesign built around a quiz, a set builder and product pages that actually sell.
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What we found.
A Love Soaping Co sells handmade soap bars at a price that is easy to understand, with two distinct bar types, seasonal bars that already exist and gift sets that suit the season ahead. Our CRO strategist was clear that the product is not the weak point. The collection page already has some good elements, and the store has everything it needs to build sets and seasonal features without making anything new.
The core problem is that the website does not try to sell. A new visitor lands on the homepage and is not told who the soap is for, what makes it different or why they should trust the maker. Below that sit two collections and nothing else, so there is no guided path and no way to find a bar that matches a skin type or a preference. The visitor is left to do all of the exploring alone.
The same pattern repeats on every page. The collection page is a grid of images, names and prices with no hint of which bar suits which purpose. The product page shows a name, a price, a shop button and a long description, then a you may also like row. Nothing answers the questions about returns, ingredients or whether the bar is handmade, and nothing encourages a second or a sixth bar in the cart.
The redesign gives each page one duty. The homepage builds trust and opens with a find your bar quiz, the collection page helps the visitor choose, and the product page removes hesitation with reassurances, pairings and a free shipping bar. A set builder sells three or six bars in one order. The idea to remember is simple: sell six bars to one customer instead of waiting for six customers to each buy one.
Problem, opportunity, impact
The site works as a catalog. The homepage answers none of the three questions a new visitor asks, the collection page is a grid of names and prices, and the product page offers a long description and an add to cart button.
A store that greets each visitor with a question, guides them to the right bar, sells three or six bars as a set instead of one, and uses the maker's story, ingredients and reassurances to earn trust before the add to cart button.
More first-time visitors find a bar that fits them, more of them buy a set of three or six rather than a single bar, and fewer leave the product page with open questions about returns, ingredients and
Scored across five dimensions.
Five dimensions, each scored out of ten.
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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.
Every issue, paired with its fix.
13 issues found, 18 fixes proposed.
Homepage Answers None Of The Three Buyer Questions
A first-time visitor is not told who the soap is for, what it is or why they should trust the people behind it. Those are the first three things a conversion-focused homepage has to settle, and the current page settles none of them.
Only Two Collections And No Guided Path
Below the top of the homepage the visitor sees two collections and nothing else. There is no user journey, no route by need or skin type, and no reason to keep scrolling rather than leave.
No Way To Find A Bar By Need
The store has no quiz, filter or recommendation of any kind. A shopper who wants a bar for a specific purpose has to open the collection, scan the whole grid and guess, which is where our CRO strategist expects most of them to give up.
Collection Page Is A Grid Of Names And Prices
Each tile shows an image, a product name and a price. Nothing says what the bar does, who it suits or why it exists, so the page gives the shopper no reason to feel confident that any one bar will work for them.
Nothing Explains The Difference Between The Two Bar Types
The store sells two kinds of bar, including the sea salt bars, but nowhere does the site explain how they differ or help a shopper pick between them. The comparison work is pushed entirely onto the visitor.
Product Page Is Name, Price And A Long Description
The product page shows the name, the price, the shop option, a long block of description and a you may also like row. It describes the bar instead of removing hesitation and convincing the shopper to buy.
No Reassurances About Returns, Ingredients Or Handmade
People are trusting this soap with their skin, yet the product page does not answer what the ingredients are, whether the bar is handmade or what happens if it does not suit them. The add to cart button is expected to do all the work.
Nothing Lifts The Order Beyond A Single Bar
There is no set, no bundle, no pairing and no free shipping threshold anywhere on the site. Every path ends with one bar in the cart, so average order value stays at the price of a single bar.
The Maker Is Absent From The Site
Handmade soap sells on the person who makes it, but the current site never introduces Maria or tells the story behind the bars. The audit team could not even find a photo of the maker to use in the redesign.
Seasonal Bars And Gift Sets Are Not Surfaced
The store already has seasonal products and gift sets, and the gifting season is approaching, yet neither is given a place on the homepage. Products that could carry a campaign are left buried in the catalog.
No Reviews Or Trust Signals Anywhere
The homepage, collection page and product page all run without reviews, trust sections or FAQs. Our CRO strategist noted the store may not have reviews yet, which makes the absence of any other trust building more costly.
The Site Assumes The Visitor Already Knows The Products
The owner visits the store many times a day and knows where everything is. A new visitor knows nothing, and the site makes no effort to educate them about the bars before asking them to buy.
The Store Behaves Like A Catalog, Not A Salesperson
Across every page the site shows what is available and stops. There is no equivalent of a shop assistant asking how they can help, which is exactly what a conversion-focused store has to do.
Answer Who, What And Why Trust Above The Fold
Rewrite the top of the homepage so a stranger immediately learns who the bars are for, what makes them different and why the maker can be trusted. Those three answers come before any collection link.
Add A Find Your Bar Quiz As The Main Call To Action
Make find your bar the primary button on the homepage. It should open a short quiz that asks a few questions and recommends specific bars, acting as the digital version of a shop assistant asking how they can help.
Send Social Traffic Straight To The Quiz Page
Treat the quiz as a landing page in its own right. Promotions on social media can point directly at it, so paid and organic visitors arrive at a page that qualifies them and hands them a recommendation.
Build Guided Paths For The Two Bar Types
Replace the two bare collection links with a section that frames the choice as two kinds of bar, one easy decision, explains what the sea salt bars and the second type are for, and still offers a link to explore everything.
Feature The Most Loved Bars On The Homepage
Add an our most loved products section so visitors who do not want to take a quiz still get a short, curated starting point instead of the full grid.
Add A Pick Three Or Pick Six Set Builder
Build a page where the shopper chooses three or six bars of their own preference, sees the saving per bar at each tier and adds the whole set to the bag at once. Give it a dedicated section on the homepage.
Explain Why A Handmade Bar Is Worth Eight Dollars
Add a section that justifies the price in plain terms: what goes into a handmade bar, how it is made and why that matters for the skin. This turns the price from a question into a reason.
Introduce The Maker With A Real Photo And Story
Replace the stock image in the concept with a genuine photo of Maria and a short story of how the soap came to be. For a handmade brand this is one of the strongest trust sections the homepage can carry.
Give Seasonal Bars And Gift Sets Their Own Sections
Add a this season section for the bars the store already makes and a separate gift set section ahead of the gifting season. Nothing new needs to be produced, only presented so it can be found.
Rebuild The Collection Page Around Use Cases
Show each bar with its category, its use case and a one-line summary, so the collection page does the job of helping the visitor find the right product rather than listing names and prices.
Let Shoppers Sort And Filter By Their Own Needs
Add sorting and filtering on the collection page so a visitor can narrow the bars by what they want rather than reading every tile and holding comparisons in their head.
Add A Bar Comparison And FAQs To The Collection Page
Below the grid, explain the difference between the sea salt bars and the second bar type, then answer the common questions and add a trust section so the page closes doubts instead of raising them.
Tag Each Product With Visual Cues At The Top
Open every product page with tags and visual cues that say at a glance what the bar is for, followed by the name and its reviews, so the shopper understands the product before reading a word of description.
Answer Returns, Ingredients And Handmade On Every Product Page
Place reassurances beside the add to cart button covering returns, whether the bar is handmade and what the ingredients are. These are the exact hesitations someone has before trusting a new soap on their skin.
Add Why You Will Love It And Is This The Right Bar Sections
Below the buy area, add a section on the benefits of the bar and another that helps the shopper decide whether it is right for them. The page should keep selling after the button, not stop at it.
Show Pairings With An Add All Three Button
Tell the shopper which three bars pair well with the one they are viewing and let them add all three in one click, with room to add more to reach free shipping.
Add A Free Shipping Bar That Fills In Real Time
Set a free shipping threshold and show progress toward it on the product page and in the cart, so each added bar visibly moves the shopper closer to the reward.
Plan How Reviews Will Be Shown Before Launch
Decide how the review slots on the collection and product pages will be filled if the store has few reviews today, rather than leaving them empty. Our CRO strategist flagged this as a point to settle on the call.
The version we'd build.
The teardown in 7 lines.
- The product is not the problem; the site simply never tries to convince anyone to buy it.
- A homepage has to answer who the soap is for, what it is and why to trust the maker before it shows a single collection.
- A find your bar quiz does the job a shop assistant does in a physical store, and it works as a landing page for social traffic.
- A collection page exists to help people choose, not to list names and prices in a grid.
- People trust soap with their skin, so returns, ingredients and handmade claims belong beside the add to cart button.
- A pick three or pick six set builder sells six bars to one customer instead of waiting for six customers.
- Every page gets one duty: the homepage builds trust, the collection page guides, and the product page removes hesitation.
Questions this audit answers.
The site presents products but does not sell them. The homepage answers none of the basic questions a new visitor has, the collection page is a grid of names and prices, and the product page is a description with an add to cart button. The audit calls this behaving like a catalog.
No. Our CRO strategist was explicit that the products are strong. The gap is in discovery and convincing. Visitors cannot find the bar that fits them and are given no reason to feel confident it will work, so they leave.
Who is this for, what is it, and can I trust these people. The audit treats answering those three at the top of the homepage as the first rule of a conversion-focused store, and the current homepage answers none of them.
It is the main call to action in the redesign. The visitor answers a few questions and is shown the bars that suit them, which replaces scanning the whole grid. It also works as a destination for social media promotions, so paid traffic lands on a page that recommends a product.
Shoppers pick three or six bars of their own choice, see the saving per bar at each tier and add the whole set in one go. The point is to sell several bars to one customer instead of waiting for several customers to each buy one.
Each bar is shown with its category, its use case, a short summary and reviews. Visitors can sort and filter by their own needs, and the page explains the difference between the two bar types and answers common questions, so it guides a choice rather than listing products.
The page opens with tags and visual cues, the name and reviews, then reassurances about returns, ingredients and handmade production beside the buy button. Below that it explains why the shopper will love the bar, whether it is right for them, which bars pair with it, and shows progress toward free shipping.
The audit does not recommend leaving the review slots empty. Our CRO strategist noted there are workable ways to fill them and set this aside as a point to agree on during the call rather than guess at in the video.
Handmade soap is bought on trust in the person who makes it. A section introducing the maker with a real photo and story, and another explaining why a handmade bar is worth its eight dollar price, turn two silent gaps into reasons to buy.
No. The store already has seasonal bars and gift sets. The audit recommends giving them their own homepage sections ahead of the gifting season, so existing products become easy to find instead of sitting inside the catalog.
No. It is a strategic redesign concept put together by the design team to show what the store could look like if the fixes are made. It is not a working site, and the stock photo of the maker would be replaced with a real one during implementation.
The recording runs about nineteen minutes. It walks through the current homepage, collection page and product page, then presents the redesign concept covering the homepage, the find your bar quiz, the set builder, the collection page and the product page, before closing with next steps.
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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.
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Mobile UX audit70% of your traffic — judged on its own terms.
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Trust & credibility checkThe signals that make first-time buyers convert.
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Prioritized CRO roadmapRanked by impact vs. effort, ready to ship.