How to Increase Sales & Grow Your Shopify Store with 10% Wins
In the race to grow sales, it’s tempting to search for a magic bullet to solve everything overnight. But having helped hundreds of store owners scale up, we recommend focusing on improving 7 key business metrics by just 10% each to double your profits. Here we outline how it works step by step.
While it was already mainstream, online shopping has been turbocharged by the pandemic with more Australian households buying online, and more often, than ever recorded. For online retailers, this has created both a massive opportunity as well as increased competition.
Tactics like discounts, large ad spends and seasonal promotions can work to spike your sales short term, however the holy grail of a valuable ecommerce business is steady long-term growth driven by a series of continuous optimisations.
That’s why in our Growth program, we use the proven 7 Levers Framework for Ecommerce to drive consistent and sustainable growth. Over a period of 15 years, we’ve built 400+ stores on Shopify and Shopify Plus, collecting over 200+ verified reviews.
What is The 7 Levers Framework for ecommerce?
Created by best-selling author and entrepreneur Pete Williams, the framework outlines a focused process of rapid experimentation, data-driven testing and iteration across 7 key areas of your ecommerce business to achieve long term growth.
By lifting each key lever by just 10%, the compounding effect can double your profit over time, and create a sustainable and consistent approach to long-term growth.
7 levers of ecommerce growth to increase sales and grow your Shopify store
The framework specifies 7 metrics to measure and optimise:
1. Suspects: Visitors to your product pages from Google, social media and other sources
2. Prospects: People who show intent to buy, by adding a product to their cart for example
3. Conversions: Visitors who complete a purchase and become customers
4. Average Item Price: The average price your products or services are sold for
5. Average Items per Sale: The average number of products purchased in each transaction
6. Transactions per customer: How often customers make repeat purchases
7. Margins: Your overall profit margin of all sales as a percentage
So, where to start? It is important to note that The 7 Levers Framework is not a linear process. Where you focus first will depend on your analytics and business priorities. We recommend you analyse the data for each lever, and start where you find the quickest wins before moving to the next after a three month optimisation period.
For example, you may have strong traffic, but poor conversion rates. Or you may sell multiple items per transaction, but have low repeat purchases. The analytics will tell you where to focus first for the biggest return. Then it’s a matter of consistently pulling the levers.
Become data-driven to better understand your ecommerce customer journey and identify improvements. Curate data from all the sources such as your in-built Shopify Analytics, Google Analytics, email marketing provider (Klaviyo, DotDigital and so on) and Hotjar recordings and heatmaps.
If you’re planning to launch a new online store, then it’s best to embed best practice features for all 7 levers from the start. If you already have a Shopify store running, then the next step is to analyse each lever to get a baseline of where you are today.
Need help growing your Shopify store? Let's talk
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I increase sales on my Shopify store?
Focus on small improvements across the entire customer journey. A 10% improvement in traffic, conversion rate, average order value, and purchase frequency compounds into significant revenue growth. Specific tactics include improving product pages, adding upsells and cross-sells, implementing abandoned cart recovery, optimising for mobile, and building an email marketing program.
What is the 10% wins framework for ecommerce?
The 10% wins framework (also called the 7 Levers) is an ecommerce growth model that identifies the key variables driving revenue. By improving each lever by just 10% — traffic, conversion rate, average order value, purchase frequency — the compounding effect delivers significantly more than 10% total revenue growth. It shifts focus from one big initiative to consistent, measurable improvements across the business.
How do I increase my Shopify average order value?
Proven tactics include product bundling, free shipping thresholds (set just above your current AOV), upsells and cross-sells on product and cart pages, volume discounts, and loyalty program incentives. Post-purchase upsells are particularly effective — customers who've just bought are more receptive to complementary offers. Test one tactic at a time and measure the impact.
Why is my Shopify store not getting sales?
Common reasons include insufficient or low-quality traffic, poor product-market fit, weak product pages (bad photos, thin descriptions), slow page load times, lack of trust signals (reviews, security badges), complicated checkout process, and no marketing strategy beyond the store itself. Use analytics to identify where in the funnel customers drop off, then fix the biggest leak first.
Written by
Andrew is the founder of The Hope Factory, a Shopify Premier Partner based in Melbourne. Over 15 years he has built 450+ Shopify stores for brands including Sennheiser, Patagonia, and Jo Mercer. Read more →