Mistakes That Cost Businesses Their First-Year Growth.

A few months ago, I was reviewing the campaigns of an incense 'traditional Arab Bakhor' brand.

The ads were working, traffic was coming in, people were engaging, products were getting added to cart consistently.

But sales? still disappointing.

At first, we thought the issue was:

❌ The creatives

❌ The targeting

❌ The product pricing

But after digging deeper into the funnel… We found the real problem.

Customers were reaching checkout… then leaving immediately after seeing the delivery fee.

In some cases, the shipping cost was higher than the product itself, and that completely broke the buying momentum. Imagine this:

A customer spends minutes browsing, chooses the scent, adds it to cart and gets emotionally ready to buy…

Then suddenly sees :“Shipping: 30 SAR” for a product worth less than that.

That moment kills trust instantly.

So instead of scaling ads blindly, we focused on fixing the experience first.

We worked on:

1️⃣ Restructuring delivery pricing

2️⃣ Adjusting bundle offers

3️⃣ Improving perceived product value

4️⃣ Optimizing the checkout flow

5️⃣ Making the total cost feel more reasonable before checkout

And the difference was immediate. The issue was never traffic, but it was friction.

One thing this case study reminded me:

Many businesses think they have a marketing problem, when they actually have a customer experience problem. Sometimes the campaign is working perfectly.

The system behind it is what’s leaking conversions.

Because no matter how good your ads are, unexpected friction at checkout will always destroy momentum.

What’s the biggest conversion killer you’ve seen in an online store?