Most "must have feature" lists just describe the default theme
Most "must have features" lists are just a description of the default theme. Here are the eight that actually move numbers, and what happens when each one is missing.
Product pages that answer the objection, not just describe the product
Sizing, materials, what it does not do, cautions where they apply. Every unanswered question becomes a return or an abandoned cart.Filtering that matches how people decide
Customers do not shop your category tree. They shop by goal, constraint, budget or dietary need. If your filters mirror your admin structure, your search is doing nothing for you.Value clarity at the moment of comparison
Price per unit, what is in the bundle, what shipping will cost. Ambiguity at comparison time is where the session ends.Reviews and Q&A on the page, not behind a tab nobody opens
Q&A does double duty. It converts, and it tells you exactly which product page copy is failing.Accounts and reorder that actually work
Order history, saved details, one-tap repeat purchase. For consumables this is most of your repeat revenue, and it is usually the most broken thing on the site.Speed on a real phone on a real network
Not a lab score. Mid-tier Android, cellular connection, cold cache.Content your team can change without a developer
Banners, guides, FAQs, seasonal sets. If a promo needs a developer ticket, you will quietly stop running promos.Analytics you trust before you optimise anything
Clean events across search, product page, cart and checkout. Optimising on broken tracking is worse than not optimising at all.
One nuance most lists miss: the weighting is not universal. A high-value, one-of-a-kind catalog inverts it. GetDevDone built the store for The Satice, an antique jewellery brand where every piece is unique, from Victorian bangles to individual sapphire rings. There, brand identity and visual hierarchy carried the work, because giving each piece room and building the page around detailed provenance is what turns a browser into a buyer. Filtering and reorder matter far less when there is exactly one of each item.
So before you build against any checklist, decide which of your products the site has to sell hardest. Then weight accordingly.