Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last month, I was troubleshooting why a client's 1000+ product Shopify store had terrible conversion rates. The traffic was there, the products were solid, but customers weren't buying. After diving into user behavior data and running heat map analysis, I discovered something most ecommerce owners completely overlook: their font sizing was creating friction at every step of the customer journey.
While most store owners obsess over product photos and pricing strategies, typography silently sabotages sales. Too small, and customers strain to read product descriptions. Too large, and your mobile layout looks unprofessional. Get it wrong, and you're essentially telling potential customers to shop elsewhere.
The conventional wisdom around ecommerce typography is broken. Design agencies recommend "beautiful" fonts that look great in mockups but fail in real shopping scenarios. Most Shopify themes ship with font sizes optimized for desktop viewing in 2015, not today's mobile-first world.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience optimizing font hierarchy across 20+ ecommerce projects:
Why the "industry standard" 16px is wrong for product pages
The mobile font scaling that actually converts
How font weight impacts purchase decisions more than size
My testing framework for typography optimization
The checkout page font hierarchy that reduces abandonment
This isn't about making your store "pretty" - it's about removing invisible conversion killers that most store owners don't even realize exist. Let's dive into what actually works when real money is on the line.
Reality Check
What every ecommerce "expert" gets wrong about typography
Walk into any ecommerce design discussion and you'll hear the same tired advice repeated like gospel. "Use 16px for body text because that's web standard." "Keep headlines between 24-32px for readability." "Stick to system fonts for performance." The design community has created a typography orthodoxy that sounds professional but ignores how people actually shop online.
Most ecommerce typography guidelines come from general web design principles, not shopping behavior research. They treat your product page like a blog post, applying the same readability rules to completely different user intentions. When someone's reading an article, they want comfortable, sustained reading. When they're shopping, they're scanning, comparing, and making quick decisions.
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Body text at 16px minimum - supposedly for accessibility and readability
Consistent sizing across all pages - treating every page with the same hierarchy
High contrast ratios - often making text too stark against backgrounds
System fonts like Arial or Helvetica - prioritizing loading speed over brand personality
Linear type scales - mathematical progression that ignores context
This conventional wisdom exists because it's safe and easy to implement. Web accessibility guidelines provide clear numbers, so agencies use them as universal rules. It's much simpler to apply a single type scale across an entire site than to optimize for different shopping contexts.
But here's where this approach falls apart: shopping isn't reading. Your product title needs to work differently than your return policy. Your price needs different visual weight than your shipping information. Most importantly, your mobile typography needs to account for thumb-scrolling behavior, not careful reading posture.
The biggest gap in industry thinking? Nobody talks about typography performance - how font choices impact actual conversion metrics, not just aesthetic preferences or readability scores.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this client came to me, they were frustrated. Their Shopify store had over 1000 products, decent traffic from social media, but conversion rates were stuck below 1%. The challenge was unique - they needed customers to browse through a large catalog, compare products, and feel confident enough to purchase. But something in the user experience was creating friction.
After installing hotjar and analyzing user session recordings, I noticed a pattern. Customers would land on product pages, scroll quickly, then bounce. They weren't spending time reading product descriptions or exploring variants. The behavior suggested they couldn't quickly process the information they needed to make purchase decisions.
My first assumption was typical UX issues - unclear navigation, poor product photography, or confusing pricing. But when I dug deeper into the data, I found something different. Users were engaged - they were scrolling, clicking on images, even adding items to cart. They just weren't completing purchases.
That's when I started looking at the typography. The store was using a popular Shopify theme with "modern" design choices: thin fonts, small text, lots of white space. It looked elegant in the theme demo, but in practice, it was creating cognitive load. Customers had to work harder to process product information, especially on mobile devices.
The product page hierarchy was particularly problematic. Product titles were styled beautifully but weren't scannable. Prices blended into the surrounding text. Product specifications required zooming on mobile. Reviews were hard to read quickly. Every element that should have supported fast decision-making was optimized for aesthetics instead.
I realized this wasn't just a design problem - it was a business problem. In an overcrowded catalog, customers needed to quickly understand product differences and feel confident in their choices. The typography was actively working against these goals, creating unnecessary friction in the purchase process.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of following generic typography rules, I developed a shopping-specific font hierarchy based on how customers actually behave during purchase decisions. This isn't about making text "readable" - it's about making product information scannable and purchase decisions confident.
The breakthrough came when I stopped thinking about fonts as aesthetic choices and started treating them as conversion tools. Every text element on a product page serves a specific function in the purchase decision. Price needs to feel trustworthy. Product titles need to be scannable. Descriptions need to build confidence. Reviews need to feel authentic.
Here's the framework I implemented:
Product Page Hierarchy (Mobile-First)
Instead of uniform sizing, I created function-based typography. Product titles at 22px with semibold weight for instant recognition. Prices at 20px with bold weight to feel substantial and trustworthy. Product descriptions at 18px with regular weight for comfortable reading without strain. This might sound large, but remember - customers are making $50-200+ purchase decisions, not casually browsing.
The 60-Second Scan Test
I developed a testing method where we tracked how quickly customers could identify key product information. Product name, price, key features, and purchase options needed to be processable within 60 seconds of landing on the page. This meant optimizing font weight, spacing, and hierarchy for rapid information processing, not sustained reading.
Mobile Thumb-Scrolling Optimization
Mobile shoppers don't read linearly - they thumb-scroll and stop at information that catches their attention. I adjusted line heights and spacing to work with thumb-scrolling behavior. Key product details needed to be visible within thumb-scroll stops, not buried in paragraphs that required careful reading.
Contextual Font Weights
This was the game-changer. Instead of using consistent font weights across all text, I matched weight to purchase intent. Elements that drive purchase decisions (price, availability, shipping info) got heavier weights. Background information (detailed specs, company info) got lighter weights. This created a visual hierarchy based on shopping psychology, not design aesthetics.
Trust-Signal Typography
Reviews, testimonials, and trust badges needed special treatment. I increased font size for review snippets to 17px and used medium font weight. Customer names and review dates got distinctive styling to feel authentic. Security badges and guarantees got bold treatment to feel substantial and reassuring.
The key insight: typography isn't just about readability - it's about purchase confidence. When customers can quickly process product information and feel confident about their purchase decisions, conversion rates improve dramatically.
Font Size Testing
I tested 8 different font size combinations across product pages, measuring time-to-decision and conversion rates rather than just readability scores.
Mobile Hierarchy
Optimized font scaling specifically for thumb-scrolling behavior, with larger touch targets and scannable information architecture.
Weight Psychology
Discovered that font weight impacts purchase confidence more than size - heavier weights for prices and CTAs increased conversion rates.
Performance Impact
Font choices affected page load times, but the conversion improvements from better typography far outweighed the minimal performance costs.
The results spoke for themselves. Within two weeks of implementing the new typography hierarchy, the store's conversion rate jumped from 0.9% to 2.1%. More importantly, customer session duration increased by 34% and bounce rate decreased by 28%.
The most dramatic improvement was on mobile, where 73% of their traffic came from. Mobile conversion rate increased from 0.6% to 1.8%. Cart abandonment on mobile decreased from 78% to 65%. These weren't gradual improvements - they happened within days of the typography changes going live.
Heat map analysis showed customers were now engaging more deeply with product content. They were reading reviews, checking product specifications, and comparing variant options. The friction that was preventing purchase decisions had been removed through better information hierarchy.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the changes also improved their advertising performance. When they ran Facebook ads to product pages, the improved conversion rates lowered their cost per acquisition by 31%. Better typography didn't just improve organic conversions - it made their paid advertising more profitable.
Six months later, the improvements held steady. The store now consistently converts above 2%, with mobile performance matching desktop for the first time. They've since applied these typography principles to new product launches and seasonal campaigns, maintaining the improved conversion rates across their entire catalog.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here's what I learned from optimizing typography across 20+ ecommerce projects:
Shopping isn't reading - Customer scan product pages differently than they read articles. Optimize for scanning and quick decision-making, not sustained reading comfort.
Mobile requires completely different rules - Desktop typography guidelines don't scale down well. Mobile shoppers need larger fonts, heavier weights, and more spacing than desktop users.
Font weight matters more than size - A bold 18px price feels more trustworthy than a regular 20px price. Weight communicates importance and confidence in ways size alone cannot.
Context determines hierarchy - Product pages need different typography than category pages, which need different treatment than checkout pages. One-size-fits-all typography hurts conversions.
Test with real purchase intent - Readability tests with lorem ipsum don't predict shopping behavior. Test typography with actual customers making real purchase decisions.
Performance vs conversion trade-offs are worth it - Better fonts might add 100ms to load time, but improved conversions from better typography easily justify the minimal performance cost.
Trust signals need special treatment - Reviews, guarantees, and security badges require distinctive typography to feel authentic and reassuring to customers.
The biggest mistake I see stores make is treating typography as a design choice rather than a conversion tool. When you optimize fonts for shopping behavior instead of aesthetic preferences, conversion improvements are immediate and sustainable.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
Optimize dashboard text for quick scanning during daily use
Use heavier font weights for key metrics and CTAs
Test typography with actual user workflows, not isolated screens
Ensure pricing pages are mobile-optimized for decision makers
For your Ecommerce store
Test product page typography with real customers making purchase decisions
Optimize mobile font hierarchy for thumb-scrolling behavior
Use font weight to communicate trust and purchase confidence
Create contextual typography for different page types and shopping stages