Here's the number nobody puts on the homepage: the average ecommerce brand now loses about $29 on a new customer's first order.

Ad costs are up 40 to 60% since 2023, so that first sale is often underwater. You only turn a profit on the second order, and most stores are not built to make it happen.

When I look at an underperforming store, this is the first thing I check: is there anything that actually brings someone back? A reorder path, a subscription that isn't buried, a post-purchase flow, an email capture that isn't an afterthought. If not, more ad spend just means losing money faster.

You don't have a traffic problem. You have a second-order problem.

What are you doing to make the first sale pay off?