Why Your Website Is Too Complicated (And How To Fix It)

After building over 200 Shopify stores, Ben Sharf has discovered that nearly every e-commerce brand—whether doing $1 million or $50 million annually—describes their website as a source of frustration rather than growth. In this episode, we explore why complexity has become the norm and exactly how to fix it.

Ben, co-founder of Platter, shares insights from working with brands that have accumulated technical debt through widget overload, deleted apps that leave code behind, and convoluted customer journeys that kill conversions. We dig into his three-part simplification framework, the power of cart drawers over cart pages, and why revenue per visitor matters more than you think.

Key Point Timestamps:

05:00 - Why e-commerce websites frustrate every brand

09:30 - The widget overload problem destroying your site speed

14:20 - Deleted apps leave code behind (and slow you down)

17:40 - The three-part simplification framework

22:30 - Revenue per visitor: the metric you're not tracking

31:00 - How to optimize clicks to purchase

35:40 - Mobile simplification mistakes killing conversions

Why E-commerce Websites Frustrate Every Brand (05:00)

Ben's journey into e-commerce infrastructure began at GoPuff, where he built an instant delivery business unit. Whilst partnering with brands of all sizes, he encountered the same pattern repeatedly: every single brand had a horror story about their website.

"E-commerce is literally selling a product on the internet," Ben reflects. "Why is the main thing the most frustrating thing for every brand out there?"

The answer lies in how traditional development agencies operate. When agencies get paid for their time, they're incentivised to make things expensive and complicated. This creates an industry-wide problem where brands pay enormous sums for solutions that should be straightforward, resulting in websites burdened by excessive code, countless third-party apps, and convoluted customer journeys.

The Widget Overload Problem (09:30)

One of the biggest contributors to website complexity is what Ben calls "widget overload"—the tendency to add small applications for every specific functionality.

"A lot of these apps are features, not products," Ben explains. "If you piece a million together, you end up having a lot of different single points of failure within your storefront."

The Shopify app ecosystem, whilst brilliant for getting started, creates a temptation to solve every problem by installing another app. Before long, brands find themselves managing dozens of applications, each adding code to their storefront, each creating potential conflicts.

Ben shares a typical scenario: "We'll talk to a brand doing $20 million on their storefront. Over the last seven years, they've had five different agencies, seven different freelancers, and 150 apps installed and deleted—all on the same storefront. What do you think happens when the next person tries to go in and touch that? It's just a spider web."

The Hidden Code Problem (14:20)

Here's something most brand owners don't know: when you delete a Shopify app, the code it injected into your storefront doesn't disappear. It stays there, silently slowing down your site and creating technical debt that compounds over time.

This revelation shocked many listeners, but it explains why sites become progressively slower even when brands think they're cleaning up by removing unused apps. The orphaned code remains, affecting page speed and creating a tangled web of potential conflicts.

The Three-Part Simplification Framework (17:40)

Ben's approach to escaping the complexity trap centres on three core principles: consolidation, clarity, and customer-centricity.

Consolidation Over Accumulation: Rather than adding another app for every need, Ben advocates for consolidating functionality. Platter's solution was to build a comprehensive Shopify theme and app that handles most common functionality brands require. "It requires less custom code, less third-party apps, but still gets you to the same place," Ben explains.

Clarity in Customer Journeys: Ben has a brilliantly simple test for evaluating website clarity: "Give your website to a seven-year-old and a 90-year-old and see what happens." This idiot-proof test reveals whether your site is truly intuitive or just obvious to you because you use it every day.

Customer-Centricity Through Data: Count the number of clicks it takes to make a purchase on your website. If you have a hero product that accounts for 95% of sales, why force customers through multiple pages? Put a buy now button directly on the homepage.

Revenue Per Visitor: The Overlooked Metric (22:30)

Ben champions a metric that few brands track but should: revenue per visitor.

"It's a little different than average order value, which is just how much is being spent," Ben explains. "And it's a little different from conversion rate, which is how many people are actually buying. It's how much is being spent by the person who is buying."

This metric matters because it captures the combined effect of conversion optimisation and order value maximisation. If your revenue per visitor increases, you know multiple things are working well together.

Ben also emphasises using cohort analysis for setting thresholds. One brand was selling accessories at $25 and $75, but had their free shipping threshold at $60. "You have to look at the maths of your cohort data to know where you should actually put that number," Ben notes. The threshold should be at $74 or $75 to incentivise the higher-value purchase.

Optimizing Clicks to Purchase (31:00)

One specific simplification Ben champions is using a cart drawer instead of a separate cart page. When a customer clicks "add to cart," a slide-out drawer appears showing cart contents and checkout options—without loading a new page.

"One hundred percent of our brands use a cart drawer mechanism," Ben shares. This approach reduces friction by eliminating an extra page load whilst creating opportunities for upsells and cross-sells without disrupting the shopping flow.

For brands with impulse purchase products and hero products in their catalogue, Ben recommends adding buy now CTAs on the homepage or collection page using quick view modals. This reduces friction and the amount of time and energy that goes into spending money on that product.

Mobile Simplification (35:40)

With most shopping happening on mobile devices, simplification becomes even more critical. Ben sees brands making two common mistakes: under-utilising horizontal scroll and tolerating slow page speeds.

"Nothing drives me crazier than when you have a collection and you're scrolling vertically to see everything," Ben shares. "There's so much real estate you can uncover by leveraging horizontal behaviors—both from image carousels on product pages, collection pages, and featured products."

On mobile, page speed matters exponentially more because exits happen faster. People are doom-scrolling, impulse-buying, and have zero patience. Every fraction of a second counts.

Today's Guest

Today's guest: Ben Sharf

Company: Platter

Website: platter.com

LinkedIn: Connect with Ben on LinkedIn