From Brand Alignment to Basket Logic: The Real CRO Hierarchy
Conversion rate optimisation has become a bit of a catch-all label. Anything even slightly “website-y” tends to get thrown in: copy changes, colour tweaks, UX fixes, exit pop ups, even which apps you install.
When The Bottle Club’s Head of Ecom, Tim Martin-Harvey, said “There are so many things you need to optimise before CRO becomes a problem”, he wasn’t playing down CRO. He was talking about the order of work that actually moves the needle.
CRO isn’t a single tactic. It’s the result you see when everything else is aligned.
Brand alignment: why people even bother clicking
By the time someone adds to basket, they’ve already decided whether they trust you.
Brand alignment is the subtle layer that builds or erodes that trust. Photography, tone of voice and how products are presented do more than look good. They tell people whether you’re credible, and whether this feels like a brand for “people like me”.
If the brand feels off, changing a button colour won’t fix it. It just makes the doubt a bit prettier.
Proposition clarity: what they think they are buying
Most people don’t leave because of a tiny UX issue. They leave because they’re not quite sure what you stand for.
Are you premium or value? Fast or thoughtful? Functional or more about aesthetics? If your site can’t answer those questions in a few seconds, people will head elsewhere.
So before you worry about form fields or microcopy, make sure the value proposition is clear, consistent and easy to grasp. People should be able to say, “I get what this brand is about” after a quick scroll.
Product structure: how the store thinks
This is where merchandising turns into strategy.
As Tim pointed out, if the right products never surface, you’re not giving customers a fair chance to buy. Product logic is UX. It’s the structure that makes browsing feel straightforward rather than like hard work.
Categories, filters and search should mirror how your customers shop. Not how your ERP spits out SKUs or how your internal teams are organised. If it feels logical to them, everything else gets easier.
Price and perception: the real test of value
If your pricing doesn’t match your positioning, design tweaks won’t help you.
CRO tactics can’t fix a gap between what people think they’re paying for and what they actually get. That gap is where doubt creeps in and conversions stall.
Perception isn’t just the price on the page. It’s the story, anchoring and context you build around that number, and whether it feels fair for the promise you’re making. When those two line up, people feel more confident hitting “checkout”.
Basket logic & friction: where most brands finally start looking
By the time you’re tweaking the cart or testing CTAs, you’re working on the last few percent of optimisation.
It’s still worthwhile work, but it’s marginal compared to getting the earlier layers right. This is where mainstream CRO usually starts. It only really delivers if brand, proposition, structure and pricing are already in good shape.
If those pieces are shaky, no amount of “add to cart” testing will make the experience feel right.
Tim’s frustration with CRO culture is simple. Many brands start at the bottom of the hierarchy, not the top. They treat conversion as a surface issue when most of the work is strategic.
Every decision you make, from brand through to fulfilment, shapes conversion. The button colour is just punctuation.
This article is part of our Open Tabs series, where we talk to founders about the realities of running an ecommerce business day to day. Watch the full episode with Tim from The Bottle Club here.
