The five-second test: what a stranger sees on your store

Why five seconds

First-time visitors decide very quickly whether a store looks worth their time. You cannot see your own store the way they do, because you already know what it sells. The five-second test borrows someone else's eyes.

How to run it

• Find three people who have never seen your store.
• Open your homepage on a phone and hand it to them for five seconds.
• Take the phone back and ask three questions: What does this store sell? Who is it for? What would you tap first?
• Write down their exact words.

Reading the results

If they cannot say what you sell, your headline and first image are not doing their job. If they describe the wrong customer, your photography or tone is off. If they do not know what to tap, your main button is competing with too many other things.

Fix whichever of the three failed first. It is nearly always something on the first screen, which means it is nearly always a small change.

Run it again

After you change something, test with three new people. The people from the first round now know too much to be useful.