What 200+ ecommerce leaders told us about their biggest blind spots
“We’re reactive—and we know it”: Why ecommerce teams still rely on customers to find website friction in 2025
If your ecommerce team still finds out about bugs from customers… you’re not alone.
At eTail Palm Springs and Shoptalk Las Vegas 2025, the Noibu team spoke with 200+ ecommerce leaders—from scaling DTC brands to billion-dollar retailers—to uncover how site issues are really being caught (and missed).
Despite advances in AI and automation, most ecommerce teams are still stuck in reactive mode—finding out about bugs from customers, not internal monitoring.
The result? Slower growth, brand risk, and lost revenue from undetected issues. This blog breaks down what’s holding teams back—and what leading brands are doing to get ahead.
Key findings: Where ecommerce operations are falling short
Our executive interviews revealed consistent and concerning trends:
“We know site bugs hurt our brand. But we often don’t see them until it’s too late—and when they do surface, it’s usually in a customer complaint or a social post.”
— Interviewed VP, Fashion Retailer
These aren’t small issues. In 2025, every site glitch is a customer experience risk—and increasingly, a reputational one.
Why ecommerce teams are still playing whack-a-mole with issues
If ecommerce brands know the stakes (and they do), why are so many still stuck reacting?
Three systemic blind spots emerged:
1. Reactive detection = constant firefighting
Most execs told us they want to be proactive—but lack the tooling to get there. Site monitoring is often basic, relying on uptime checks, Google Analytics, or tickets coming into support. That means issues only surface after they’ve disrupted the customer journey—or worse, gone viral.
“A customer flagged a bug that had been live for weeks. We thought everything was fine because no one had complained before that.”
— Director of Digital, Home Goods Brand
2. Manual QA still dominates
Many teams continue to rely on manual walkthroughs of their website every morning—literally clicking through pages to catch visible bugs. While this shows ownership and effort, it’s time-consuming, imprecise, and unsustainable at scale.
“Our team walks the site daily. But we can’t test every flow, every browser, every promo variant. Things still slip through—and we often don’t know until conversion drops.”
— Ecommerce Manager, Apparel Brand
3. Fragmented ownership = slower fixes
Website issues don’t neatly belong to one team. A bug might originate in engineering, be surfaced by support, noticed by marketing (when campaign conversions plummet), and ultimately affect CX. But without a centralized monitoring and ownership system, issues fall between the cracks.
“Bugs affect every team—but no team fully owns them. That’s our biggest risk right now.”
— Head of Digital Experience, Luxury Retailer
The cost of staying reactive
Being reactive is not just inefficient—it’s expensive. Here’s what slow detection and resolution really costs ecommerce brands:
What best-in-class ecommerce teams are doing differently
While most brands are still reactive, a growing minority are setting a new standard by investing in proactive error monitoring and cross-functional accountability.
These brands share five traits:
- Always-on monitoring of real customer sessions to surface bugs automatically.
- Error prioritization frameworks that link bugs to conversion and revenue impact.
- Cross-team collaboration, with clear SLAs for bug resolution.
- Social and support channels treated as early-warning systems (not just complaint inboxes).
- A cultural shift where reliability is treated like a core feature, not an afterthought.
“We went from playing whack-a-mole to knowing exactly which issues are costing us money—and fixing them fast.”
— Sr. Ecommerce Director, Furniture Brand
Takeaway for ecommerce leaders
Your website is your storefront, your funnel, and your reputation—all rolled into one.
In 2025, bugs aren’t just a tech issue. They’re a strategic risk.
If your team still finds out about bugs from customers, it’s time to shift from reactive mode to proactive protection.
Start by asking:
- Do we know what errors customers are hitting right now?
- Are we tracking the revenue impact of site issues?
- Are bugs being prioritized by business value—or just urgency?
- Are we still relying on manual QA to catch what automation should flag?
If not, you’re not alone. But the brands that answer “yes” to these questions? They’re the ones outperforming the competition.
