Most checkout conversion gains come from removing friction, not adding persuasion. The five fixes behind the 38% lift in this post’s title are guest checkout, fewer form fields, total costs shown early, the right local payment methods and clear trust cues. The 38% was one store’s result measured over 90 days; your number will depend on where your checkout leaks today, so measure before and after.
Why checkouts lose customers
Baymard Institute’s long-running research puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at roughly 70%. Some of that is unavoidable: people browse, compare and save items for later. But a large share comes from problems the store can fix, such as surprise costs, forced account creation, long forms and a lack of trust.
The good news is that these are UX problems, not marketing problems. They don’t need a bigger ad budget. They need a careful look at every step between “add to cart” and “thank you”.
Before changing anything, walk through your own checkout on a mid-range phone over a mobile connection, as a new customer. Then watch a few session recordings or ask three people outside your team to buy something while you observe without helping. You will usually spot the worst problems within minutes.
Fix 1: Let people check out as a guest
Forcing account creation before purchase is one of the most common reasons people abandon. Customers want to buy, not commit to a relationship.
- Make guest checkout the default, visually equal to or stronger than “log in”.
- Offer account creation after the order, with one click and the details already filled in.
- Let returning customers log in with an email link or a social login instead of a password.
Fix 2: Cut every field you don’t need
Every field is a small decision and a chance to make a mistake. Go through your checkout and ask of each one: what happens if we remove it?
Marketing teams often add fields to collect data (“how did you hear about us?”, date of birth, newsletter preferences). Move these to the confirmation page or a follow-up email, where answering them can’t cost you the sale.
Common fields to remove or merge
- Separate first-name and last-name fields (one “full name” field often works).
- “Company name” and “address line 2” shown by default instead of behind a link.
- Billing address when it matches shipping (use a pre-ticked “same as shipping” box).
- Phone number, unless delivery partners genuinely need it, and then say why.
Make the remaining fields easier
Use the right input types so phones show a numeric keypad for card and phone numbers, enable browser autofill, validate inline as people type rather than after they submit, and write error messages that explain how to fix the problem.
Address lookup or autocomplete helps where address data is reliable. Where it isn’t, as in many parts of Bangladesh and the Gulf, a free-text address field plus a landmark field often works better than a rigid form that rejects real addresses.
Fix 3: Show the full cost early
Unexpected extra costs at the last step (shipping, tax, fees) are among the top reasons people leave. The fix is simple: don’t surprise anyone.
- Show shipping cost or a free-shipping threshold on product and cart pages.
- Add a shipping estimator in the cart, based on country or city.
- Display taxes and duties clearly for cross-border orders, especially for buyers in the UK, EU and Gulf.
- Keep the order total visible on every checkout step.
If you offer free shipping above a threshold, show how close the cart is to it (“add $12 more for free delivery”). It turns a cost into a goal, and customers react to it far better than to a fee revealed at the end.
Fix 4: Offer the payment methods your customers actually use
A checkout that only takes cards loses buyers who prefer something else. The right mix depends on the market.
- USA and Canada: cards plus wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.
- UK and EU: cards, wallets and local options; some buyers expect buy-now-pay-later.
- UAE and Saudi Arabia: cards, Apple Pay and, in many categories, cash on delivery.
- Bangladesh: bKash, Nagad, cards and cash on delivery.
Wallet payments also cut form fields, because the address and card details come from the wallet. That makes this fix work together with fix two.
Watch payment failures as closely as abandonment. Declined cards, timeouts and redirects to a mobile wallet that never return the customer to your site all look like abandonment in analytics. Give a clear message when a payment fails, keep the cart intact and offer another method on the same screen.
Fix 5: Add trust where hesitation happens
Trust cues work best at the exact point where people hesitate: next to the payment fields and the final button. Useful cues include:
- Recognisable payment logos and a short note on how payments are secured.
- The return or refund policy in one line, with a link to the full policy.
- Delivery time estimates in plain dates (“arrives by Thursday”).
- A visible support option such as phone, chat or WhatsApp.
- A clean, fast page. Broken layouts and slow loading feel unsafe.
Keep the checkout visually consistent with the rest of the store. A sudden jump to a different-looking page or domain makes people wonder whether they are still on your site. If a payment provider has to redirect, say so before the click (“you’ll be taken to bKash to approve the payment”) so the change doesn’t feel like an error.
Persuasion can’t beat friction. Remove the reasons to leave before you add reasons to stay.
How to measure checkout improvements
Change one thing at a time when traffic allows, or run a proper A/B test, and give each change enough time to collect meaningful data. Ninety days, as in our headline example, smooths out weekly and seasonal swings. Track:
- Checkout completion rate (orders divided by checkouts started).
- Drop-off at each step, from cart to payment.
- Error rates on form fields and payment attempts.
- Conversion by device, since mobile checkouts often leak most.
Smaller stores may not have enough orders for a statistically sound A/B test. In that case, make one change, run it for several weeks, and compare with the same weeks before the change. It is less precise, but far better than changing five things at once and guessing which one helped.
Compare the same season where you can, and note any changes in ad spend, pricing or promotions that could skew the numbers.
Don’t forget the steps after checkout
A confirmation page and email that clearly show what was ordered, when it will arrive and how to get help reduce support requests and refund disputes. For cash-on-delivery orders, a quick confirmation call or message before dispatch can reduce refused deliveries. These steps don’t change the checkout rate, but they protect the revenue it creates.
Key takeaways
- Most checkout losses come from friction the store can remove.
- Make guest checkout the default and cut every unnecessary field.
- Show full costs early so there are no surprises at the last step.
- Offer the payment methods each market expects, including wallets and local options.
- Place trust cues where people hesitate, and measure each change carefully.
Want an expert look at your checkout? Our e-commerce website development and UI/UX design teams review and rebuild checkouts on Shopify, WooCommerce and custom stacks. Contact us for a store UX review.