Checkout optimisation: where stores lose the payment

Most stores lose payments not on price but on how checkout is built: surprise costs at the final step, forced registration, and a form longer than it needs to be. There are seven specific places, and each is fixable without a redesign.

The core idea: a buyer who reached checkout has already accepted the price. From here you can only lose them — and almost always over something you added for your own convenience.

Place 1: why do surprise costs kill orders?

Shipping, handling, mandatory packaging, tax — anything appearing after the buyer has seen a total. It’s the most common cause of abandonment, and it works not through the size of the amount but through the feeling of a switch.

The fix is simple: show the full cost before checkout begins. In the basket, or better on the product page — a delivery calculator or a clear «shipping from X, free over Y».

Place 2: why require registration at all?

Requiring an account before purchase is one of the most expensive rules a store can have. The buyer came for a product and is being offered a relationship.

The correct order is the reverse: guest checkout always available, with account creation offered after payment, when every detail is already entered and it’s one click. Account conversion drops less than people expect, and payment conversion rises noticeably.

Place 3: how long should the form be?

Every field is a chance to reconsider. The working minimum for delivery:

1. 1

   Contact

   Phone or email. One required, the other optional.

2. 2

   Name

   One field, not two. Splitting first and last name is rarely needed.

3. 3

   Delivery address

   City and pickup point or street. With suggestions, not free typing.

4. 4

   Payment method

   A choice of two or three, with no explanatory paragraphs.

Everything else — order comments, referral source, date of birth — is either deleted or moved to a post-purchase step.

Place 4: the familiar payment method is missing

The absence of the method someone normally uses reliably loses that person. At the same time a dozen options doesn’t help: it slows the decision and introduces doubt.

The working configuration is two or three methods, one of which is familiar to a wide audience. Which one that is depends on the market — worth checking rather than assuming.

Place 5: checkout doesn’t work on a phone

Not «looks bad» but genuinely doesn’t work: a field hidden under the keyboard, a button below the visible area, a form that resets when the screen rotates.

The check takes five minutes: complete a full order from your own phone, payment included. Not from a browser emulator — from a real device, the way a buyer does it.

Place 6: no confirmation after payment

A «thank you» screen with no details and no email leaves the buyer in limbo: the money’s gone and what happens next is unclear. Some of those people message support immediately; some start a chargeback.

Confirmation needs three things: what was ordered, when it ships, how to get in touch. Immediately after payment, not «within 24 hours».

Place 7: errors with no explanation

A form saying «an error occurred» with no detail stops the order entirely. The buyer doesn’t know what to fix and usually closes the tab.

Every error message should name the field and the action: «phone must contain 10 digits», not «invalid data».

A 20-minute checkout audit

1. Complete a full order from your own phone, payment included.
2. Check whether the full cost (with shipping) is visible before checkout starts.
3. Check whether it’s possible to buy without registering.
4. Count the form fields; remove anything not needed for delivery.
5. Check that a familiar payment method is present.
6. Enter invalid data and read the error text.
7. Confirm that a confirmation arrives immediately after payment.
8. Complete an order on a slow connection.