How to optimize your checkout: A complete guide

In today’s competitive online market, a seamless checkout experience isn’t just a nice thing—it’s a must. In 2024, nearly 70% of digital shopping carts were abandoned before purchase.

Even top-tier stores suffer from high cart abandonment rates, slashing conversion rates, and hitting profits hard.

But there’s a fix. With smart checkout optimizations, you can turn your checkout process from a barrier into a breeze and reap significant financial rewards.

In this article, we’ll share actionable tips for streamlining your checkout, boosting conversions, and turning frustrated shoppers into loyal, satisfied customers.

Why it pays to optimize checkout pages 

For ecommerce businesses, friction at the crucial checkout stage means abandoned carts and lost sales. And these missed opportunities significantly harm a business's bottom line. 

In contrast, a smooth checkout experience is your golden ticket to gaining a commercial edge. Remove barriers, and you’ll see a surge in conversions and revenue.

Remove barriers, and you’ll see a surge in conversions and revenue.

According to research by Baymard, eliminating checkout usability issues would equate to a 35.26% increase in conversion rate for an average-sized ecommerce business. 

Patching up weak spots in your checkout process shouldn’t be considered optional; it’s a strategic necessity that shouldn’t be put off. 

Each step to reduce friction, from offering guest checkout to ensuring mobile-friendliness, is an investment in your revenue and customer satisfaction.

Plus, hassle-free checkouts lead to happy customers who return, boosting retention and brand loyalty.

5 things customers hate at the online checkout 

With ecommerce giants like Amazon and eBay offering one-click purchases, today’s consumers expect a quick and simple checkout process. This sets a high bar for other retailers to meet.

To help guide you, these are the top five things to avoid when it comes to your checkout:

1. Unclear or expensive shipping costs: Baymard’s 2024 research reveals that 46% of online consumers abandon their carts due to sudden extra costs like shipping and taxes. Our 2023 research showed a similar trend, highlighting the need for transparent pricing.‍
2. No guest checkout; Being forced to create an account is another major gripe for consumers. 26% of shoppers said this caused them to leave the site without completing their purchase. ‍
3. Lack of trust: Following close behind, 25% of consumers failed to get through the checkout because they didn’t trust the website with their sensitive information. ‍
4. Complex checkout flow: Simplicity is key. A checkout process spread over multiple pages or filled with distractions frustrates shoppers, leading 22% to abandon their carts.
5. ‍Limited payment options: According to our 2023 survey, two-thirds of buyers abandon their cart if their preferred payment methods aren't available. For instance, if you’re selling in the Netherlands and don’t offer iDEAL, you’re losing out on sales. Knowing your market and understanding local customer preferences is crucial.

How to optimize the online checkout process

Checkout optimization to minimize friction and frustration improves conversion rates and, therefore, revenue. So, how exactly do you optimize your checkout process? 

Here’s how you can get started. 

Tips to optimize checkout functionality

1. Offer a guest checkout: Allow shoppers to complete their purchase without creating an account. You can encourage account creation after the checkout is completed.
2. Don’t redirect customers off your site: Redirecting customers away from your site is a surefire way to drive cart abandonment, so make sure you have a solution that allows you to embed the checkout onto your site, 
3. Auto-fill information: Use auto-fill form fields (e.g. using the shipping address as the billing address as default) and data validation techniques to speed things up. Resist asking for unnecessary information to reduce friction.
4. Be transparent: Provide clear links to your returns policy, customer service, and help points. This helps build trust. 
5. Optimize for all devices: Ensure your checkout process is mobile-friendly and works seamlessly across all devices.
6. Show customer reviews: Consider including customer reviews on your product pages to build social proof.‍
7. Featuring personalized or complementary product recommendations: These can help shoppers find what they’re looking for faster and complete their purchase sooner.

Tips to optimize checkout design  

1. Show costs upfront: Don’t surprise customers with unexpected shipping fees and taxes. 
2. Use trust indicators: Use appropriate trust indicators like security badges, ratings, or reviews throughout the checkout process to help shoppers feel safe and secure. 
3. Limit form fields: Limit the number of form fields customers must complete at the checkout. Only asking for essential information will increase the likelihood of a customer completing their purchase. 
4. Consider the UX: Use simple graphics and good UX writing with clear calls to action at every stage to eliminate ambiguity for the buyer. And be sure to iron out design and CSS issues. 
5. Remove distractions: Remove headers, footers, and other distractions during checkout.
6. Display cart details: Make sure to display shopping cart details throughout the process to reassure buyers of what they’re purchasing. 

Tips to optimize checkout payments

1. Offer preferred payment methods: Localize the payment methods you offer by finding out payment preferences in the regions you operate in, such as the US, APAC, Europe, and MENA. But be careful to not overwhelm shoppers with too many payment options. 
2. Use multiple payment processors: Configure payments to route to the right processor at the right time to reduce payment failures and lost revenue.
3. Handle payment failures: When a payment fails, give customers clear instructions on how to resolve it, such as using an alternative payment method. 
4. Use fallbacks: Recover lost revenue by re-trying failed transactions with an alternative payment processor using features like Primer’s Fallbacks. 
5. Optimizing 3DS: To improve payment authorization rates, tweak 3DS rules using data analytics tools like Primer’s Observability Pro to reduce friction and boost performance.

Checkout optimization is never done

The evolving and fast-paced nature of ecommerce demands constant review of your checkout pages for design, functionality, and usability issues. Gaining a competitive edge in ecommerce is all about data: capture it, analyze it, and repeat. 

Running A/B tests allows you to understand customer pain points and identify areas of improvement. The top merchants in ecommerce are constantly running tests because of the valuable data (and commercial benefits) they stand to gain. 

Here are a few suggested A/B tests you could run to fuel your checkout page optimization efforts:

1. Offer different payment methods to different types of customers to understand their preferences.
2. Change the color or wording of key CTA buttons to make the checkout process simpler and less distracting. 
3. Use a progress bar to show users how much of the checkout process is remaining. 
4. Display trust signals prominently, like customer reviews and security badges. 

Don’t expect to uncover a silver bullet when optimizing your checkout. More likely you’ll achieve marginal gains when running A/B tests. But these incremental steps are critical to your journey toward checkout optimization. 

Final thoughts 

Using the information in this article, you can optimize your online checkout to reduce lost orders from frustrated shoppers.  

Here are some key takeaways:

• Review all aspects of your checkout, including design, functionality, usability, and payments.
• Eliminate the issues that customers hate to reduce friction. 
• Listen to the data, use third-party research to get a headstart, and then conduct your own tests to learn about your customers and the regions you serve. 
• Make regular, data-driven changes to optimize your checkout page and measure the results.

Take a look at our guide on Alternative Payment Methods to learn more about how to optimize for success at the checkout.