Common Checkout Mistakes To Avoid

I analyzed 150+ ecommerce checkouts this year including luxury giants Garmin, Michael Kors, and Tiffany. What’s shocking is that even billion-dollar brands are bleeding revenue at checkout through amateur mistakes. The forcing account creation before purchase is the #1 killer. My data shows brands offering guest checkout with optional account creation at confirmation seeing 25% higher completion rates without fail. Other costly checkout errors destroying your revenue: • Hiding order summaries (customers abandon when they can't verify purchases) • Cluttering pages with navigation bars (each unnecessary element drives drop-offs) • Using unconventional form fields (cognitive friction kills sales) • Lacking progress indicators (uncertainty breeds abandonment) The best checkout experience provides absolute clarity about where customers are in the process, eliminating hesitation and creating the confidence needed to complete the purchase. Remember: Every second your customer spends thinking is a second they might leave forever.

You got the click. They liked the product. They hit "Add to Cart." Then...silence. Cart abandonment isn't always about price or timing. It’s about cognitive overload right before the finish line. Let’s break it down: 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲: - Multiple upsells - Confusing discount fields - Cross-sell suggestions - Shipping ETA popups - Shipping insurance opt-ins - Loyalty nudges - People also bought… That’s 7 new decisions after they’ve already made one. It is one thing to try this with loyal, returning customers. But first time visitors…PUMP. THE. BRAKES. It’s like agreeing to a date...and getting handed a prenup over appetizers. What to fix in your cart flow:  𝟭. 𝗡𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝟭 𝘂𝗽𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹     You don’t need 5. You need 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁, 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝟭 𝘁𝗮𝗽.  𝟮. 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼-𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀     Don’t make them copy/paste a code from email. That’s friction.  𝟯. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆    Surprise shipping is the #1 cart killer. Be upfront or offer a free shipping threshold. And, Make sure shipping messaging actually matches what is presented in the checkout.  𝟰. 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁     Guest checkout. Express pay. Shop Pay. Don’t make them log in just to give you money.  𝟱. 𝗞𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀     No floating widgets, quizzes, or surveys once someone is in checkout mode. Focus = finish. Great example: BattlBox With their subscriptions, they go from click to checkout speedy fast. No distractions outside fo a checkout bump. And 1-click checkout options. Zero chaos. Treat your cart like the final step in a relay race. You don’t hand the baton and then ask 3 questions mid-sprint.

Between 2019-2021 I lost $206,000 on my eCommerce website because of 3 crucial mistakes. The main red flag was glaring, yet as someone inexperienced in eCommerce, I didn’t know what “normal” was…. A 28% checkout completion rate. I know… rough. Ultimately when I made the major fixes, this moved to 59%. More than doubled off three changes. So what were my blockers? 1) First, we had a large international audience, and for a janky website (not even on Shopify but a bespoke solution at the time), not having the ability to pay via Paypal or alternative means to a credit card was a huge blocker. We saw via Hotjar recordings folks scrolling, looking for alternatives to adding a CC, and then bouncing. We moved to Shopify and added additional ways to pay. 2) Next, our checkout form was too long. We saw tons of partial completes in Hotjar. When we changed to just the bare essential fields (email, name, address, country), conversions improved overnight. 3) Finally, folks don’t like to pay for shipping. We would charge $4 on a $20 game to ship. But when we charged $24 for that same game and made shipping free (in the US/CA), conversions immediately went up. A smaller but potentially impactful change was removing testimonial quotes on the checkout page. A lot of companies are losing huge sums on homepages, check-out pages, register pages, and pricing pages because they are missing obvious best practices in their industry. That is a major problem we are trying to fix at DoWhatWorks. We want to help brands start from a point of data. And this doesn’t mean just copying competitors' designs. That’s not the takeaway. What it does mean is if 95% of competitors include alternative ways to checkout besides just credit card as an eCommerce brand, that might be a good thing to look into. I am excited to see online testing go through the same revolution that paid advertising did around 2018-19 when big data really started to help guide advertisers and we saw less and less manual targeting (and rough guessing), and more having the algorithms optimize for folks. The future is coming and it’s going to be an amazing thing for brands on the cutting edge of using data to drive better decision-making

Your Checkout Isn’t Broken—But It’s Costing You Sales  Most businesses focus on getting people to the checkout page. But here’s the real question: What happens once they get there? I’ve seen brands lose millions in revenue because their checkout process wasn’t designed for how people actually buy.  Here’s what makes the biggest difference (and no, it’s not just “removing extra fields”):  ✅ Pre-fill what you can. If your customers have already entered their email and shipping details earlier in the journey, don’t make them do it again. The more typing required, the higher the drop-off.  ✅ Let people pay the way they want. No PayPal? No Apple Pay? No BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later)? If customers don’t see their preferred payment option, many will just abandon the cart. One extra payment method can mean a double-digit conversion lift. ✅ Show upfront pricing—no surprises. Customers hate last-minute shipping costs or hidden fees. If they see an unexpected total at checkout, they’ll leave. Be transparent from the start.  ✅ Reassure, don’t just assume trust. Even well-known brands benefit from trust signals. Adding "100% secure checkout," "Money-back guarantees," or even customer reviews near the final purchase button can tip hesitant buyers over the edge. I’ve seen brands increase checkout conversions by 15% or more just by implementing these small but high-impact changes.  So before investing more in traffic, fix what happens after people decide to buy. 👉 What’s the biggest mistake you see in checkout pages?

The most successful ecom checkouts have only 8 form fields, max. Yet the industry average? A whopping 14.88 fields. Your customers are mentally exhausted before they even reach your checkout page. They've already made dozens of micro-decisions just to select your product. Google's Retail UX research shows 27% of users abandon orders due to "too long/complicated checkout processes." Every unnecessary dropdown, checkbox, and text field creates another opportunity for your customers to give up. We've identified three form optimizations that consistently boost conversions: ↳ Use a single "Full Name" field instead of separate first/last name fields ↳ Default "Billing Address = Shipping Address" and hide it unless changed ↳ Eliminate optional fields entirely... if you don't absolutely need the data, don't ask for it Every extra form field costs you conversions. And according to that Google report, the best performing sites have slashed their checkout forms by 56%. The psychology is simple: every decision depletes your customer's mental energy. By the time they reach payment, their decision tank is running on empty. Are you sabotaging conversions by asking for information you don't actually need?

Hot take: Your checkout page matters way more than your homepage. (And most brands get this completely backwards.) In the last 18 months, I’ve audited 70+ Shopify stores. Almost every single one had this issue: - Beautiful site. - Leaky checkout. Biggest mistakes I see: No express checkout (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, GPay) → drops conversion by up to 20% Clunky multi-step forms → 15% higher abandonment No trust badges or guarantees → credibility gap Confusing flow → buyers bounce, even after adding to cart Checkout isn’t a technical chore. It’s your closing pitch. Here’s how we fix it: 1) Strip it to essentials 2) Build in speed + trust 3) A/B test every change (we’ve seen 12–28% lifts just from this) Pretty websites don’t pay the bills. Optimized checkouts do. What’s the most painful checkout mistake you’ve seen? #shopify #retail #ecommerce #commerce #budget #storefront #theme #performance #thoughts #cro