How much revenue is your checkout leaving on the table?
Checkout optimization is the fastest conversion path most online stores ignore. The Baymard Institute has been measuring checkouts for fourteen years and arrives at a figure that hurts: the average large online store can gain 35% more conversion by improving the checkout alone. Not your product. Not your price. Not your ad budget. The checkout itself.
Do the math for yourself. If you currently land ten orders per hundred completed checkouts, 35% more means you reach thirteen. The same visitors, the same products, three extra sales. Month after month.
The catch: that gain does not sit in one big button. Baymard finds an average of 32 separate points to fix per checkout flow. Small things, one by one. One field too many. Shipping costs that show up too late. A forced account. Leave them unsolved and your visitor drops off at the most expensive moment: with their credit card already in hand.
This article turns those 32 points into a checklist you can run through today. No theory, just the concrete things you can check and fix in your own checkout. We've been working on online stores and brands that sell on marketplaces for six years, and this is consistently the place where the money leaks away.
Why do people abandon their cart?
Nearly seven out of ten filled carts are abandoned. Baymard has tracked the cart abandonment rate for fourteen years and arrives at an average of 70.22%, based on fifty separate studies. That figure is daunting, but it is more useful than it looks once you break it down.
Part of that drop-off is unavoidable. People who are only browsing, comparing prices or using a cart as a wish list. There is little you can do about that. But the other part comes directly from your checkout, and that you can fix.
Baymard asked people who dropped off why they didn't continue. The reasons, in order:
| Reason for dropping off | Share |
|---|---|
| Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees) | 39% |
| Delivery took too long | 21% |
| Didn't trust the site with credit card details | 19% |
| Site wanted me to create an account | 19% |
| Checkout too long or too complicated | 18% |
| Couldn't see the total order cost up front | 14% |
Source: Baymard Institute, cart abandonment rate.
Look at that list. Every reason but one is something that lives in your checkout, not in your product. Shipping costs that surprise. A forced account. A flow that drags on too long. A total you only reveal on the final step. These are not matters of taste. These are design mistakes with a price tag.
Are unexpected shipping costs really that bad?
Yes, and by a wide margin they top the list. Extra costs that appear too late in the checkout are the number one reason people drop off: 39% of those who abandon cite shipping costs, tax or other fees. Someone fills their cart, heads to the register, and only there sees that shipping is added on top. That feels like a surprise working against them. They're gone.
The fix is not a discount. The fix is timing. Show the total cost as early as possible, ideally on the product page or in the cart, not on the final step. A visitor who knows from the start what they'll pay won't drop off over a surprise. They already factored the shipping into their decision to buy.
In practice this means: put a shipping cost indicator in the cart. Show the free-shipping threshold if you have one ("just a little more to qualify for free shipping" often even raises the order value). And if you charge for shipping, don't hide it. Honest and early beats cheap and hidden. The customer who feels cheated doesn't come back, even when the amount was small.
Should you force customers to create an account?
No. Forced account creation is one of the costliest mistakes in checkout optimization. In Baymard's research, 19% of the people who drop off do so because the site wanted an account. Someone wants to buy a product, not start a relationship. Force them to register and you lose a share of your buyers right at the doorstep.
The solution is called guest checkout, and it has to be the most visible option. Not a small link at the bottom. Not an option you have to hunt for. The default route through your checkout is paying without an account. Anyone who wants an account can have one, but as an offer after the order, not as a condition for it.
This is almost free gain. You don't have to build anything, you only have to remove a barrier. And you don't really lose that customer data: after a successful order you can still ask whether someone wants to create an account, with their details already filled in. At that point they've just bought and the barrier is low. The same question, a different moment, a very different result. We see this pattern with nearly every online store we take on.
How many fields should a checkout have?
As few as possible. A checkout that is too long or too complicated is the reason 18% of those who drop off decide to stop, and most checkouts ask for far more than they need. Every field is a small decision point, and every decision point is a chance to drop off.
Run through your own checkout and ask at each field: do I actually use this? First and last name can often go in a single field. A separate "company name" field that can stay empty can be hidden behind a link. Ask for a phone number only if your carrier needs it. Every field you cut is one less reason to stop.
Two technical wins that pay off the most:
- Automatic address completion. Let the customer enter postal code and house number and fill in the street and city yourself. Saves four fields and errors.
- Smart field types on mobile. Show a numeric keypad for phone and postal code fields. Sounds small, feels big on a phone.
The broader principle: don't treat the checkout as a form you fill in, but as a path you make as short as possible. The shortest route from cart to confirmation wins. This ties into the wider question of why an online store doesn't convert, where the checkout is often the last and most expensive hurdle.
Why don't people trust your checkout?
Trust is not a feeling, it is a set of signals. 19% of those who drop off don't trust the site with their credit card details. That is rarely about actual security and almost always about how secure your checkout looks. A checkout that looks messy, bare or off-brand feels risky, even if your tech is watertight.
This is exactly where branding and checkout meet. If your checkout suddenly looks different from the rest of your online store, with a different logo, different colors or a template from your payment provider, the customer subconsciously wonders whether they're still on your site. The checkout has to feel like a natural part of your brand, not a strange page you get sent to halfway through.
Concrete trust signals that work: your own logo above the checkout, familiar payment methods clearly visible, a visible return and shipping policy, and real reviews or trust marks in the right place. For brands like Screenmate and Castagnola we built a brand experience that carries all the way into the checkout, because that is the place where doubt is most expensive. A strong brand that radiates trust does the heaviest lifting in the checkout.
How do you tackle those 32 points in practice?
Not all at once. The 32 points Baymard finds per checkout on average are not a redesign, they are separate fixes with different impact. Start with the costliest reasons people drop off and work down. Here's what a workable order looks like:
- Show all costs early. Shipping and total visible in the cart, not on step three.
- Put guest checkout first. The default route is paying without an account.
- Cut unnecessary fields. Go through each field and ask whether you really use it.
- Make trust signals visible. Your own logo, payment methods, return policy, trust marks.
- Test on mobile. Numeric keypads, big buttons, address completion.
- Show progress. A simple step indicator brings calm.
This is work you can pick up yourself. Open your online store, place a real order from start to finish, and note every place where you hesitate, have to search or get annoyed. Those moments are your drop-off points. Most are smaller than you think and quicker to fix than a redesign.
Where checkout optimization turns into more fundamental work is when you notice the problems run deeper than separate fields: a platform that doesn't move with you, a cart that doesn't think along, a checkout that isn't technically sound. Then it's no longer a matter of ticking off points, but of putting your online store on the right foundation. For the rest of the journey this counts just as much: a strong checkout won't save a weak online store that doesn't convert elsewhere, and a strong store wastes itself on a leaky checkout.
What Oase does here
We build online stores and brands from practice, not from a theory about conversion. Louie ran his own e-commerce brand before he started designing for others, and that experience shapes how we look at a checkout: as the place where all the groundwork either pays off or evaporates.
A checkout is not a separate technical piece. It is the end of a line that starts with your positioning and runs through your product pages to the pay button. If that line breaks in the checkout, you lose exactly the customer who had already decided to buy. That is the most expensive customer to lose. That's why in a store project we always look at the whole journey, with the checkout as the closing piece where branding, trust and technology come together.
Baymard's 32 points are an excellent checklist to start with yourself. Run through them, fix what you can, and measure the difference. If you hit points that run deeper than separate fields, that's the moment a fresh outside look pays off. Not to make your checkout prettier, but to make it do what it's supposed to do: complete the order.
Frequently asked questions
How much conversion can a better checkout deliver? Baymard measures that the average large online store can gain 35% more conversion by improving the checkout alone. That is the checkout itself, separate from product, price or ads. The same visitors, the same products, more completed orders.
What is the average cart abandonment rate? Baymard arrives at 70.22%, based on fifty separate studies. Nearly seven out of ten filled carts are abandoned. Part is unavoidable (people who are only browsing), but a large part comes from the checkout itself.
What is the main reason people drop off? Extra costs that only appear late. In Baymard's research, 39% of those who abandon cite shipping costs, tax or other fees. Forced account creation (19%) and a checkout that is too long (18%) come next.
Should I offer guest checkout? Yes. Forced account creation is one of the biggest reasons people drop off. Make guest checkout the most visible option. Offer account creation after the order, not as a condition for it.
How many fields should a checkout have? As few as possible. Combine first and last name, drop fields you don't really use, and auto-fill the address from the postal code. Every field you cut is one less reason to drop off.
