Checkout Optimisation
The highest-value surface in any store: removing steps, showing costs early, and offering the payment methods people in each market expect.
Overview
Checkout is where you lose customers who had already decided to buy, which makes it the most valuable thing on the site to fix. The causes are consistent and well understood: unexpected delivery cost, forced account creation, too many steps, and the payment method someone uses not being there.
Improvements here are unusually reliable. Unlike most conversion work, the changes that help at checkout are known in advance, and the argument is generally about implementation effort rather than about what to do.
Who this is for
- Retailers losing a large share of started checkouts
- Companies selling into markets whose preferred payment methods they do not offer
- Businesses whose checkout requires an account before purchase
How we approach checkout optimisation
The specific pieces of work a typical engagement covers. Scope is agreed up front — nothing here is a surprise line item later.
Abandonment analysis
Where exactly people leave, by step and by device, which usually points at one or two specific fields.
Step reduction
Removing stages and fields. Every field is an opportunity to reconsider, and most checkouts collect things nobody uses.
Guest checkout
Purchase without an account, with the option to create one afterwards. Forced registration is among the most costly requirements a store can impose.
Cost transparency
Delivery and any additional cost shown before checkout begins, since discovering it at the final step is the single largest cause of abandonment.
Payment methods
The methods each market actually uses, including local options and wallets, which vary enormously between countries.
Recovery
Abandoned basket sequences coordinated with any retargeting, so the two are not repeating each other.
From first call to measured result
The same sequence every time, so you always know what happens next.
Measure
Instrument each checkout step properly so abandonment can be located rather than estimated.
Remove
Cut steps and fields, enable guest checkout, and surface costs earlier.
Add payment options
Introduce the methods your markets expect, prioritised by market volume.
Recover
Build abandonment recovery and measure it against a holdout to know what it genuinely adds.
Outcomes, not deliverables
A pile of artefacts isn't progress. These are the changes the work is meant to produce — and what we report against.
The highest-return fix available
Checkout improvements apply to customers who had already decided to buy, so the gain converts directly to revenue.
Fewer abandoned baskets
Cost transparency and guest checkout address the two most cited reasons people leave.
Growth in new markets
Adding a market's expected payment method frequently unlocks demand that was already there.
Recovered revenue
A measured abandonment programme brings back a meaningful share of started orders.
Common questions about Checkout Optimisation
The things people ask before they get in touch. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
Why do people abandon checkout?
In roughly this order: unexpected delivery or additional costs, being forced to create an account, a process that feels too long, and the absence of their preferred payment method. Most of a checkout problem is one of those four.
Should checkout be one page or several steps?
Fewer steps generally converts better, but a well-designed multi-step checkout with clear progress can outperform a single cluttered page. What matters more is the number of fields and whether costs are already known.
Is guest checkout worth it if we want accounts?
Yes. Offer the account after purchase, when you have something to offer in exchange such as order tracking. Requiring registration before payment loses customers you have already paid to acquire.
Which payment methods should we add?
Whatever your markets actually use, which differs substantially by country. Selling into a market without its dominant local method suppresses conversion in a way that is invisible unless you look market by market.
Thinking about Checkout Optimisation?
Tell us what you are trying to change. If we are not the right fit we will say so, and point you somewhere better.
Looking at the wider picture?
Checkout Optimisation usually sits alongside other work in E-commerce & Revenue Enablement. Browse the full area to see what it connects to.