Checkout optimization

We place real orders on the devices your customers use, not on a simulator, with a card, a wallet, a discount code and an address that is awkward to format. We do it as a new visitor and as a returning one, on a slow connection, and in every country you ship to. Every friction point gets recorded with a screenshot. Most teams have never done this on anything other than their own laptop, and the list it produces is usually longer than expected.

A total that changes at the last step feels like a trick even when it is not. We put the shipping cost, the threshold for free delivery and an expected arrival date on the product page and in the cart, so the number at checkout confirms what the shopper already knew. Where rates vary by location, an estimate based on a detected region is better than silence. If the shipping cost is genuinely uncompetitive, that is a pricing conversation, not a layout one.

Each field costs completions, especially on a phone. Company name, address line two, a phone number with no explanation, a title, a date of birth, a how did you hear about us dropdown: all of them go unless something downstream genuinely requires them. What stays gets the right input type so the phone shows the correct keyboard, autofill works, and postcode lookup does the typing. Guest checkout is switched on, with the account offered after the order instead of before.

Wallets remove the typing entirely for people already signed in on their phone, which is why they belong at the top of the checkout rather than buried under the card form. Beyond that, the right set is regional: some markets run on bank transfer or local schemes, and a card-only checkout quietly excludes them. Instalment options can lift completion on higher prices and cost you a fee, so we look at whether the extra orders cover it rather than assuming either way.

A declined card, a mistyped postcode or an expired session should not cost the order. We check that errors say what is wrong in plain words, appear next to the field they belong to, and never clear the form. A failed payment should keep the cart and offer another method. A session that expires should return the shopper to a full basket. This is unglamorous work that rescues orders which currently look like abandonment.

Cart abandonment as a single figure hides everything useful. We instrument each step, so you can see how many people reach the delivery screen, how many reach payment and how many finish, split by device and country. That turns a vague number into a specific one: not that checkout is leaking, but that people on phones in one country are stopping at the address form. Then each fix has a measurement attached to it.