Shopify Checkout Optimisation: The Full Playbook (2026)

70% of shoppers who reach checkout never complete their purchase. That’s not a traffic problem or a marketing problem — it’s a checkout problem. Shopify checkout optimisation is one of the highest-ROI investments a store can make, because every improvement directly converts visitors who are already in buying mode.

Why Checkout Abandonment Is So High

The Baymard Institute’s research consistently finds the same top reasons for checkout abandonment:

• Unexpected costs at checkout (shipping, taxes, fees) — 48%
• Forced account creation — 26%
• Complicated or lengthy checkout process — 22%
• Couldn’t see or calculate total order cost upfront — 21%
• Website errors or crashes during checkout — 17%
• Didn’t trust the site with credit card information — 17%
• Delivery was too slow — 16%

The good news: almost every one of these is fixable. Here’s how.

1. Enable Shopify’s One-Page Checkout

Shopify’s redesigned one-page checkout (rolled out to all plans in 2023–2024) consolidates contact, shipping, and payment onto a single page. Compared to the three-page checkout, it reduces average checkout time by 31% and improves completion rates for most stores.

To activate: Settings → Checkout → enable one-page checkout. If you’re on Shopify Plus and have a heavily customised checkout, review custom liquid before switching — some customisations need updating for the new format.

2. Add Express Payment Methods

Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay allow returning buyers (and new buyers on mobile) to complete checkout in two taps — no form filling, no card number entry. Shopify data shows express payment users are 1.91x more likely to complete purchase than non-express users.

Enable these in Shopify Payments settings. Display express payment buttons prominently — both on the cart page and at the top of checkout, before the contact form. This is especially impactful on mobile, where manual form entry is a major friction source.

3. Enable Guest Checkout (and Don’t Punish It)

Forcing account creation before purchase kills conversions. 26% of abandoners cite this as their reason. Enable guest checkout in Settings → Checkout → Customer accounts: “Accounts are optional”.

After purchase, prompt guests to create an account on the order confirmation page — “Save your details for faster checkout next time.” This captures account creation as a post-purchase bonus rather than a pre-purchase barrier. You get the account data without losing the sale.

4. Show Total Cost Early — Including Shipping

Unexpected shipping costs at the final checkout step are the single largest abandonment trigger. Solutions:

• Show shipping costs on the cart page with a real-time shipping calculator
• Offer free shipping above a threshold and communicate it clearly across the site (“Free shipping on orders over $50”)
• Show estimated shipping during product browsing — “Ships for free to [country]” on product pages
• Don’t hide taxes. If you’re in a region where tax is added at checkout (US, Canada, Australia, UK), note this on the cart page so the total isn’t a surprise

5. Reduce Form Fields to the Minimum

Review every field in your checkout. Ask: is this genuinely required to ship or process payment? Fields that are often unnecessary:

• Phone number (required only for couriers that need to call for delivery)
• Company name (unless you sell B2B)
• Address line 2 (make optional, not required)
• Separate first name / last name fields where a single name field would do

In Shopify Checkout settings, you can make phone optional. Each removed required field typically improves checkout completion by 2–5%.

6. Add Trust Signals at the Payment Step

Purchase anxiety peaks at the payment step. Reduce it with:

• SSL padlock and “Checkout is secured by” text (Shopify includes this by default — make sure it’s visible)
• Money-back guarantee badge (30 days, 60 days — whatever your policy allows)
• Returns policy link (clickable, opens as overlay)
• Accepted payment method icons (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, etc.) — visible near the payment form
• Customer service contact (phone or live chat link) — even just seeing it exists reduces anxiety

7. Optimise for Mobile Checkout

Mobile checkout has specific pain points that desktop doesn’t. Test your entire checkout flow on an actual mobile device — not a desktop browser simulation. Check:

• Are form fields large enough to tap without zooming?
• Does the keyboard cover the input field you’re typing in?
• Is the CTA (“Complete Order”) clearly visible without scrolling?
• Do express payment buttons (Apple Pay, Google Pay) appear first on mobile?
• Does autofill work on address fields?
• Is the coupon code field accessible without disrupting the form flow?

8. Customise Your Checkout Thank You Page

The thank you page is underused. It’s the moment of highest buyer enthusiasm — use it for:

• Post-purchase upsell: Offer a complementary product at 15–20% discount (apps: ReConvert, AfterSell)
• Account creation prompt: “Save your details for next time”
• Referral programme: “Give £10, Get £10” share link
• Social share prompt: “Show off your purchase” — especially effective for fashion and lifestyle

9. Set Up Cart Abandonment Recovery

Even with a perfect checkout, some buyers will leave. Recover them with:

• Email 1: 60 minutes after abandonment — “You left something behind” — no discount, just a reminder with product image and easy cart link
• Email 2: 12 hours after — social proof (“3,200 customers love this”) + address potential objections
• Email 3: 24 hours after — optional discount code if you have margin to offer it
• SMS follow-up: If you have phone number and consent, a single SMS 2 hours after abandonment recovers 8–12% of abandoned checkouts

10. Use Checkout Extensibility (Shopify Plus)

Shopify Plus merchants have access to Checkout Extensibility — a framework for adding custom UI components to checkout without editing checkout.liquid (which is deprecated). Use it to add:

• Custom trust badges or review widgets
• Loyalty points balance display
• Gift message input
• Product upsells inside checkout
• Custom delivery date pickers

Checkout.liquid is no longer supported by Shopify for new builds — if you’re still using it, migrating to Checkout Extensibility should be a priority.

Expected Impact of Checkout Optimisation

A full checkout optimisation programme typically improves checkout completion rate by 15–35% over 90 days. For a store processing 300 orders per month at $70 AOV with current checkout abandonment of 65%, recovering just 10 additional orders per day adds $21,000 per month in revenue.

OneOnic’s Shopify development team implements checkout optimisations for stores of all sizes — from enabling one-page checkout and express payments through to full Checkout Extensibility builds on Shopify Plus. Talk to us about your checkout.