How a Complicated Shopify Checkout Is Costing You Sales Every Day

Checkout Is Where Sales Go to Die — Or Live

Your customer has done everything right. They discovered your store, browsed your products, read your reviews, chose what they wanted, and added it to cart. Then they hit checkout — and left.

Checkout abandonment (distinct from cart abandonment) is the final, highest-stakes friction point in ecommerce. These are customers who started the transaction — who were financially ready to buy — and got stopped by something in your checkout experience. Every one of these abandonments is avoidable with the right fixes.

Baymard Institute data shows the average checkout abandonment rate is 70.19%. The best-optimised Shopify stores get this below 50% through a systematic elimination of friction points.

The 8 Biggest Checkout Friction Points on Shopify

1. Mandatory Account Creation

Forcing customers to create an account before purchasing is the single most impactful checkout friction point. In Shopify’s default settings, you can choose between requiring accounts, making them optional, or disabling them entirely for guest checkout. Go to Settings → Checkout → Customer accounts and set to “Accounts are optional” or “Accounts are disabled.” You can still invite customers to create an account after the purchase.

2. Too Many Form Fields

Review every field in your checkout form and ask: “Is this required to complete and deliver this order?” Phone number — do you actually call customers? Company name — is this a B2B store? Address line 2 — is it optional? Every non-essential field increases cognitive load and abandonment probability. In Shopify, you can set fields to optional or hidden in your checkout settings.

3. Lack of Payment Method Variety

Missing your customer’s preferred payment method is an instant deal-breaker. In most markets: Visa/Mastercard are table stakes. PayPal is expected by 40%+ of buyers. Apple Pay and Google Pay are essential for mobile (they eliminate typing entirely). Buy-now-pay-later (Klarna, Afterpay, Sezzle) is increasingly expected for purchases above $100.

4. Surprise Costs at Final Review

Customers should never encounter new costs at the checkout review page that they weren’t shown earlier. If your shipping cost changes based on address (different rates for different regions or international), communicate this expectation upfront. Show a shipping cost estimate on the product page and cart. The moment of “oh, shipping is $14.99” at the final payment page causes high abandonment.

5. Slow Checkout Page Speed

Mobile shoppers expect checkout pages to load in under 2 seconds. Each additional second of load time increases abandonment. The most common causes of slow Shopify checkout: too many tracking pixels loading synchronously, third-party live chat scripts, and checkout customisation apps that add unnecessary scripts.

6. No Visible Security Indicators

Security anxiety peaks at the payment step. Customers need reassurance that their card data is safe. Shopify’s checkout is PCI compliant by default — make that visible. Add trust badges near the payment form. Display your SSL certificate status. Include a brief security note: “Your payment information is encrypted and secure.”

7. Confusing Navigation Options

Checkout should be a one-way tunnel. Every navigation link, promotional banner, or “continue shopping” prompt that pulls customers out of the checkout flow is a leak. Shopify’s native checkout removes site navigation — use it. If you’re using a custom checkout, ensure there are no easy exit points other than “Back to cart” and “Complete order.”

8. The Coupon Code Trap

A visible discount code field prompts customers to pause and search for a code. 60% who leave to search for a coupon don’t return. Mitigation strategies: apply discounts automatically via URL parameters, hide the discount field when no promotion is active, or use one-click BOGO and bundle offers that don’t require codes.

How to Diagnose Your Specific Checkout Problems

Set up Google Analytics 4 funnel exploration to see exactly where in your checkout customers drop off. In GA4: Explore → Funnel Exploration → define steps as: product page view, add to cart, begin checkout, add payment info, purchase. This shows you precisely where you lose customers.

Complement this with session recordings using Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity. Watch real checkout sessions to see where customers pause, backtrack, or rage-click. These qualitative insights often reveal problems that quantitative data can’t.

For a professional checkout audit and optimisation service, get in touch with OneOnic. We’ll identify your specific friction points and implement fixes that measurably improve your checkout completion rate.