10 Checkout Mistakes Costing E-commerce Stores Millions

Baymard Institute has tracked e-commerce cart abandonment for over a decade. The average rate sits stubbornly at 70.19% — seven out of ten shoppers who add items to their cart leave without paying. While some abandonment is natural (comparison shopping, saving for later), Baymard’s research shows that 17% of those abandonments are caused by a checkout process that’s “too long or complicated.”

That 17% represents recoverable revenue. On a store doing $5 million annually, fixing checkout friction could capture $350,000-$850,000 in sales that are currently walking out the door. Here are the ten specific mistakes that cause it.

1. 🔒 Forcing Account Creation Before Purchase

Requiring users to register before checking out is the single largest source of checkout abandonment after price shock. Baymard’s 2024 data shows 26% of users abandon a purchase when forced to create an account.

The psychology is simple: creating an account feels like a commitment. The shopper came to buy a product, not start a relationship. Guest checkout with an optional “save your details for next time” checkbox after payment captures the sale and the account data — just in the right order.

2. 💰 Revealing Shipping Costs at the Last Step

Surprise costs at the end of checkout trigger loss aversion — the feeling of being deceived. Baymard’s data attributes 48% of abandonments to “extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees),” and a significant portion of those are driven by the surprise rather than the absolute amount.

Show estimated shipping on the product page or cart. Better yet, build shipping into your product price and offer “free shipping.” A $49 product with free shipping converts better than a $42 product with $7 shipping, even though the total is identical.

3. 📝 Asking for Too Many Form Fields

The average U.S. checkout contains 23 form elements. Baymard’s usability research shows that a fully optimized checkout can be reduced to 12 elements — nearly half. Every unnecessary field is a friction point and a potential typo-driven error.

Fields to cut immediately: separate “billing name” when it’s usually identical to shipping name (use a checkbox instead), “company name” (make it optional or remove it), and “address line 2” as a visible field (hide it behind an “add apartment/suite” link). Cutting five fields from a checkout flow typically produces a 5-10% conversion lift.

4. 📱 Ignoring Mobile Checkout UX

Mobile commerce accounts for over 60% of e-commerce traffic but converts at roughly half the rate of desktop. The gap is almost entirely a UX problem. Tiny tap targets, desktop-sized forms, and payment entry without mobile-optimized keyboards create enough friction to drive mobile shoppers to abandon and re-purchase on desktop — if they come back at all.

Minimum fixes: use inputmode="numeric" on credit card fields, auto-advance between fields where possible, make tap targets at least 48x48px, and implement Apple Pay / Google Pay to let mobile users skip form entry entirely.

5. 💳 Missing Payment Options

If your checkout only accepts Visa and Mastercard, you’re leaving money from every other payment preference on the table. In Northern Europe, local payment methods like iDEAL (Netherlands) and Klarna (Sweden) account for the majority of online transactions. In the U.S., Apple Pay and PayPal together represent over 30% of digital wallet transactions.

At minimum, offer credit/debit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay / Google Pay. For stores with average order values above $100, buy-now-pay-later options like Klarna or Afterpay can increase conversion by 20-30% in that price bracket.

6. 📊 No Progress Indicator

Checkout flows that span multiple pages without indicating how many steps remain create anxiety. A shopper on step 2 of an unknown-length process doesn’t know if they’re about to pay or if there are four more screens of forms.

A simple progress bar — “Shipping → Payment → Review” — reduces perceived effort and gives users a sense of control. In Baymard’s testing, numbered step indicators outperformed text-only breadcrumbs because they communicate exactly how much is left.

7. 🛡️ Missing Trust Signals at the Payment Step

Trust badges matter most at the moment of highest anxiety: entering payment details. A Norton Secured or SSL badge placed near the credit card form reduces abandonment measurably — not because shoppers analyze the badge, but because it provides subconscious reassurance.

Beyond badges, display your refund policy link directly below the payment form. “30-day hassle-free returns” next to the “Pay Now” button addresses the buyer’s last-second doubt: “What if this doesn’t work out?“

8. 👻 Hiding the Order Summary During Checkout

When users navigate to the payment page and can no longer see what they’re buying, anxiety spikes. They wonder: “Did I select the right size? How many did I add? Is the discount applied?”

Keep a persistent, collapsible order summary visible on every step of checkout — including item images, quantities, applied discounts, and the running total. On mobile, a sticky summary bar at the top of the screen with an expandable detail view works well without consuming too much viewport space.

9. 🚫 No Guest Checkout Option

Distinct from forced account creation — some stores technically offer guest checkout but bury it. If “Sign In” is a prominent button and “Continue as Guest” is a small text link below three social login options, you’ve functionally hidden your guest checkout.

Make guest checkout the visual default. Present it as the primary path with “Sign in” as the secondary option for returning customers. ASOS tested this exact change and saw a measurable reduction in checkout abandonment within the first week.

10. 🎪 Aggressive Upsells During Checkout

Cross-sells and upsells have their place, but injecting them into the checkout flow adds decision fatigue at the worst possible moment. A customer who’s decided to buy is now asked to reconsider their choice: “Want to add a case? Upgrade to the premium version? Add warranty coverage?”

Each decision point is an invitation to leave. If you must upsell, do it on the thank-you page after payment is complete, or in the cart before checkout begins. A single relevant upsell on the cart page converts far better than three interruptive upsells during payment.

🔧 The Compounding Effect of Small Fixes

No single fix on this list will double your conversion rate. But checkout optimization is multiplicative, not additive. If each of five fixes recovers 3-5% of abandoned checkouts, the compound effect is a 15-25% revenue increase from the same traffic. On a $5M store, that’s $750K-$1.25M in captured revenue — with zero additional ad spend.

The highest-ROI move is to record real user sessions on your checkout (with tools like FullStory or Hotjar), identify where shoppers hesitate, rage-click, or bail, and fix the specific friction points for your audience. If you want a structured evaluation of your checkout flow with prioritized fixes ranked by conversion impact, a CRO audit gives you a concrete action plan. Learn about our CRO Audit →