You have done everything right. Your Meta Ads are bringing traffic. Your product pages are converting browsers to add-to-carts. But then, at the final hurdle, 35% of your customers abandon checkout and vanish. The sale was right there — and you lost it.
What’s in This Article
Checkout abandonment is the most expensive problem most Shopify stores ignore. On a store doing $40K/month, a 35% checkout abandonment rate means roughly $21,500 in lost monthly revenue — from customers who were literally about to buy. Even recovering a fraction of that is transformative.
We recently worked with an eCommerce Circle member to implement these nine checkout fixes. The result: $22,400 in recovered monthly revenue. Three days of work. Zero additional ad spend. Here are the exact changes.
Fix 1: Enable Guest Checkout (Stop Forcing Account Creation)
This is the single biggest checkout killer on Shopify. Requiring customers to create an account before purchasing adds friction at the worst possible moment. 22% of checkout abandonments are caused by mandatory account creation.
Go to Shopify Settings > Checkout and change “Customer accounts” to “Accounts are optional.” Customers can still create accounts if they want, but they are not forced to. This single change typically improves checkout completion by 5-8%.
Fix 2: Add Accelerated Payment Options
If your checkout only accepts credit cards, you are losing customers who prefer other payment methods. Australian shoppers increasingly expect multiple options:
- Shop Pay: Shopify’s own accelerated checkout. Returns customers can pay with one tap. Checkout is 1.7x faster, and conversion rates are measurably higher.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay: One-tap mobile payments that skip the entire form-filling process. Critical for mobile conversion, where most checkout abandonment happens.
- Afterpay and Zip: Buy-now-pay-later options are not just for young shoppers. BNPL users spend an average of 28% more per order and are more likely to complete checkout because the upfront cost feels lower.
- PayPal: Still used by 8-12% of Australian online shoppers, particularly older demographics who trust PayPal’s buyer protection.
Enable all of these. Each payment method you add removes a friction point for a segment of your customers. Together, they can improve checkout completion by 10-15%.
Fix 3: Show Shipping Costs Before Checkout
Unexpected shipping costs are the number one reason for checkout abandonment globally — 28% of abandonments happen because the customer got sticker shock at the shipping step. The fix is simple: show estimated shipping costs on the cart page before they enter checkout.
Use a Shopify app or theme customisation to display “Estimated shipping: $8.95” on the cart page. Better yet, show a free shipping progress bar: “Add $24 more for FREE shipping.” This sets expectations and often increases AOV simultaneously.
Fixes 4-9: The Quick Wins That Stack Up
- Fix 4: Add trust badges to checkout. Display SSL security badge, payment method logos, and a “30-day money back guarantee” badge on the checkout page. Trust signals reduce the 12% of abandonments caused by security concerns.
- Fix 5: Pre-fill address with Google Autocomplete. Shopify supports this natively. Enable it in Settings > Checkout. It cuts form-filling time in half and reduces address errors that cause delivery issues.
- Fix 6: Simplify to fewer steps. If your theme supports one-page checkout, use it. Fewer steps = fewer opportunities for the customer to leave. Shopify’s latest checkout redesign supports this out of the box.
- Fix 7: Add an order summary sidebar. Customers want to see what they are buying while entering payment details. A persistent order summary with product images reduces anxiety and “let me go back and check” abandonments.
- Fix 8: Display your returns policy in checkout. A single line: “Free returns within 30 days” or “Easy exchanges, no questions asked.” This removes the last objection at the point of purchase.
- Fix 9: Optimise checkout page speed. Remove unnecessary scripts, compress images, and disable apps that inject code into checkout. Every second of load time at checkout costs you 2-3% of conversions.
The Compound Effect: Small Checkout Fixes = Massive Revenue Impact
None of these fixes individually is revolutionary. But stacked together, they transformed a 65% checkout completion rate into a 79% completion rate for the eCommerce Circle member we worked with. On their traffic volume, that translated to $22,400 in additional monthly revenue — without changing a single ad, product, or price.
This is the power of CRO at the checkout level. You have already paid to acquire these customers. You have already convinced them to add to cart. The checkout is the last 10 metres of the race — make sure you are not tripping at the finish line.
Want a Checkout Audit?
Inside the eCommerce Circle, checkout optimisation is one of the first things we tackle in the Platform pillar of our More Orders Operating System. It is the fastest path to more revenue with zero additional ad spend. If you want us to audit your checkout and identify exactly what is costing you sales, reach out.
