Someone visits your online shop, finds a product they like and adds it to their basket.
That’s a significant step.
They’ve moved beyond browsing and demonstrated genuine buying intent. Yet instead of completing the order, they disappear.
For an eCommerce business, few things are more frustrating.
Basket abandonment is a normal part of online retail. Some people are comparing prices, saving products for later or simply aren’t ready to buy. You’re never going to convert every basket into an order.
But other customers leave because something about the checkout experience gives them a reason to stop.
Those are the abandoned baskets worth investigating.
The problem often starts after the customer has decided to buy
Businesses naturally spend a great deal of effort getting customers to their products.
Advertising, SEO, social media, email marketing and content can all contribute to bringing somebody into an online shop. Product photography, descriptions and pricing then help persuade them to add something to their basket.
It is easy to assume the difficult part is over. It isn’t.
The checkout introduces a new set of decisions and questions. Delivery costs appear. Personal information is requested. Payment has to be made. The customer may be asked to create an account.
Every additional step creates an opportunity for doubt or frustration.
A good checkout removes as much of that friction as possible.
Unexpected delivery costs are a powerful reason to leave
Imagine seeing a product advertised for £40.
You decide it’s worth £40, add it to your basket and proceed to checkout.
Only then do you discover that delivery costs another £8.
The product hasn’t changed, but your perception of the purchase has.
This is why hiding delivery costs until late in the checkout can be so damaging.
It isn’t necessarily that customers refuse to pay for delivery. The problem is often the surprise.
Where possible, give customers a reasonable idea of delivery costs before they begin checkout.
If you offer free delivery above a certain order value, make that clear too. It can both remove uncertainty and encourage customers who are close to the threshold to add another product.
Don’t force customers to create an account
Account creation can be useful for returning customers. It can make future orders quicker, provide access to order history and allow saved delivery information.
That doesn’t mean everybody wants one.
A first-time customer may simply want to buy something.
Forcing them to invent a password, meet password requirements, confirm an email address and create an account before they’re allowed to pay introduces work at precisely the wrong moment.
A guest checkout removes that barrier.
You can still offer account creation after the purchase, when the customer has already achieved what they came to do.
That’s a much better moment to explain the benefits.
How much information do you really need?
Every checkout field has a cost.
Not necessarily a financial one, but a small amount of customer effort.
Name and delivery address are obviously required for most physical orders. An email address is necessary for confirmation. Payment information is unavoidable.
But what else are you asking for?
Do you really need a telephone number?
Do you need to know where the customer heard about you before allowing them to purchase?
Does somebody buying a £20 product need to provide a company name?
Individually, these questions may seem insignificant. Together they make the checkout feel longer and more intrusive.
Only ask for information you genuinely need.
Mobile checkout deserves particular attention
A checkout that seems perfectly straightforward on a desktop computer can be surprisingly awkward on a phone.
Forms become longer. Buttons become smaller. Payment fields can be fiddly. Customers may need to move repeatedly between apps to find information.
And that’s increasingly important because the customer who discovered your product on their phone may expect to complete the entire purchase there.
Test your checkout on an actual smartphone.
Don’t just check whether it technically works. Buy something.
How many taps does it take?
Does the correct keyboard appear for email addresses, telephone numbers and numbers?
Are form labels obvious?
Can you easily see validation errors?
Is the payment button visible and clear?
Small usability problems become much more significant when somebody is entering information on a small screen.
Give people payment methods they recognise
Customers have different preferences when it comes to paying online.
Some are comfortable entering card details. Others prefer digital wallets because they’re faster and avoid manually entering payment information.
Offering appropriate familiar payment options can reduce friction, particularly on mobile.
But this doesn’t mean covering the checkout with every payment logo imaginable.
The objective is straightforward: give customers sensible, trusted ways to pay and make those choices easy to understand.
Trust becomes especially important when money is involved
A customer may have been perfectly comfortable browsing your website, but checkout is the point at which you’re asking them for personal and financial information.
Any uncertainty becomes more significant.
Is this business genuine?
Is payment secure?
What happens if the order doesn’t arrive?
Can I return it?
Will somebody answer if there’s a problem?
Professional design contributes to that confidence, but so do the practical details: clear contact information, delivery policies, returns information and familiar payment methods.
Trying too hard to demonstrate trust can be counterproductive. A checkout plastered with security badges and reassuring slogans may actually make customers wonder why you’re so desperate to convince them.
Good eCommerce design feels trustworthy rather than repeatedly claiming to be trustworthy.
Don’t introduce distractions at the checkout
Elsewhere on an ecommerce website, encouraging exploration is useful.
During checkout, the objective changes.
The customer has already decided what they want. Your job is now to help them complete the transaction.
Large promotional banners, newsletter pop-ups, unrelated products and unnecessary navigation can all distract from that objective.
There is a balance. Customers still need access to important information, particularly delivery, returns and contact details.
But checkout isn’t the place to introduce five new things you’d also like them to consider.
Discount-code boxes can have an unintended effect
A prominent field asking for a promotional code tells customers something:
There might be a discount available that I don’t know about.
Some will leave the checkout and search for one.
They may find an expired voucher, become frustrated or simply never return.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer promotional codes. They’re useful for many eCommerce businesses.
But consider how prominently the field needs to be displayed.
A discreet link such as “Have a discount code?” can provide the functionality without making customers who don’t have one feel they’re paying more than they should.
Checkout errors need to be helpful
Forms go wrong.
A postcode might be entered incorrectly. A required field may be missed. A card payment may fail.
What happens next matters.
An error message saying simply “There was a problem” isn’t particularly helpful.
Tell the customer what needs attention and make it easy to correct without losing everything they’ve already entered.
Validation should also happen sensibly. Discovering after pressing Pay that a field near the top of a long form was incomplete is frustrating, particularly on mobile.
Good error handling is one of those aspects of web design customers barely notice when it works — and notice immediately when it doesn’t.
Don’t make customers wonder whether their order worked
The buying journey doesn’t quite end when the payment button is pressed.
Customers need clear confirmation.
The website should tell them that the order was successful and explain what happens next. An email confirmation should follow promptly.
If payment processing takes a moment, show that something is happening. A customer faced with an apparently frozen screen may press the payment button again, refresh the page or abandon it altogether.
Clarity matters right through to the end.
Abandoned baskets can tell you where the problems are
Analytics can help identify where customers are leaving your checkout.
If large numbers reach the basket but few begin checkout, investigate what happens on the basket page.
If they start checkout but disappear when delivery options are displayed, perhaps costs or choices are creating resistance.
If mobile abandonment is considerably higher than desktop, test the mobile purchasing experience thoroughly.
The numbers don’t always tell you why something is happening, but they can tell you where to start looking.
Not every abandoned basket is a failure
It’s worth remembering that some abandonment is inevitable.
People use baskets as wish lists. They compare products across different websites. They get interrupted. They change their minds.
Someone might even add a product to a basket on their phone and return later on a laptop to complete the purchase.
Trying to eliminate abandonment entirely isn’t realistic.
The useful question is whether your website is causing avoidable abandonment.
If a customer wants to buy, is anything about your checkout making that unnecessarily difficult?
Make completing the purchase feel easy
The best checkout experiences tend not to be memorable.
That’s a compliment.
Customers know what they’re being charged, understand when their order will arrive, can pay using a method they’re comfortable with and don’t have to solve unnecessary problems along the way.
They simply buy.
When reviewing an eCommerce checkout, therefore, don’t begin by asking what additional features you can add.
Start with a much simpler question:
What can we remove, clarify or simplify?
Because once somebody has decided to buy from you, the last thing your website should do is give them a reason to change their mind.