Checkout Optimisation Strategies For Your Shopify Store

It goes without saying, but creating a checkout that’s optimised for conversions is a crucial part of maintaining a successful ecommerce website. The checkout is the last place customers can change their mind before they commit to a purchase, and high cart abandonment levels can indicate that something is preventing customers from completing the purchasing funnel.

On average, 70% of customers leave the checkout before they complete their purchases. Top reported reasons range from an overly complex checkout process, to needing to create an account, to a lack of payment methods. Unexpected costs and restrictive shipping options – all hidden within the checkout – can also be a major deterrent to completing a purchase.

There are changes you can test and implement within your checkout to target these common barriers to purchase. This could include things like tweaking the UI, all the way to changing how products are bundled and how customers can get their products delivered.

Shopify checkout gives retailers a head start

When it comes to checkout optimisation, Shopify retailers already have a solid foundation in place, in the form of the best-converting checkout in the world. Independent research found that Shopify converts up to 36% better than other platforms like Salesforce, WooCommerce and Adobe.

What else makes the Shopify checkout stand out?

Checkout Extensibility

Whilst Shopify’s checkout is simple to set up and configure, the opportunities to expand the potential of your purchasing experience don’t end here.

Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility enables access to a growing list of tools and functionality that encourage app-based customisations of individual checkouts. These apps allow for increased flexibility with the checkout UI, allowing for a more customised experience – including a tailored look and feel, custom post-purchase pages like branded review widgets to build trust, and upsell components that encourage customers to add to their basket in the checkout.

Not upgraded to Extensibility? We’ve written more about what upgrading from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility means.

One-page optimisation

Shopify also offers the option to move to a one-page checkout process. Being able to choose between a one and three-page checkout gives Shopify retailers the flexibility to select a checkout process which aligns best with how their customers shop.

A multi-page checkout can make ordering clearer with a step-by-step purchasing process and progress indicators for users.

However, one-page checkouts allow for all content to be displayed in a singular form, reducing the required clicks to convert and cutting page loads between each step.

Accelerated payment methods

Shopify’s Shop Pay creates an accelerated checkout by recognising users as they enter their email address and offering a one-tap purchase. These affordances means that Shop Pay can increase conversion by up to 50%.

Furthermore, Shopify supports other accelerated checkout options, like Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, Meta Pay and Amazon Pay. This ensures that shoppers can make purchases with their preferred payment options using dynamic buttons that take them directly from product to purchase – perfect for today’s time-poor consumers.

Cart recovery as standard

Even if your shopper decides to abandon their basket during checkout, there’s ways of following up with them to encourage their return, as Shopify keeps checkout information on baskets that were abandoned when payment information was entered.

Retailers can set up automatic email flows that contact the customer to remind them about their unfinished purchase, and perhaps even offer conversion incentives like limited-time discount codes.

How to optimise the Shopify checkout experience even further

Let’s look at how the powerful Shopify checkout can be optimised even further by tackling some of the most common reasons customers give for abandoning their purchases.

1. Be transparent about shipping costs & timelines

A very popular response from customers is that when they reach the checkout, they realise the cost of shipping or delivery is too high, or that their order is going to take too long to arrive.

58% of shoppers expect next-day delivery, demonstrating the importance of convenience and speed for many online purchasers. Whilst expedited delivery isn’t possible for every brand, it’s important to at least be transparent around timelines early in the user journey.

Having links to FAQs in the footer, as well as having important shipping information linked in content blocks and CTAs on product pages, means customers can access this information in other places throughout the conversion funnel.

If you’re unable to offer rapid delivery, can you offer it for free? Order value thresholds can be set in a way that encourage customers to add more items to their cart to access free shipping – thus boosting average order value (AOV).

Giving customers a choice of shipping and delivery options also encourages shoppers who may baulk at a seemingly inflexible price barrier, helping to reduce friction at this end of the purchasing funnel. Popular solution Pretty Damn Quick can help you include accurate delivery timelines, shipping prices and alternative delivery methods in a way that’s optimised for your checkout through testing.

2. Offer various payment methods

Similarly, customers are looking for flexibility in the ways they are able to pay. This can be via their trusted debit card details, buy-now-pay-later platforms like Klarna, digital wallets, or one-click payments like Shop Pay. 11% of people don’t complete checkout if they aren’t able to pay the way they want.

Adding a variety of options makes your purchasing journey more accessible. Displaying logos to represent each payment method helps consumers recognise their preferred option in an instant – giving them confidence to move through the checkout process.

For global Shopify retailers, Shopify Markets (now known as Shopify international) lets you set up eligible local payment methods once the correct region is selected by the customer, making it easy for them to purchase in their preferred method even internationally.

However, it’s worth noting that adding a range of payment methods does risk overcomplicating the checkout with too many options. Therefore, it’s important to analyse how your customers are currently making purchases to ensure that you’re optimising with intention.

3. Display trust signals

One 2024 study showed that 25% of adults abandoned their cart because they didn’t trust the website with their card details. Creating a space where customers feel like they trust your brand and the website they’re purchasing from is vital to ensure they progress through the conversion funnel.

Here are some different ways to incorporate trust signals in your checkout:

• Displaying security badges, authentic reviews and antivirus software logos in the checkout space communicates reliability to consumers and can boost their confidence in your website with just a glance.

• Mentioning your returns policy or highlighting a money-back guarantee also reduces the feeling of risk when purchasing online.

• Adding in information about online support or a live chat function, like Gorgias, lets customers know that your team is on hand to help should they require assistance or clarification.

• Even adding in brand USPs around sustainable processes or business values can help convince shoppers that they’re making the right decision.

4. Optimise for mobile

Over 60% of adults believe mobile shopping is the key to convenience; in 2024 roughly 187 million people in the US will shop on their phones, whilst 57% of online sales in the UK take place on smartphones and tablets.

Making sure your checkout is mobile-optimised is vital. Your website loading times need to be fast, your buttons and CTAs the right size for a person’s finger, and content and assets resized to fit perfectly on a phone screen.

A poor mobile experience with oddly-sized checkout elements can feel less professional to interact with and therefore decrease a user’s trust in your brand.

5. Recommend related products

As well as targeting common cart abandonment issues, there are checkout optimisations you can implement to aid product discovery and increase AOV.

For example, suggesting additional related products to customers in the checkout can often prove fruitful in increasing basket value. Apps like Rebuy and ReConvert offer cart extensions that present related cross-sell opportunities to help encourage customers to purchase.

We talk a bit more about this topic in our article on the benefits of product recommendations in ecommerce.

Checkout optimisation projects with Swanky

Our Growth Accelerator team offers comprehensive checkout audits, designed to uncover pain points and identify opportunities for optimisation.

Post-audit, we will leverage these insights to prioritise, test and implement tailored solutions to drive conversions, reduce checkout abandonment and ultimately enhance user experience.

To find out more about our standalone checkout optimisation projects, please reach out to our team today.