Grab your phone. Open your own online store. Pick a product, any product, and buy it.
Now count every single tap from the product page to the order confirmation screen.
Go on, we’ll wait. ⏱️
Done? Good. If that number made you wince, you’re not alone. Most ecommerce directors haven’t bought from their own site in months. Some never have. Yet every one of those taps is a moment where a real customer can hesitate, get distracted or simply give up.
This quick audit is one of the most valuable minutes you’ll spend on your business this year. Here’s why, and here’s exactly what to fix.
Why checkout friction costs you sales
You’ve already done the hard part. You’ve paid for the ads, won the click, shown off the product and convinced someone to add it to their basket. That shopper is ready to buy.
And then your checkout gets in the way.
Every extra step, field and surprise gives them another reason to leave. A notification pings. The kettle boils. A form asks one question too many. Suddenly that basket is abandoned, and the money you spent getting them there goes with it.
The good news is that checkout friction is one of the easiest problems in ecommerce to fix. You rarely need a full rebuild. Most of the culprits are quick wins that start paying off the moment they go live, and they keep paying off all year round.
Here are the five we see most often.
1. Forced account creation
Asking for a password before you’ve even taken their money is a big ask. It’s like a shop assistant demanding your life story before letting you reach the till.
Shoppers want to buy, not sign up for something. Forcing them to create an account adds steps, adds effort and adds a fresh reason to walk away. Plenty of people won’t bother, especially first-time buyers who aren’t sure they’ll ever come back.
The fix: Offer guest checkout, loud and clear. Then invite shoppers to save their details after the order is placed. At that point, all they need to do is choose a password, because you already have their name, email and address. You still grow your customer database, but you do it without blocking the sale.
2. Duplicate address fields
Typing the same address twice gives shoppers two chances to give up. On a phone, with a tiny keyboard and autocorrect fighting every word, it’s even worse.
For the vast majority of orders, the billing and delivery address are exactly the same. Making everyone enter both treats the exception as the rule.
The fix: Tick “Billing address same as delivery” by default. Shoppers who need a different billing address can untick it in a second. Then add postcode lookup so one tap fills the whole address. Fewer keystrokes, fewer typos, fewer failed deliveries. Everyone wins.
3. Hidden delivery costs
Nothing kills trust faster than a surprise fee on the final screen.
Your customer has mentally agreed to a price. They’ve reached the finish line. Then a delivery charge appears out of nowhere, and the deal suddenly feels different. Even a small fee can feel like a trick when it arrives late, and shoppers who feel tricked don’t hang around.
The fix: Be upfront. Show delivery costs on the product page and in the basket, not just at the end. If you offer free delivery over a certain spend, shout about it, and show shoppers how close they are to reaching it. Clear pricing builds confidence, and confident shoppers complete their orders.
4. Missing express payments
Picture your customer on the sofa, phone in hand. To finish the order, they need to find their purse, dig out a card and type 16 digits, an expiry date and a security code onto a small screen.
Plenty of them won’t bother. They’ll “come back later”. Spoiler: many never do.
The fix: Add Apple Pay and Google Pay. Shoppers already have their card details and address stored on their phone, so checkout becomes a single tap or a quick glance. It’s faster, it feels secure and it removes one of the biggest hurdles on mobile. Most major ecommerce platforms support express payments, so this is often one of the simplest upgrades you can make.
5. Unnecessary form fields
Every field is another question standing between you and the sale. Company name? Second phone number? Date of birth? How did you hear about us?
Each one might seem harmless on its own. Together, they turn a quick purchase into a chore. They can also make shoppers wonder why you need all that information in the first place.
The fix: Go through your checkout field by field and ask one simple question: does this help us deliver the order? If the answer is no, delete it. If it’s genuinely useful but not essential, make it optional. Want marketing insights? Ask for them in a post-purchase survey, when the sale is already safely banked.
Fewer taps, fewer drop-offs, more sales
Now go back to that number you counted at the start.
Every tap you remove makes it easier for customers to give you their money. And because you’ve already paid to bring them to your store, a smoother checkout means more value from every pound you spend on marketing. That’s growth without spending more on ads.
The best part? None of these fixes are complicated. Guest checkout, smarter address forms, upfront delivery costs, express payments and a ruthless edit of your form fields can transform how your checkout performs.
Make this audit a habit, too. Run it every few months, after any platform update and before every big sales push. Fresh eyes catch problems that creep in over time.
Want a second pair of eyes on your checkout?
Sometimes it’s hard to spot the problems when you see your site every day. That’s where we come in.
At Hot Dog Solutions, we work as an extension of your team. We dig into your checkout, find what’s slowing customers down and fix it, whatever platform you’re on. No jargon, no fluff, just practical changes that turn more visitors into paying customers.
How many clicks did you count? Let’s get that number down!
Hot Dog Solutions. Don’t let your visitors go Walkies.
