The five checkout leaks we find in almost every audit
We have run more than two hundred checkout teardowns. The brands change, the platforms change, but the leaks barely do. Five problems show up in almost every audit, and four of them are fixable inside a single sprint.
Before the list, one caveat: every number below is a median from our own accounts, not a promise. Your traffic mix, price point and offer will move these ranges. That is exactly why we test instead of just shipping "best practices."
1. The shipping-cost ambush
The single biggest drop we see sits between the cart and the shipping step. If the first time a customer sees the delivery fee is after typing their address, a chunk of them leave — in our accounts, a 12–18% step drop on average.
The fix is boring: show a shipping estimate in the cart, and repeat the free-shipping threshold everywhere. One home-goods client recovered a third of that drop by adding a single line under the cart subtotal.
2. Forced account creation
Guest checkout is not optional anymore. Every audit where we found a mandatory "Create an account" gate, removing it was the highest-ROI change of the quarter. Accounts can be created after the order confirmation, when the customer has nothing left to lose.
3. The coupon-field treasure hunt
A big, empty promo-code box is an invitation to open a new tab and search for codes. Some of those customers never come back. We prefer a collapsed "Have a code?" link, and for brands that rarely discount, moving the field to the payment step entirely. Expect a small but consistent lift — 2–4% checkout CVR in our tests.
4. Mobile form friction
Half the audits we run still have text inputs that trigger the wrong keyboard, addresses without autocomplete, and error messages that appear only after submit. Each one is small. Together they are usually worth more than the hero-image test the team wanted to run instead.
The checklist we apply:
inputmodeandautocompleteattributes on every field- inline validation on blur, not on submit
- address autocomplete (the API cost pays for itself)
- 16px minimum font size so iOS does not zoom the viewport
5. The silent payment failure
The leak nobody sees: failed payments with a generic error. Median across our audits, 6% of attempted payments fail, and the default error message ("Something went wrong") recovers almost none of them. Specific messages — wrong CVC, insufficient funds, try another card — plus a one-click retry recover a meaningful slice.
This is the one fix on the list that usually needs engineering time beyond a sprint, because it touches the payment provider integration. It is still worth queueing.
What to do with this list
Run your own numbers before copying anyone's fixes, including ours. Pull the funnel by step, segment mobile vs desktop, and watch twenty session recordings of people abandoning at the worst step. The leak is usually visible within an afternoon.
Or send us the account and we will do it for you — that is literally the teardown.