Checkout is the process in which a customer finalizes a purchase. It begins when the shopper has finished adding products to the cart and typically consists of two steps, shipping and payment. Optimizing it means removing every obstacle between a decided customer and a completed order, and it is usually the fastest way to raise online revenue without buying more traffic.
Imagine the weekly trading meeting of an online retailer in Latin America. Campaigns are bringing shoppers to the site, carts are filling up, and the dashboard shows the figure that worries everyone, which is how many of those carts never become orders. The marketing director blames the quality of traffic, the operations director blames delivery costs, and the technology director points out that the platform has not failed once. Nobody has watched an actual customer trying to type an address into a form designed for another country. The loss does not happen on the product page, where the customer has already decided. It happens in the last two minutes, when the effort of paying exceeds the desire to buy.
The scale of that loss is well documented. The Baymard Institute, after compiling 50 studies, puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, and it notes that many causes are fixable through design. This article explains the two stages of checkout, then the five improvements that matter most, with the current configuration paths in Adobe Commerce, the platform formerly known as Magento, and finishes with what leaders should do about it.
The checkout starts once the customer finishes adding products to the shopping cart, and it normally has two stages. In the shipping stage, the customer enters a location or delivery address. When a virtual or downloadable product is purchased, this step is omitted. Then, depending on the availability of delivery services, the customer chooses the shipping method they prefer, such as a carrier like UPS or FedEx, or pick up in store. In the payment stage, the customer selects the payment method and follows the instructions for it, which may be a card, PayPal, bank transfer or cash.
Clarity about these stages matters because each one produces a different type of friction. The shipping stage generates doubts about address, cost and timing, while the payment stage generates doubts about security and convenience. Reasons customers cite for abandoning, according to Baymard, include extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees (40%), slow delivery (20%), distrust of the site with credit card information (19%), a required account (18%) and a checkout that is too long or complicated (17%). The five strategies below address these causes directly and can be applied to improve effectiveness, conversion rate and user experience.
Many shipping forms in ecommerce are outdated or do not fit the culture of the population using the platform. Do you know your postal code by heart? In Latin America many people rarely use it in their address, yet numerous stores request it at checkout because of the North American influence, where the postal code is widely used and serves to calculate shipping rates. Adapting the shipping form to the country of the merchant is an excellent way to reduce the complexity and ambiguity of delivery addresses. Something as small as not knowing the postal code can lead the customer to abandon the purchase out of concern that the order will not arrive at the right address.
Baymard's research shows how much form design matters, since the average U.S. checkout presents 23.48 form elements by default, whereas its research suggests that an ideal flow needs only 12 to 14. A form that asks for fewer, more relevant fields also gets completed faster on a mobile phone.
One measure to avoid address confusion is to use an interactive map in which the customer places a pointer on the exact location. The map captures the coordinates and uses them to determine the correct address through a process called geocoding. The most established map service is Google Maps, which offers free plans up to a monthly volume of queries but requires a credit card if usage exceeds the free quota, and free alternatives include OpenStreetMap and Leaflet. These maps are not present by default in Adobe Commerce, so installing them requires an extension or development work. It is important to note that some shipping providers operate with the geographic coordinates of the delivery point, in which case a map in the checkout that sends the coordinates to the provider's web API is mandatory, not optional.
Map from Google Maps:
Leaflet map:
Another way to simplify the form is to divide it into steps, so that the customer knows in which order and how to enter their data. A customer who enters only a city and sees no shipping method may conclude that there are no shipping providers and leave, when in fact shipping methods require certain address details before they can estimate a cost, and until the customer has completed them the options may not be shown. By default the platform asks for shipping data in the order of street, city, province, postal code and country, whereas many people are accustomed to entering country, province, city and street. Adobe Commerce allows the fields to be reordered and modified, and it is advisable to adjust the form to the users of the store. By showing the customer the exact order and manner in which to enter data, confusion and errors are avoided.
Providing several shipping options is important because it lets customers choose what suits them best. Some are willing to pay more for fast delivery, while others prefer to wait longer for a lower cost. Some will want to collect the order at a store or point of sale, so the option to pick up in store should be offered where possible. Adobe Commerce documents delivery methods such as flat rate, free shipping, table rates and in-store delivery, together with carrier integrations including UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL, which are configured under Stores > Settings > Configuration > Sales > Delivery Methods. In earlier versions this section was labeled Shipping Methods.
For payment, the platform makes it easy to configure options such as bank transfer, cash on delivery and PayPal, but it is crucial that the store lets customers pay with a credit or debit card within the same checkout. Cards are the most common ecommerce payment method because they are simple to use and give the business traceability through a transaction platform. It is recommended to avoid options that redirect the customer to an external site, since that generates distrust and may stop the customer from paying. If the method required by the business is not available by default, many extensions exist to integrate shipping and payment methods, and custom development is also possible.
The commercial consequence is straightforward. Consider a regional home improvement retailer that serves both contractors and families. Contractors want invoicing and bank transfer, families want cards and installments, and both want to know whether they can collect from the nearest branch. A checkout that offers only one path forces half of its customers to abandon or to call, so diversity of options is not a convenience but a revenue decision.
Additional steps can be useful because they capture particular data, such as an electronic invoicing form required by local tax rules, or because they improve the shopping experience. A good example is offering the option to pick up in store before asking for a delivery address, which would be superfluous if the order will not be shipped. Creating an additional step requires programming a module that extends the standard checkout form. Some extensions make the process easier, although some development is usually needed to adapt the form to the particular requirements of the business.
Three considerations should guide the decision. First, data entered in a new form in the checkout is not stored anywhere on its own, so it must be processed dynamically at the moment the customer completes the form, or saved to the database through an API built for that purpose. Second, the checkout should remain as simple and direct as possible, because unnecessary complexity or too many steps can overwhelm the customer and lead to abandonment. Third, transparency and integrity must be maintained with customer data, and sensitive information such as passwords, card details and personal data must be stored with the correct protocols and in line with the law of the location. A step should be added only if the business reason is strong enough to justify what it costs in conversion, and every added step should be measured against that cost.
By default, Adobe Commerce lets customers shop as guests or create an account. The advantage of an account is that the system stores personal details so the customer does not need to re-enter them, and it facilitates tracking, since purchases appear in the profile with their status, such as pending, processing or completed. Guest purchases remain a feature that the platform documents in its guest checkout guidance, where guests are offered the option to register after checkout.
The platform also allows the creation of customer groups, which determine which discounts are available and which tax class applies, and of customer segments, rules-based groups built from profile information that can be used to tailor content and promotions. These tools allow differentiated prices, promotions and personalized content for the customers who belong to each group. A business with a loyalty program, for example, can place customers who have purchased over a certain period into a group and create promotions only for them. The same functionality can be used for wholesale or B2B customers, although Adobe Commerce also offers a dedicated set of B2B capabilities in its licensed version, including company accounts, shared catalogs, negotiable quotes and requisition lists.
Despite the benefits of accounts, it is recommended to keep the guest option, because some people will abandon a purchase if they are required to register. Baymard found that 18% of abandoners left because the site required account creation. Even guests must provide an email and personal details in the checkout form, so that the customer can be contacted and the information stored in a CRM just like any other contact. In this way the business can capture the relationship without making registration a precondition of the sale.
Adobe Commerce allows the display of costs to be configured in many ways, for example with or without tax and with or without shipping. It is advisable to show every cost the customer will pay, with no hidden charges and nothing in small print. Hidden costs may cause the customer to abandon the purchase and prevent them from considering the business again. Baymard's data shows the scale of the issue, since extra costs are the leading reason for abandonment at 40%, and 12% of abandoners left because the total order cost was not visible up front. Customers should know the total cost of the order at each stage, from adding products to the cart to choosing shipping and payment methods.
This is especially important in Latin America, where prices in stores and supermarkets usually include taxes and final costs on the label, unlike in the United States, where the amount at checkout can differ considerably from the label because of sales tax, service fees and tips. A shopper accustomed to final prices who sees an unexpected total at the last step will read it as a lack of honesty, even when the information was technically available earlier.
To configure price display, go to Stores > Settings > Configuration > Sales > Tax and open the Price Display Settings, Shopping Cart Display Settings and Orders, Invoices, Credit Memos Display Settings sections. Adobe notes that showing prices both with and without tax can confuse customers, so the tax rules of the country should be reviewed before choosing. Extensions can adjust the display in more specific ways, such as the symbols for decimals, thousands and currency, and further changes are possible through theme development or custom modules.
For the chief executive and the chief financial officer, the checkout is the place where marketing investment either becomes revenue or evaporates. Because the shopper has already been acquired, every percentage point recovered at checkout is available at nearly no incremental acquisition cost, which makes it one of the highest-return projects in the digital portfolio. The right management question is how many customers who reached the payment step completed their purchase, and what the company would earn from a modest improvement in that ratio.
For the commercial and marketing leaders, checkout is where promises are tested, since a shipping cost that appears only at the end contradicts a campaign that promised value. For the leader of customer experience and service, a clear checkout reduces contacts that exist only because a customer could not complete a step, and for the chief information officer it means giving the commercial team a platform where forms, steps and payment methods can be adjusted without a major project. Customers who buy easily buy again, which links checkout design directly to retention and loyalty.
A seasoned consultant would start by completing a purchase on the company's own store using a phone, with a real address and a real card, and then asking someone outside the team to do the same while being observed. The goal is to count the fields, the steps and the moments of doubt. Next, extract from analytics the drop-off between the cart, the shipping step and the payment step, and compare mobile with desktop. The step with the largest loss indicates where to focus.
From there, apply the five strategies in order of expected impact. Remove the fields that the business does not need, align the address form with local habits, show the total cost from the first cart view, make sure card payment works inside the store, and keep guest checkout available. Measure each change over several weeks before introducing the next so that the effect is clear. Our Customer Journey Toolkit provides a framework for mapping the purchase path and the points of friction.
ICX Consulting approaches checkout as part of the commercial and customer experience strategy of the business. Our Adobe Commerce team configures and extends the platform for local requirements such as address formats, payment methods and electronic invoicing, and our B2C ecommerce consulting and B2B ecommerce consulting align the purchase process with pricing, logistics and service. Where the experience needs redesign, UX optimization uses evidence from real shoppers to prioritize the changes.
If you suspect that your store loses customers in the last step, request a diagnostic with an ICX consultant.
Neither is always better. Adobe Commerce lets you choose between formats, and the right answer depends on how many fields your customers must complete and on how they behave on mobile. What matters is that the customer always knows where they are in the process and what remains, so test both against your own abandonment data.
It is better not to. Keep guest checkout available and invite customers to register after the purchase, when the benefits of tracking and saved details are concrete. Baymard found that the account requirement drives a meaningful share of abandonment.
Start with what your customers already use in their country, always including credit and debit cards in the same checkout, and add local options where they are common. Review the share of orders by method each quarter and retire options that nobody uses.
Not necessarily. Maps are most valuable where addresses are ambiguous or where carriers require coordinates. If your address system is precise and your carriers do not need coordinates, validated address fields may be sufficient.
A checkout that feels effortless is the quiet result of many careful decisions, and it is one of the few places in digital commerce where a modest investment can change the revenue line within a quarter. If you want your store to complete more of the purchases it has already earned, our consultants are ready to work with your team.