Checkout optimization: the friction audit before you launch

26% of shoppers abandon checkout when something feels wrong

Cart abandonment is the most expensive problem in ecommerce. You've already done the hard work of getting a stranger interested enough to add something to their cart, and then they leave, mostly over things you could have fixed in twenty minutes.

The Baymard Institute, which studies ecommerce checkout behavior in depth, has the cleanest breakdown of why people abandon at the final step:

• 48% abandon because of unexpected costs that show up at checkout.
• 24% abandon because they're forced to create an account.
• 22% abandon because the process is too long or complicated.
• 18% abandon because they don't trust the site with their payment information.

Every one of those has a fix. Most of the fixes were already done back in module 2 when you set up Shopify Payments and your store settings. This lesson is the audit. Eight items, in order, run through them all, then place a real test order to confirm everything works end-to-end before you launch.