The short answer: The most impactful Shopify checkout optimizations are reducing checkout steps, enabling accelerated payment methods (Shop Pay, Apple Pay), showing shipping costs before checkout, and adding trust signals near the payment form. These four changes alone can improve checkout completion rates by 15-30% based on data from 100+ Shopify CRO projects.
Cart abandonment is the single biggest revenue leak for most Shopify stores. Industry data shows the average cart abandonment rate is around 70% — meaning 7 out of 10 shoppers who add items to their cart leave without buying.
But here’s what most Shopify store owners miss: the checkout is the highest-leverage optimization point on your entire store. Every percentage point improvement in checkout completion applies to every single visitor who adds to cart. The compounding effect over months of traffic is enormous.
After completing 100+ Shopify CRO projects over 9+ years, these are the 12 optimizations that consistently deliver the biggest impact on checkout completion rates.
1. Enable Every Accelerated Payment Method
Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal Express should all be active. Accelerated payments reduce checkout friction dramatically because they skip address entry and payment form filling entirely.
Shop Pay specifically has been shown to increase conversion by reducing checkout time. If you’re only offering credit card payment, you’re creating unnecessary friction for every mobile user.
How to implement: Shopify Admin → Settings → Payments → Enable all available accelerated checkout methods.
2. Show Shipping Costs Before Checkout
Unexpected shipping costs are the #1 reason for checkout abandonment. Don’t let customers discover shipping prices at the final checkout step.
Options include showing shipping estimates on the product page, offering a shipping calculator in the cart, or offering flat-rate/free shipping with a clear threshold displayed sitewide.
3. Reduce Checkout Steps
Every additional step in your checkout flow is a drop-off point. Audit your checkout to identify unnecessary fields, pages, or steps.
For standard Shopify stores, use the one-page checkout option. For Shopify Plus, use checkout extensibility to create a streamlined custom flow that removes friction.
4. Add Trust Signals at the Payment Step
The payment step has the highest anxiety and highest abandonment. Add trust signals directly near the payment form:
- SSL badge / secure checkout indicator
- Money-back guarantee badge
- Payment method logos
- Brief return policy summary
These elements reduce purchase anxiety at the moment it’s highest.
5. Optimize for Mobile Checkout
Over 60% of Shopify traffic comes from mobile devices, but mobile checkout completion rates are typically lower than desktop. Common mobile checkout issues include small tap targets on form fields, poor keyboard type mapping (numeric keyboard for phone fields), and slow load times on mobile networks.
Test your entire checkout flow on a real mobile device — not just the browser responsive mode.
6. Enable Guest Checkout
Forcing account creation before purchase adds friction that kills conversion. Enable guest checkout and offer account creation after purchase completion.
The post-purchase account creation prompt converts well because the customer has already committed — they’re more willing to set a password to track their order.
7. Optimize Checkout Page Speed
Checkout page load time directly impacts completion rates. Common Shopify checkout speed issues include too many third-party scripts, unoptimized images, and heavy app scripts loading on checkout pages.
Audit your checkout page speed separately from your storefront — they often have different performance profiles.
8. Use Strategic Checkout Upsells (Shopify Plus)
For Shopify Plus stores, checkout upsells can increase average order value without hurting completion rates — if implemented correctly.
The key is relevance and simplicity: one-click add, complementary products only, and never before the payment step. Post-purchase upsells (after order confirmation, before thank-you page) are the safest option.
9. Display Clear Delivery Estimates
Showing estimated delivery dates (not just shipping speed names like “Standard” or “Express”) reduces purchase anxiety and increases checkout completion.
Customers want to know “When will I get this?” not “How fast does shipping work?”
10. Simplify Form Fields
Remove every non-essential form field from your checkout. Common fields that add friction without value: company name (for B2C stores), phone number (if not needed for shipping), address line 2 (make it optional and collapsed).
Every field you remove is one less opportunity for the customer to abandon.
11. Implement Address Autocomplete
Google Places address autocomplete reduces form filling time dramatically and reduces address errors that cause shipping issues.
Shopify supports address autocomplete natively — make sure it’s enabled in your checkout settings.
12. Add Order Summary Visibility Throughout Checkout
Customers should be able to see what they’re buying, the quantities, and the total at every step of checkout. A collapsible order summary that’s always accessible reduces anxiety and prevents “what am I paying for?” abandonment.
Start With Your Data
Before implementing any of these optimizations, check your GA4 checkout funnel report. Identify which specific step has the highest drop-off rate. That’s where you start — optimize the biggest leak first.
If you’re not sure how to read your checkout data or need help implementing these optimizations, get in touch for a free checkout audit →
Kaspian Fuad is a Shopify CRO specialist and Liquid developer with 9+ years of ecommerce experience and 100+ completed projects for DTC brands.