7 Proven Ways to Get Faster Checkouts and Improve Conversions

Is a slow checkout costing you sales? Learn 7 ways to reduce cart abandonment, meet Core Web Vitals, and boost conversions with a faster checkout.

Attention spans are getting shorter, Core Web Vitals are getting stricter, and mobile wallets have trained buyers to expect to be able to make purchases in seconds. 

Nearly 72% of online shoppers ditch their carts—with up to 18% doing so simply because checkout is slow or confusing, and another 15% leaving when a page crashes.

Every field or stalled spinner chips away at trust and revenue, and turns would-be customers into bounce rate statistics. Fortunately, you don’t need a total site overhaul to fix it. 

Ahead, you’ll learn seven ways to make your checkout faster and make every click count. 

The current state of ecommerce checkout experiences

Sales are won or abandoned at checkout. When a bloated or glitchy flow stalls for even a second, shoppers leave, and at enterprise traffic levels, that could cost hundreds of sales each day. 

Cart-abandonment benchmarks and trends

Almost three-quarters of shoppers abandon their carts, a figure Baymard calculated from compiling 49 separate studies. It’s virtually unchanged year over year. Going deeper, Baymard’s survey also shows that:

• 18% of US shoppers bail when the checkout process feels “too long or complicated.” 
• 19% leave your site over security fears, such as not trusting your site with their credit card information. 

But here’s the interesting thing: If retailers focused on their checkout usability issues, most of which are solvable, the average ecommerce site could increase conversion rates by 35.26% just from better checkout design. 

Google has changed the way it measures site speed and checkout. The new Core Web Vitals metric for site responsiveness, called Interaction to Next Paint (INP), checks how fast your interactive elements load, including your checkout features and functions.

If your overall site speed is slow and your functions take a long time to activate when a user clicks, Google will deprioritize your site in search rankings, which could lead to competitors overtaking you, regardless of how you might surpass them in other metrics and the quality of your products. This means fewer users finding your site through organic search, which can significantly lower conversions.

Core Web Vitals play a vital role in evaluating website performance. When Google replaced their previous site responsiveness metric First Input Delay (FID) with INP in March 2024, they indicated that every user interaction must generate a response in under 200 milliseconds in order for your site to maintain “Good” Core Web Vitals status. Sites that don’t maintain that designation see lower search rankings, higher bounce rates, and likely fewer sales. 

Mobile vs. desktop checkout behavior shifts

Mobile commerce continues to grow in popularity. Q1 2025 data compiled by Statista shows that 68% of online shopping orders were completed on smartphones, a figure that’s nearly doubled over the past four years. 

Yet mobile users still abandon carts. From April 2023 to April 2024, mobile device conversion rates were around 3.0%, while desktop conversion rates were higher at 4.4%. 

Why the gap? Well, smaller screens exaggerate any extra fields or delays, and thumb-typing is much more tiring than using your fingers on a keyboard. Digital wallets, such as Shop Pay, have begun to address this issue by autofilling payment methods, shipping addresses, and other personal information. 

Brands like Allbirds, Kith, Beyond Yoga, Jonathan Adler, Loeffler Randall, and Blueland are already taking advantage of Shop Pay. That’s because Shop Pay provides an average 9% lift in conversion for all checkouts including mobile, and an 18% higher conversion rate for returning customers, with our latest speed improvements making payments and conversion even faster.

Seven ways to create a faster checkout experience

1. Hit Core Web Vitals targets

Lead with checkout responsiveness: keep INP under 200 milliseconds so every tap on “Pay now” feels instantaneous. 

Once the payment flow meets that bar, protect the rest of the journey by staying within Google’s “Good” thresholds—Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) below 2.5 seconds for fast page loads, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1 seconds for rock steady layouts. Together, these three metrics turn speed into trust and keep carts moving to “Order confirmed.”

Follow this checklist to fix the basics:

1. Profile long tasks with Google Lighthouse or the Shopify online store speed report. Break up any JavaScript blocking the main thread for more than 50 milliseconds. 
2. Lazy-load noncritical scripts (heat maps, chat widgets, A/B test frameworks) until after the load event.
3. Swap GIF/MP4 banners for compressed WebP or streamed HLS to hit LCP.
4. Audit third-party apps. Uninstall unused apps or apps that are slowing down performance, and move required analytics pixels to server-side Web Pixels to reduce client overhead.

2. Reduce form fields and use smart defaults

Checkout should feel like a quick stop on the way out the door, not an escape room. If checking out is too hard because of the number of steps required, you will lose business from that alone, no matter how much they want your product. 

Baymard’s 2024 checkout benchmark shows the average flow has 11.3 form fields and is over five steps long. Recalling that 18% of shoppers have abandoned due to checkout complexity, that sounds too long. 

Some ways to reduce form fields include:

• Request only the essentials, around six to eight fields max.
• Collapse optional “Address 2” and “Company” fields. Tuck them behind an “Add more details” link.
• Condense first name and last name fields for one full name field, which is easier to negotiate on mobile.
• Pre-select “Billing address same as Shipping address” to hide the billing address fields unless a shopper unchecks the box.
• Auto-populate ZIP, city, and state by enabling Google-powered address autocomplete.

The best way to reduce form fills, however, is by using a digital wallet solution like Shop Pay. This will skip fields entirely and put shoppers on the path to purchase in under one second. 

3. Save and autofill customer information 

The less work shoppers have to do to finish a purchase, the easier it is to buy. Shop Pay’s one-tap checkout pre-fills shoppers’ email, shipping and billing addresses and preferred payment methods after they make their first purchase.

An external study by a Big Three consulting firm found Shop Pay lifts conversion by up to 50% versus guest checkout, and outperforms all other accelerated options by at least 10%. 

The checkout page from Range Beauty pictured below is an excellent example of the Shop Pay flow:

• Pre-selected shipping address and method, so the buyer never has to type their address again..
• Saved “Pay in 2 installments” option. Buyers choose between paying in full or using Shop Pay Installments without extra forms.
• One prominent “Pay now” button plus a subtle “Checkout as guest” fallback. This makes checkout friction-free for return customers, but inclusive of first-timers.
• “Earn Shop Cash” banner, which gives an extra nudge that drives loyalty without adding steps.

4. Offer one-click account creation

Encourage shoppers to make an account with your company after first purchase. They just received value (order confirmation plus order tracking), so the ask feels like a service, not a hurdle. 

Once they make an account, a unified customer profile feeds Shopify’s personalization stack: Customer Accounts, Segments, Shop app reorder prompts, and any connected tools all sync to the same profile.

Turn a one-off purchase into a lifetime relationship with these tips:

1. Keep guest checkout the default. Don’t force sign-ups. 18% of US shoppers will abandon a flow that feels too long.
2. Show a “Save your info for next time” toggle on the thank-you page or final step. Leverage Shop Pay’s passkey or one-tap opt-in.
3. Spell out the perks. Signed-in buyers can unlock wishlists, saved carts, tailored discounts, and self-serve order management, all powered by a single customer data model.
4. Auto-enroll for faster repurchases. Once shoppers opt in, Shop Pay autofills email, shipping, billing, and preferred payment in about 0.7 seconds, cutting repeat checkout time by 60%.
5. Respect data boundaries. Keep opt-in clear, let users manage data from their customer account, and show privacy links at checkout.

Start with a guest checkout, then seamlessly upgrade customers to accounts that drive personalized storefronts and lifecycle marketing, without ever slowing the first purchase.

5. Optimize your site for international visitors

Shoppers are more likely to convert when a store feels local. They want to browse your store in a language they understand, prices in a currency they recognize, and with no surprise costs at the door. A CSA Research study shows 40% of consumers will never buy from sites in languages other than their own. 

Shopify Managed Markets lets you serve up to 20 languages and 136 local currencies based on the browser’s location. You can offer payment options like Shop Pay, as well as more localized options, including:

• Europe: Klarna, Sofort, iDEAL, Bancontact
• LatAm: PIX, Boleto
• APAC: Alipay, WeChat Pay

Use Managed Markets’ price-rounding feature to maintain consistent pricing and hit psychological price points after currency conversion. For example, you might round €19.37 to €19.90 to avoid turning off customers with an odd-looking price. You can also pair geolocation banners with Shop Promise so international buyers see accurate, duty-inclusive delivery dates the moment they hit the product page.

6. Demonstrate your trustworthiness

Not trusting the security of your checkout is a common reason people walk away, especially as identity theft and fraud become more common. Recall that the Baymard study found that 19% of shoppers abandoned their carts because they didn’t trust the site to securely handle their credit card information.

On your checkout page, consider including credit card logos, seals or trust badges of authenticity, as well as links to your privacy policy, shipping details, FAQ, and return policy. 

tentree is a great example of using trust signals to build shopper confidence. The footer on their checkout includes third-party certifications such as B Corp, The Climate Label, Science Based Targets, and Restorative Coalition, showing their commitment to ethical and sustainable business practices.

Combined with familiar payment logos like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and AMEX, Tentree reassures customers that they’re shopping with a socially responsible and secure brand.

7. Offer real-time shipping estimates

These days, shoppers don’t want to wait five to seven business days for a package. May 2024 data shows that two-thirds of global shoppers actually expect to receive online orders within 24 hours. Some 45% of shoppers are also actively looking for businesses that clearly show anticipated delivery times. 

Shop Promise lets you deliver on this expectation. It predicts a calendar delivery date (not a range) from your real carrier data, handling times, and the shopper’s ZIP, then shows it on the product page, cart, checkout, and in the Shop app.

Items that can arrive in less than five days get a green “Shop Promise” label, and you can offer next-day or two-day options when available. The badge is free. If an order misses its scheduled date, Shopify credits the customer $5 in Shop Cash at no additional cost to you, thereby protecting brand trust.

Benefits of a fast checkout experience

Our research shows that adding Shop Pay as an option to your store pays real dividends. Here’s how:

Higher conversions and optimized social selling

We’ve seen ecommerce stores like fun snack brand Muddy Bites convert customers at an incredible rate using accelerated checkout experiences.

“We have a one-click checkout system that has a very high conversion rate with extreme growth,” says Jarod Steffes, cofounder and CEO of Muddy Bites. He reports that within one year, the company experienced 1,167% year-over-year growth.

Shop Pay provides a seamless option for completing purchases on your mobile and desktop site, as well as through express checkouts on Instagram and Facebook. 

Increased brand rediscovery

Every time a customer completes a purchase using Shop Pay, they’re provided with the option to track their order in the Shop app. The ability to track order status and delivery updates on their phones means customers need less support from your team, in the form of answering time-consuming questions like “Where’s my order?” 

Not only that, but regular push notifications create brand moments, extending the relationship beyond the point of checkout, and making every touchpoint from checkout to delivery an opportunity to rediscover your brand.

More repeat purchasers

The Shop app shows users recommendations from your store within the shopping feed in the app. That means Shop is always helping you make your next sale before a customer’s last order has even arrived.

As just one example, Muddy Bites achieved an 8% increase in completed return customer orders since they started to use Shop. 

How to get started with Shop 

We know how important a frictionless checkout process is to your bottom line. That’s why we created the most powerful accelerated checkout in the world: Shop Pay.

Want to try it out for yourself? Getting started is easy: 

1. Add the Shop channel. From your Shopify admin, navigate to Sales Channels, click Shop to learn more, and click Add the Shop Channel.
2. Enable Shop Pay. After you have chosen how you would like to sign in with Shop, tap Set up Shop Pay and follow the prompts. Don’t forget: you can update your Shop Pay information at any time on the Profile tab by tapping Shop Pay.
3. Enable Track with Shop. All the information your customers want is at their fingertips, from notifications to order details in real time. Add the Track with Shop option at checkout byactivating it in your admin.
4. Customize your store profile and product listings. You can customize many parts of your store profile, including logo, cover image, meta description, links to store URL, contact page, and social media links. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop. Then click Edit profile to make changes.

Faster checkout FAQ

How can I make my checkout faster?

To speed up your checkout process:

1. Streamline the checkout process: Make sure the checkout process is as simple and straightforward as possible. Reduce the number of steps, simplify the forms and make sure all the elements are clearly labeled.
2. Show the checkout progress: Let customers know how far along they are in the process by showing a progress indicator. This helps them understand what step they’re on and how much more work is needed to complete the checkout process.
3. Offer multiple payment options: Provide customers with a variety of payment methods to make it easier for them to pay.
4. Offer a guest checkout option: Enable customers to make a purchase without having to create an account. This reduces the amount of information they have to provide and speeds up the process.
5. Offer order summaries: Show customers a summary of their order before they complete the checkout process. This helps them double-check their order and ensure they’ve selected the right items.
6. Let customers save payment methods: Allow customers to store payment information so they don’t have to enter the same information each time they make a purchase.
7. Use auto-complete technology: Utilize auto-complete technology to make it easier for customers to fill out forms. This can help speed up the checkout process. If you’re a Shopify merchant, activating Shop Pay on your store will allow customers who have a Shop Pay account to check out with one tap. It allows them to store credit card, email, shipping and billing information and then use it to autofill checkout fields on return visits to your website.
8. Provide real-time shipping estimates: Offer customers an accurate estimate of when their order will arrive and what shipping options are available. This helps them understand the time frame and makes them more likely to complete the purchase. If you’re a Shopify merchant, you can activate Shop Promise—a tool that automatically displays expected delivery dates, intelligently predicted by Shopify, on your store’s product pages, checkout, and in the Shop app.

Does fast checkout work on Shopify?

Yes, Shopify offers fast checkout (or accelerated checkout) options. Shopify merchants can enable payment providers that offer an offsite checkout, like Apple Pay or Google Pay, which can make the checkout process faster and easier for customers. Accelerated checkout buttons can show on the storefront, or the first step of checkout, to allow customers to use one of these offsite checkouts. Merchants can also activate Shop Pay, the world’s highest-converting one-tap checkout.

Why is fast checkout important?

A fast checkout flow is important because it allows customers to quickly and easily complete their purchase. This makes customers more likely to complete the checkout process and less likely to abandon their cart. A fast checkout also helps drive conversions and improve customer satisfaction, as customers can quickly and efficiently complete their purchase. Additionally, streamlining the checkout process can help to reduce transaction costs and increase the speed of service, leading to a better overall customer experience.