What Is Checkout Optimization? Shopify Scope & Limits

Quick Definition

Checkout optimization is the work of getting more shoppers who start checkout to actually pay. It covers everything after the Checkout button: forms, shipping costs, payment options and page speed. You remove whatever stops a ready buyer, then check your checkout conversion rate to see if it helped.

It only covers the last stretch of a sale, after the shopper picks products and hits Checkout. They still have to enter an address, choose shipping and pay. Every extra field or surprise fee is one more chance to quit.

The checkout flow is the steps themselves. Optimizing means making them better, and your checkout conversion rate tells you if it worked.

What Checkout Optimization Looks At

Cost surprises: shipping, tax or fees the shopper first sees at checkout.
Form effort: how many fields people fill in, and which you really need.
Ways to pay: is the shopper's usual method there, like Shop Pay or PayPal?
Speed and trust: does the page load fast and still look like your store?

Why a Few More Finished Checkouts Add Up

Example: a pet supply store's month

Checkouts started: 300
Orders: 165
Average order: $40

165 ÷ 300 = 55%. That leaves 135 checkouts nobody paid for.

Say the store adds a missing payment method and 15 of those shoppers pay. Orders go to 180, and 180 ÷ 300 = 60%. That's 15 × $40 = $600 more that month, with the same traffic and ad spend.

This only reaches people who start checkout, though. Across 958 Shopify stores in our data, 42% of carts reached checkout, and 57% of those checkouts ended in a purchase. Carts that never got that far need fixes earlier in the store. Our Shopify cart abandonment statistics break the numbers down.

What You Can Change in a Shopify Checkout

Shopify runs the checkout, so you can't edit its code like your theme. On every plan, you pick which payment methods to offer, including express ones like Shop Pay where it's available. Shop Pay fills in details for shoppers who've saved them with it before. In checkout settings you can make some fields, like company name, optional or hidden. You can add your logo and colors.

Shopify Plus goes further: apps can add blocks inside checkout steps like shipping and payment. On other plans they can't.

Myth: Checkout Optimization Is Only for Shopify Plus

Plus gives you more control inside checkout. But payment methods, shipping rates and optional fields are yours to set on any plan. Some fixes don't even happen in checkout. If shoppers first see your shipping fee there, the fix may be showing it earlier, in the cart. For the fixes, see our complete guide to Shopify checkout optimization.

Related Terms

Checkout Abandonment: when someone starts checkout and leaves without paying.
Friction in Ecommerce: anything that makes buying slower or harder.
Checkout UI Extension: how apps add blocks to Shopify's checkout.
Shopify Plus: Shopify's top plan, with more control over checkout.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): the wider practice checkout optimization is part of.