Checkout is the sequence between deciding to buy and completing payment, and it is where the largest share of intending buyers is lost.
Every field, redirect and unexpected cost in a checkout removes a proportion of buyers who had already decided to pay. This is the most reliably measurable part of an online business, and usually the least optimised on creator pages.
Three fixes carry most of the improvement: ask for the minimum needed to fulfil the order, show the final total including tax before payment details are requested, and offer the payment methods the buyer's region actually uses. Surprise costs at the final step are the single most cited reason for abandonment.
Trust matters as much as friction. A checkout on an unfamiliar domain with no recognisable payment branding loses buyers who would have completed the same form elsewhere.
In practice
Removing a required "company name" field and showing VAT-inclusive pricing earlier can recover a meaningful share of abandoned carts.
Common mistake
Collecting a postal address for a downloadable file. It suggests something physical is coming and adds a field nobody needed.
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