The average e-commerce checkout loses between 65% and 80% of potential customers. That means that out of 100 people who add a product to their cart, only 20 to 35 complete the purchase. The rest disappear — quietly, with no feedback and no explanation.
The good news: checkout abandonment isn't inevitable. It's a design problem. And it's one that data can help solve with remarkable precision.
Why red sells: the psychology of urgency
Few colors in e-commerce have been studied as extensively as red. And the findings are consistent: a red price next to the original price increases click-through rates on sale items by 20 to 34% — regardless of whether the item is actually discounted.
Why? Red is psychologically associated with alarm, urgency, and pressure to act. It can trigger a mild stress response, and stress reduces the depth of cognitive processing. Put simply: when people see red, they tend to think less and act faster.
That helps explain why online retailers often display or cross out original prices in red rather than gray: the color itself — not just the number — creates a sense of urgency. An A/B test by HubSpot involving 2,000 participants found that a red CTA button outperformed a green one by 21% in conversion rate.
Red works for urgency and discounts — not necessarily for primary purchase buttons in a premium brand environment. A luxury product with a red "Buy now" button can send conflicting signals. The color has to fit the brand promise.
The cart as a psychological contract
Having a product in your cart isn't cognitively the same as owning it — but it brings you closer to that feeling. This is the endowment effect: once something feels like it's ours, we become more reluctant to give it up.
Strategically, that means:
- Keep the cart persistent: save cart contents for 7 to 30 days. Returning customers who find their cart intact convert about 30% more often.
- Send the abandoned-cart email within an hour: the first email after checkout abandonment, when sent within an hour, has an average open rate of 40% and a conversion rate of 5 to 10%.
- Keep the product image prominent in the cart: the more visible the product is, the stronger the endowment effect. Small thumbnails weaken the emotional connection.
What A/B tests actually show: the 7 biggest checkout killers
1. Mandatory account creation
The single biggest checkout killer. Forced account creation costs an average of 23% of conversions (Baymard study, 58,000 test sessions). The fix: offer guest checkout and suggest creating an account after the purchase. Zalando increased conversion by 18% with this one change.
2. Too many form fields
Every additional required field costs conversions. In a 2023 A/B test, Expedia removed a single field — "Company name (optional)" — and generated an additional $12M in annual revenue. Fewer fields mean more completed purchases. No exceptions.
3. Unexpected shipping costs
The most commonly cited reason for abandonment: 48% of people who abandon checkout name unexpected additional costs — shipping, taxes, or fees — as the main reason. The fix: make all costs transparent as early as possible, ideally on the product page.
4. Not enough trust at checkout
SSL badges, familiar payment methods, real reviews, and a clear return policy directly in the checkout flow increase completion rates by 6 to 12%. At the point of purchase, customers actively look for signals that reassure them it's safe to proceed.
5. Too many steps — and no progress indicator
A progress indicator ("Step 2 of 3") can reduce abandonment by up to 25%. People need to see the finish line. A checkout process that feels endless creates frustration — and people leave.
6. A poor mobile experience
More than 70% of e-commerce visits happen on mobile devices, yet mobile conversion rates are about 50% lower than desktop on average. The main reasons: buttons that are too small, text that's too small, and too many fields squeezed onto a small screen. Mobile checkout needs to be designed for mobile — not simply scaled down from desktop.
7. Missing payment options
Credit cards alone aren't enough. TWINT in Switzerland, Klarna in Germany and Austria, PayPal everywhere — if you don't offer a customer's preferred payment method, you lose them. In the DACH region, paying by invoice is still the most popular B2C payment method.
How to set up A/B tests properly
An A/B test that gets stopped after 200 visitors isn't an A/B test — it's an opinion dressed up as data.
For statistically significant results, you need:
- A minimum sample size: roughly 15,000 visitors per variant for a 95% confidence interval at a 5% baseline conversion rate. Tools like VWO or Optimizely calculate this automatically.
- One variable per test: never test button color, copy, and position at the same time. Otherwise, you won't know what actually made the difference.
- A defined primary metric: what counts as success? Checkout rate, revenue per visitor, or add-to-cart rate? Different metrics can point in different directions.
- No early stopping: even if one variant is ahead after 3 days, wait until statistical significance is reached. Day-of-week effects, weekend fluctuations, and seasonal patterns can distort early results.
"The best A/B test isn't the one with the biggest lift — it's the one that delivers a real insight into your customers' behavior." — CXL Institute
What this means for B2B
B2B e-commerce and configurators are influenced by the same psychological mechanisms — just with longer decision cycles. The lessons from B2C checkout data transfer directly: progress indicators on multi-step request forms, trust signals for first-time orders, and saved quote requests followed by a reminder after 14 days.
The difference: in B2B, "checkout abandonment" is often a quote request that never gets followed up on.
And the first question is: have you measured it?