Checkout Optimization: How Amazon Went from 7 Steps to 2

The checkout experience is the last mile of e-commerce, and it is where the most money is lost. Nearly half of all shoppers who begin the checkout process abandon before completing their purchase. For most stores, this represents hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in lost annual revenue. The paradox is that these are the highest-intent visitors on your site, people who have already found a product they want and added it to their cart. They are ready to buy, and the checkout itself is what stops them.

The history of e-commerce checkout optimization is essentially a history of removing barriers. Early online stores required lengthy registration forms, multiple pages of information, and limited payment options. Today, the best checkouts can be completed in seconds with a single tap. The journey from seven steps to two offers practical lessons that every online retailer can apply.

This guide traces the evolution of checkout design, examines the specific innovations that drove the biggest improvements, and provides a practical framework for optimizing your own checkout based on proven principles.

The Evolution of Online Checkout

When e-commerce first emerged in the late 1990s, the checkout process mimicked traditional retail paperwork. Online stores asked customers to fill out extensive forms covering personal information, shipping details, billing addresses, payment information, and often required registration with a username and password. A typical checkout involved 5 to 7 distinct pages with 20 to 30 form fields.

This approach reflected both the technology of the time and a fundamental misunderstanding of online buyer psychology. Retailers assumed that customers who had added items to their cart were committed to purchasing and would tolerate whatever process was necessary to complete the transaction. The reality was very different. Early studies found that checkout abandonment rates exceeded 75%, with complexity cited as the primary reason.

Over the next two decades, a series of innovations progressively simplified the checkout process. Each innovation reduced friction, and each reduction in friction measurably improved conversion rates. Understanding this evolution provides a roadmap for optimizing any modern checkout.

From 7 Steps to 2: How Amazon Led the Way

Amazon's approach to checkout optimization has been the most influential in e-commerce history. In the early 2000s, Amazon's checkout was similar to most online stores: a multi-page process that required entering shipping information, selecting a delivery method, entering payment details, and reviewing the order.

One-Click Ordering

Amazon's most famous checkout innovation was patented in 1999: one-click ordering. By storing customer payment and shipping information and allowing repeat customers to complete a purchase with a single button click, Amazon eliminated the checkout process entirely for returning customers. The impact was immediate and dramatic. Internal estimates suggested that one-click ordering increased Amazon's revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The principle behind one-click ordering was simple but revolutionary: every additional step in the checkout process gives the customer an opportunity to reconsider, get distracted, or encounter an error. By reducing the process from multiple steps to one, Amazon removed nearly all friction for returning customers.

Continuous Iteration

Beyond one-click, Amazon has continuously refined its checkout. The introduction of Amazon Pay extended the streamlined checkout experience to third-party retailers. The development of Buy with Prime further simplified purchasing. Each iteration reflected the same core insight: the checkout should require the absolute minimum input from the customer. Every field that can be pre-populated, every step that can be eliminated, and every decision that can be defaulted should be.

Lessons for Every Retailer

You do not need to be Amazon to apply these principles. The core lesson is to audit every element of your checkout and ask: is this strictly necessary for completing the purchase? If the answer is no, remove it. If the answer is yes, ask if it can be pre-filled, defaulted, or simplified. This ruthless focus on necessity is what separates high-converting checkouts from ones that leak revenue at every step.

The Guest Checkout Revolution

For years, requiring account creation before checkout was standard practice. Retailers wanted the customer data, the ability to track orders, and the higher lifetime value associated with registered accounts. But research consistently showed that forced registration was the second most common reason for checkout abandonment, cited by 24% of shoppers who abandoned.

The Data on Guest Checkout

Multiple case studies have documented the impact of adding a guest checkout option. A widely cited example from User Interface Engineering found that removing required registration increased purchase completion by 45%. Other case studies show more modest but still significant improvements of 15% to 30%. The consistent finding is that a meaningful percentage of customers will not create an account to make a purchase, regardless of how simple the registration process is.

Post-Purchase Account Creation

The optimal approach is to allow guest checkout and then offer account creation after the purchase is complete. At this point, the customer has already provided their name, email, and shipping address. Creating an account requires only setting a password, which many customers are willing to do in exchange for order tracking, easy returns, or loyalty program enrollment. Conversion rates for post-purchase account creation are typically 30% to 50%, meaning you still capture a significant portion of the account registrations without sacrificing the purchases of customers who prefer not to register.

When Accounts Make Sense

There are legitimate cases where account creation adds value to the checkout experience. B2B purchases, subscription products, and customized items often benefit from account functionality. The key is that account creation should add clear value to the customer, not just to the retailer. If the customer can see a concrete benefit such as saving custom configurations, tracking complex orders, or managing a subscription, they will create an account willingly. When there is no clear benefit, it is just a barrier.

Payment Options That Drive Completion

The payment step of checkout is where the financial commitment happens, and it is a major point of friction. Offering the right payment options can significantly improve completion rates.

Digital Wallets: Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay

Digital wallet adoption has accelerated dramatically. Apple Pay alone is used by over 500 million people globally. When a customer can authenticate with their fingerprint or face and complete payment without typing a single character, the checkout process effectively becomes instant. Shopify reports that checkouts completed with Shop Pay convert at 1.72x the rate of standard checkouts.

The impact is even more pronounced on mobile devices, where typing credit card numbers is particularly cumbersome. Mobile conversion rates for digital wallet users are typically 30% to 40% higher than for customers entering card details manually. Implementing digital wallet options is one of the highest-ROI checkout optimizations available today.

Buy Now, Pay Later

BNPL services like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm allow customers to split purchases into installments, typically four interest-free payments. The psychological impact of BNPL is significant: it reframes a $200 purchase as four payments of $50, making higher-priced items feel more accessible. Retailers that add BNPL options typically see a 20% to 30% increase in checkout completion for orders above $100 and an 18% to 25% increase in average order value.

BNPL is most effective for stores with AOVs between $100 and $500. Below $100, the installment amounts are too small to feel meaningful. Above $500, traditional financing options may be more appropriate. Using your analytics reports to understand your order value distribution will help you determine whether BNPL is a high-impact option for your store.

Multiple Credit Card Processors

Not all credit card processing failures are the result of insufficient funds. Failed transactions due to fraud filters, processing errors, or bank-specific restrictions account for a non-trivial percentage of checkout abandonment. Some advanced merchants use automatic retry with a secondary processor when the primary processor declines a transaction. This can recover 5% to 10% of otherwise-lost transactions.

Form Field Optimization

The number and design of form fields in your checkout directly impacts completion rate. Baymard Institute research found that the average checkout has 14.88 form fields, but the optimal number is around 7 to 8. Every unnecessary field is a potential friction point.

Fields to Remove or Combine

The most common unnecessary fields include a separate company name field (only needed for B2B stores), a separate address line 2 field (make it conditional), a phone number field without a clear explanation of why it is needed, and separate first and last name fields (a single "Full Name" field works for most purposes).

Beyond removing fields, combining and simplifying existing ones has a measurable impact. Use a single address field with auto-complete rather than separate street, city, state, and zip fields. Auto-detect the card type from the card number rather than asking the customer to select it. Default the billing address to the shipping address with a single checkbox to change it.

Smart Defaults and Auto-Detection

Every field that can be auto-populated is a field the customer does not have to think about. Use geolocation to pre-select the country. Auto-detect the city and state from the zip code. Remember returning customers and pre-populate their information. Each of these individually saves only a few seconds, but collectively they transform the checkout from a form-filling exercise to a quick confirmation.

Mobile-Specific Field Optimization

On mobile devices, form field optimization is even more critical. Use the appropriate keyboard type for each field: numeric keyboard for phone and credit card numbers, email keyboard for email fields. Make touch targets large enough for comfortable tapping. Avoid dropdown menus where possible, since they are harder to use on mobile than text fields with auto-complete.

Trust Signals and Security Perception

Trust concerns cause 17% of checkout abandonment. The design, language, and visual cues of your checkout page directly influence whether customers feel safe entering their payment information.

Visual Trust Indicators

Security badges, SSL lock icons, and payment brand logos serve as visual shorthand for security. Research from the Baymard Institute found that the Norton, McAfee, and TRUSTe badges had the strongest positive impact on trust perception, with 35% to 42% of respondents reporting they would feel more confident entering payment details. However, placement matters. Trust badges near the payment fields are significantly more effective than badges in the header or footer.

Design Quality and Trust

The overall design quality of your checkout page influences trust perception independent of explicit trust signals. A checkout page that looks dated, uses inconsistent typography, or has layout issues triggers subconscious security concerns. Customers associate professional design with professional operations, and a polished checkout reinforces the perception that the business is legitimate and trustworthy. This is one reason why hosted checkout solutions from Shopify, Stripe, and others perform well: they are professionally designed and widely recognized.

Return Policy and Support Visibility

Displaying your return policy summary and customer support contact information during checkout addresses the fear that "what if something goes wrong." A brief statement like "Free 30-day returns. Questions? Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX" near the purchase button provides reassurance at the moment of decision. Stores that add visible return policy information to the checkout page typically see a 5% to 10% improvement in completion rates. Tracking the impact of these trust elements through conversion analytics helps you quantify their value and justify investment in the checkout experience.

Progress Indicators and Checkout UX

When a customer enters checkout, they need to know where they are in the process and how much longer it will take. Ambiguity about the checkout length increases anxiety and abandonment.

Step-Based Progress Bars

A clear progress indicator showing the total number of steps and the current position reduces checkout abandonment by setting expectations. The most effective format is a three-step indicator: Shipping, Payment, Review. Each step is clearly labeled, and the current step is visually highlighted. Numbered steps (Step 1 of 3) outperform unnamed progress bars because they give a specific sense of how much is left.

Single-Page vs. Multi-Step Checkout

The debate between single-page and multi-step checkout has been studied extensively. The evidence is not as clear-cut as many assume. Single-page checkouts can feel overwhelming when they display too many fields at once. Multi-step checkouts that break the process into logical sections can actually feel faster if each step is short and clearly progressing toward completion.

The best approach is an accordion or stepped layout that shows one section at a time while maintaining visibility of completed sections. This gives the simplicity of a single page with the focused attention of a multi-step flow. Completed sections collapse to show a summary, and the customer can see at a glance that they have already entered their shipping information while focusing on the payment step.

Order Summary Persistence

The order summary should remain visible throughout the checkout process. Hiding or minimizing the cart contents during checkout creates uncertainty about what the customer is actually buying. A persistent order summary with product images, quantities, and a running total reinforces the purchase decision and reduces the chance that the customer will abandon to verify what is in their cart.

Shopify and the Modern Checkout Standard

Shopify powers over 4 million stores and processes billions of dollars in transactions annually. Its approach to checkout has become the de facto standard for modern e-commerce, and its evolution offers lessons for any retailer.

Shop Pay and Accelerated Checkout

Shop Pay stores customer payment and shipping information across all Shopify stores, creating a network effect that benefits the entire ecosystem. When a customer who has used Shop Pay at any Shopify store visits your store, they can complete checkout with a single tap. This has created a competitive advantage for the Shopify ecosystem as a whole, with Shop Pay checkouts converting at significantly higher rates than standard checkouts.

Checkout Extensibility

Shopify's checkout extensibility platform allows merchants to customize the checkout experience without compromising performance or security. This includes adding loyalty program integration, custom shipping options, post-purchase upsells, and branded design elements. The platform ensures that customizations do not break the core checkout flow, which is a common problem with custom-built checkouts.

Data-Driven Defaults

Shopify's checkout uses data across its entire merchant network to optimize defaults. The most popular shipping method is pre-selected. Payment fields are optimized based on device type. Error handling is refined based on millions of checkout sessions. This ecosystem-level optimization is difficult for individual merchants to replicate, which is one reason why stores that switch to Shopify's hosted checkout often see immediate improvements in completion rates even without other changes.

Key Takeaways

Checkout optimization is the highest-leverage conversion improvement for most e-commerce stores because it targets the highest-intent visitors. Here is what to remember:

• Every field and step is a potential exit. Audit your checkout ruthlessly and remove anything that is not strictly necessary for completing the purchase.
• Guest checkout is non-negotiable. Offer post-purchase account creation instead of pre-purchase registration to capture accounts without sacrificing conversions.
• Digital wallets dramatically improve mobile conversion. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay make checkout instant for customers who have these options enabled.
• Buy Now, Pay Later boosts conversion for orders above $100. BNPL reframes the purchase as smaller installments and can increase both conversion and average order value.
• Reduce form fields from the industry average of 15 to 7 or 8. Remove unnecessary fields, combine where possible, and auto-populate everything you can.
• Trust signals near payment fields reduce abandonment. Security badges, return policy visibility, and professional design all contribute to conversion.
• Clear progress indicators set expectations. A three-step labeled progress bar (Shipping, Payment, Review) is the proven standard.
• Learn from platform-level data. Solutions like Shopify and KISSmetrics optimize based on aggregate data across thousands of stores, providing a baseline that individual testing cannot match.

The best checkout is one that the customer barely notices. It should feel like a seamless continuation of the shopping experience, not a bureaucratic hurdle. Every friction point you eliminate translates directly to revenue recovered from high-intent visitors who were ready to buy.