Skipping the cart and going straight to checkout: -10.23% conversion
Test run byDave DiederenSyntra Labs
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSending shoppers straight to checkout instead of the cart cut conversion rate by 10.23% and revenue per visitor by 6.58%. Dave Diederen ran this test. Buyers who got through spent a little more, but far fewer people bought.
- Conversion rate fell 10.23% (3.61% to 3.24%). This is the main loss.
- Revenue per visitor fell 6.58% ($1.61 to $1.51), about $17,465 a month in estimated lost revenue.
- Average order value rose 4.08% ($44.73 to $46.56). The fewer people who bought spent a bit more, but not enough to make up the gap.
- The dashboard's ranges were wide (-22% to +3% on conversion), so treat the exact size of the drop with some care.
The change
The cart step is removed and shoppers land directly in checkout.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Adding a product took shoppers to the normal cart step before checkout.
Variant
Adding a product skipped the cart and sent shoppers directly into checkout.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- the cart was doing selling work, such as upsells, a free-shipping progress bar and trust signals, and skipping it removed all of that.
- in checkout, shoppers can't easily remove items, so anyone who wanted to edit their order had to go back and forth.
- going into a payment form with no pause may feel abrupt to people who are still deciding.
Caveats: Sample size and test duration were not shared. The confidence ranges on all metrics cross zero, and this is a single store's result.
Who ran it
Dave Diederen (@DaveDiederen) shared this test on X. The numbers and screenshots are theirs.
View the original post on X
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we send shoppers straight to checkout after they add to cart, then more of them will finish buying because there is one less step.
- Primary metric
- Revenue per visitor
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Upsell attach rate
- Who should test it
- Stores with one-product orders and no upsells or free-shipping threshold in the cart may see less downside. If your cart has cross-sells, a shipping bar or bundle offers, this test will probably lose.
Questions
Should I skip the cart page and send shoppers straight to checkout?
In this test it hurt. Conversion rate dropped 10.23% and revenue per visitor dropped 6.58%, even though average order value went up.
Why would removing a step lower conversions?
Dave Diederen points out that the cart carries upsells, shipping thresholds and trust signals. It also lets shoppers edit their order, which checkout makes harder.
Does going straight to checkout raise order value?
Here it did, by 4.08%. But the drop in buyers outweighed that, so total revenue per visitor fell.