Insight

Standard Cart Checkout Added Unnecessary Friction

At the cart drawer, Fame’s shoppers had already selected products and reached a high-intent decision point, but the interface offered only the standard checkout button. Recognisable payment options were not presented as a direct next step, which could add unnecessary effort before checkout and make the available payment route less obvious. Our CRO work treats the cart as a commercial handover between product selection and checkout, so small changes at this stage need evidence rather than assumptions. Guidance on how to reduce cart abandonment supports keeping that journey focused, while our own testing shows that reassurance cues and accelerated payment actions can produce different outcomes. The opportunity was therefore to compare passive payment reassurance with a prominent express-payment action and measure the effect across the full buying journey.

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A/B/C Test

Express Payment Options in the Cart Drawer

We ran an A/B/C test in Intelligems across Fame’s cart drawer on all devices. The control showed the standard Checkout button only. Variant 1 kept that button and added recognised payment icons, without Shop Pay. We hypothesised that making payment options clearer at this high-intent point would reduce friction and improve conversion rate, revenue per visitor, checkout starts and average order value.

Variant 2 kept the standard Checkout button and added a dedicated Shop Pay button, without the payment icons used in Variant 1. This treatment tested whether an immediate express-payment action would outperform passive reassurance. The Shop Pay button matched the Checkout button’s height and used square corners so the two actions appeared as a consistent set.

The Results

The Shop Pay treatment was the strongest option across every overall commercial measure. Compared with the control, Variant 2 increased conversion rate by 47.75%, revenue per visitor by 69.30%, checkout begin rate by 19.33% and average order value by 14.59%. The gains appeared on mobile and desktop, with desktop showing the largest movements in conversion and revenue per visitor. Variant 1 also improved conversion, revenue per visitor and order value, but checkout starts fell by 7%. This contrast suggests that a direct Shop Pay action was more effective than passive payment reassurance, although the test does not prove the cause. Fame approved Variant 2 for permanent rollout, and the treatment went live. A useful follow-up would test one-click Shop Pay beneath the product-page add-to-cart action as a separate hypothesis, while monitoring whether it shortens product exploration or changes basket composition. We would also investigate why payment icons improved completed purchases despite fewer checkout starts.

  • 47.75%

    increase in conversion rate

  • 69.30%

    increase in revenue per visitor

  • 19.33%

    increase in checkout begin rate
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