Frictionless checkout is not a feature, it is a survival strategy
Cart abandonment sits at nearly 70% across e-commerce. That single statistic should inform every decision a merchant makes about their checkout flow. The premise of this piece is straightforward: every additional step, every slow page load, every form field that requires a shopper to reach for their wallet is an exit opportunity. For Dutch and Belgian merchants competing in mature, price-sensitive markets, that exit is often permanent.
The mobile angle deserves particular attention. With mobile accounting for the majority of global e-commerce traffic, a checkout experience designed primarily for desktop is no longer a minor oversight. It is a structural conversion problem. The industry average mobile completion rate of around 49% means roughly half of all mobile shoppers who reach checkout do not complete their purchase. Merchants who have optimised for mobile, including one-click or stored-credential flows, report completion rates well above that benchmark. The gap is significant enough to treat mobile checkout as a standalone workstream, not an afterthought.
The trust dimension is equally relevant for Benelux merchants. Shoppers in the Netherlands and Belgium often default to familiar local payment methods precisely because trust in unfamiliar retailers is low. Displaying recognised payment logos, offering BNPL options from established providers, and reducing the number of redirects in the payment flow all contribute to the perception of reliability. These are not cosmetic changes. They directly influence whether a first-time visitor becomes a paying customer.
Perhaps the most actionable point is the shopper network or stored credentials argument. Requiring repeat customers to re-enter payment and shipping details is a friction tax on loyalty. Merchants who support stored credentials, whether through a wallet, a BNPL provider, or their own account system, consistently see higher conversion among returning visitors. The data cited here, a 50% higher conversion rate for network account holders versus guest checkout, aligns with broader industry findings and should prompt any merchant still defaulting to guest-only flows to reconsider.
The concrete action: audit your current checkout flow step by step, on mobile, on a mid-range device, on a slower connection. Fix what you would abandon yourself.
Source: emarketer.com
