Rising checkout friction is a warning sign merchants cannot afford to ignore
A large-scale benchmarking study of over 500 U.S. merchants reveals something uncomfortable: checkout friction has increased, not decreased, over the course of 2021. The PYMNTS Checkout Conversion Index dropped from 59.5 to 58.9 between Q1 and Q2 2021. That may sound marginal, but the directional shift matters. At a time when e-commerce adoption is maturing and consumer expectations are hardening, merchants are moving in the wrong direction.
Two findings deserve particular attention. First, the share of merchants offering free shipping fell from 74 percent to 63 percent in a single quarter. Free shipping is not a mere marketing perk; it functions as a friction reducer in the pre-checkout phase. When it disappears, hesitation grows and cart abandonment risk rises. Second, average shopping time per consumer climbed from 145 seconds to 179 seconds, a 24 percent increase. Consumers arriving at the payment step already fatigued by a longer browse are far less tolerant of any additional friction in the checkout flow itself.
For Dutch and Belgian merchants, these findings carry a direct translation. The Benelux consumer base is increasingly comfortable with digital checkout but also increasingly demanding. Markets where iDEAL, Bancontact, and mobile wallets coexist mean that payment method coverage is a genuine differentiator. The study flags that mid- and lower-ranked merchants are actually outperforming top merchants on payment method breadth. That is a structural vulnerability for established players who assume their brand strength compensates for a narrower or less optimised payment experience.
The practical implication is straightforward: auditing your checkout flow should not be a quarterly afterthought. Shopping time, payment method acceptance, and trust signals such as refund guarantees all feed into whether a consumer completes a purchase or abandons. Merchants who treat checkout optimisation as a continuous discipline rather than a one-off project will have a measurable advantage as consumer patience continues to thin.
Source: checkout.com
