Frictionless checkout is not just convenient, it is a revenue multiplier
A new peer-reviewed study from Cornell University puts hard numbers on something checkout practitioners have long suspected: removing payment friction does not merely preserve sales, it actively generates new ones. Customers who adopted a one-click checkout service at a large Asian retailer increased their spending by an average of 28.5%, raised purchase frequency by 43%, and added 36% more items to their orders over the 15 months following sign-up. These are not marginal gains.
What makes the findings particularly valuable is the engagement dimension. One-click buyers visited the site 7% more often, viewed 9.3% more pages per session, and spent 7.8% more time on the site per visit. This suggests that friction reduction does not just lower the barrier at the moment of payment. It changes the entire relationship a customer has with a retailer, making browsing feel lower-stakes and more exploratory because the path to purchase is so short.
For Dutch and Belgian online merchants, the implications are direct. Cart abandonment in the Benelux consistently tracks close to the global estimate of 70%, and a large share of that drop-off happens during the checkout steps where customers are asked to re-enter payment and delivery details. Stored credentials, digital wallets, and one-click flows are the practical tools that compress that friction. The Cornell data suggests the upside extends well beyond recovering abandoners: it may shift wallet share away from competitors who have not invested in the same experience.
One nuance worth noting: the biggest gains accrued to moderate, occasional buyers rather than the heaviest spenders. This matters for segmentation strategy. If your stored-credential or wallet adoption programme is primarily marketed to your most loyal customers, you may already be leaving your highest-potential segment, the infrequent but convertible buyer, largely untouched.
The practical takeaway is straightforward: if your checkout still requires guests or returning customers to re-enter card and address details, you are not facing a convenience problem, you are facing a revenue problem.
Source: johnson.cornell.edu
