Recognising a shopper early pays off only when it removes a question they would otherwise have to answer
The idea that check-in will replace checkout is not new. The vice president of Amazon Payments put it to a Shoptalk panel in May 2016, pointing to Uber, where the rider stores payment details and takes no further step to pay once the ride is requested. Eight years later, on 29 July 2024, Retail Dive carried a sponsored piece by Adobe and Bolt under the title “Reimagining checkout: The future is check-in”. It argues that knowing who is shopping should begin well before the payment form, and that the checkout belongs to a personalised journey rather than standing apart as the last screen.
The piece promotes Bolt’s own extension for Adobe Commerce and a shopper network that, according to Bolt, let member retailers recognise shoppers, including people visiting for the first time, and log them in without a password. Those are vendor claims, and the article offers no measurement behind them. The useful part is narrower and does not depend on any product. Recognition has value at exactly the points where it saves the shopper an action or a doubt. Everywhere else it is a feature the shopper does not notice, or one that unsettles them.
What recognition can take off the shopper’s list
Go through the checkout from the shopper’s side and list the questions it asks. Who are you, where should this go, how will you pay, do you agree with the total? A returning customer has answered all of these before. Recognising them early means the checkout can arrive with the answers filled in, so that the shopper only checks and confirms. That is where the time is won: an address that does not have to be typed again, a delivery choice that defaults to the one used last time, a payment method that is already selected.
The timing matters. If the shop only recognises the customer after they enter an email address in the checkout, the shopper has already spent the effort the recognition was meant to save. If it recognises them on arrival, through an existing login or a session they kept open, the product page and cart can already show the delivery cost to their own address and the delivery date that applies to them. The article lists showing shipping fees upfront and putting cart functionality at the top of every page among its recommendations, and both work better when the shop knows who is looking.
Baymard Institute’s survey of US online shoppers shows why that information belongs before the checkout. Extra costs that turn out too high, such as shipping, tax and fees, are the leading reason given for abandoning during checkout, at 40%, and 18% name a site that wanted them to create an account. A shop that recognises a returning customer early can show the real total sooner, and it never needs to ask that customer to register at all.
A first-time visitor is not recognised, so do not act as if they are
The case for recognition is strongest with customers who have bought from you before and chose to stay logged in. It is weakest with a first-time visitor. A shop that greets someone by name, or shows a pre-filled address, on a site they have never used will look to many shoppers like a data leak rather than a convenience, however the data got there. For that visitor, the article’s other advice carries more weight: guest options and multiple payment methods, so that buying does not depend on being known.
The same applies to the behavioural cues the piece describes. Bolt’s VP of product suggests watching how long a shopper considers a product, or whether they add and remove an item from the cart, and the piece proposes responding with help such as a chat window. Used sparingly, that can catch a shopper who is stuck. Used as a trigger for every hesitation, it interrupts someone who is simply comparing. Offer help on the screens where shoppers actually stall, which your step-by-step abandonment data shows, not wherever the software can detect a pause.
Let the shopper choose to be recognised
Recognition works best when the shopper has asked for it. A tick box to stay logged in, a saved address that is visible and editable in the account, an option at the end of the order to keep the details for next time: each is a decision the shopper made, and each makes the next checkout shorter without surprising them. Recognition the shopper did not ask for carries risk at the most sensitive moment in the journey, the one where they decide whether to trust the site with their payment.
Start with the customers you already know. Check what a returning, logged-in customer sees on the product page, in the cart and in the first checkout screen. If the delivery cost is still generic, the address still has to be typed and the payment method has to be chosen again, your shop knows the customer but the checkout does not use it. Fix those three points first. Then check the same route as a first-time guest on a phone, and make sure nothing in it assumes the shop knows who is buying.
Sources: retaildive.com, fintechfutures.com and baymard.com
