Kill the cost surprise on the product page
Baymard’s long running checkout research keeps finding extra costs at the top of the abandonment list, commonly cited by around half of the shoppers surveyed. Delivery, tax and fees appearing at step three of checkout read as a trick. The fix sits upstream on the product page.
State the delivery price, the free delivery threshold and the expected arrival date next to the buy button. Repeat it in the cart drawer with the gap to the threshold. People abandon a surprise. A price they already accepted rarely stops them.
Shorten the checkout you are allowed to change
Shopify checkout is fixed for a reason and it already converts well. What you control still matters. Turn on Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal so returning customers skip form filling entirely. Set customer accounts to optional so nobody has to register before buying.
On Plus, checkout UI extensions let you add trust content, delivery date pickers and upsells in the approved slots. Keep the additions light. Every extra block in checkout is another reason for a distracted buyer to stop.
Run recovery as a sequence, with honest expectations
Abandoned checkout emails are the highest earning automation most stores own. Send at one hour, twenty four hours and forty eight hours. Lead with the product image and the delivery promise. Hold any discount until the third message so you stop paying people who would have returned anyway.
Also add browse and cart abandonment via SMS if you have consent. Recovery rates in the low double digits are a realistic target across the whole flow. Anyone promising to recover most of your abandoned carts is selling you something.