The brief
A marketplace platform had strong traffic and a healthy add to cart rate, but a meaningful share of carts were abandoned somewhere between cart and completed payment, a gap that pointed to the checkout experience itself rather than a demand problem.
How we would approach it
Separate browsing friction from checkout friction
Before touching the design, we would confirm the drop off is actually happening in checkout and not earlier in product discovery, since fixing the wrong stage of the funnel wastes effort and does not move the real number.
Reduce the number of unexpected moments
A common cause of last minute abandonment is cost or information that appears for the first time at the final step, shipping fees, extra charges, or account creation requirements. The redesign would surface this information earlier in the flow rather than revealing it for the first time right before payment.
Offer a real guest checkout path
Where account creation is not required for the transaction to work, a genuine guest checkout option would sit clearly alongside account creation, since a forced signup at the point of purchase is one of the most common, well documented causes of abandonment on marketplace platforms.
Design the mobile checkout first, not the desktop one
With most marketplace traffic arriving on mobile, the checkout flow would be designed and tested on mobile first, with particular attention to form field size, autofill support, and payment method selection, rather than adapting a desktop flow down to a smaller screen afterward.
What this approach is built to deliver
A checkout flow with fewer late surprises and fewer unnecessary barriers between an interested buyer and a completed order, aimed at converting more of the carts that are already being built rather than needing to drive more traffic to compensate.