For a typical online shop, an ecommerce checkout process works fine with three to five steps. Email, address, delivery, payment. Maybe a quick review before the Pay button.

Step count isn't usually what makes people quit, though.

Think about the last time you gave up on a checkout. You were probably on your phone, half distracted, and something annoyed you. A delivery fee that showed up at the very end, maybe. Or a form that wanted a password before it would take your money.

Those small annoyances add up. Baymard Institute puts the average cart abandonment rate at around 70%, and surprise costs and forced account creation are near the top of the reasons shoppers give.

Fix that stuff first. Then worry about the number.

What Are the Standard Ecommerce Checkout Steps?

A standard ecommerce checkout process covers the same five things, in roughly this order:

Some of these ecommerce checkout steps can merge. Delivery options can sit under the address once it's filled in. The review can live on the payment screen, as long as the full total is visible before anyone taps Pay.

What shouldn't be a step at all? Account creation. Offer a password field after the order goes through, when the buyer already has what they came for.

How Many Form Fields Should a Checkout Have?

As few as you can manage. Baymard's checkout research found the average checkout shows more than 23 form fields and elements by default, while a well-designed one can manage with 12 to 14. Fields matter more than steps, because every one is something to type on a small keyboard.

Go through your own checkout and question each field:

• Full name in one box works for most stores. Split first and last name only if your shipping or payment provider needs it.

• Address line 2 can sit behind a small "Add apartment, suite or unit" link.

• Phone number should be optional unless your courier needs it, and say why you're asking.

• Company name can go entirely if you only sell to consumers.

• Billing address should default to "same as shipping", with a checkbox to change it.

One Page Checkout vs Multi-Step Checkout: Which Fits Your Store?

The one page checkout vs multi-step checkout debate is a bit overblown. The real question is which layout you can make feel short for your customers.

There's also a middle option: an accordion checkout, where each section opens in turn on a single page. It keeps the one-page feel while showing one task at a time, which works well on mobile.

Your platform may already decide some of this for you. Shopify's standard checkout uses a one-page layout, and deeper changes to it are limited outside Shopify Plus. WooCommerce's block-based checkout gives you more freedom but needs more care to keep fast.

If you can't decide, test both on real traffic. Look at where people drop off within the ecommerce checkout process, alongside overall conversions. Switching layouts on some platforms is custom work rather than a settings change, which is where an ecommerce design team can help.

How to Design a Checkout for Mobile Shoppers

Most checkout problems get worse on a phone. Small screens, thumbs instead of a mouse and a patchy connection all make every extra field and every surprise feel bigger. Good checkout page design starts with mobile.

• Put express payments first. Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal let people skip the form entirely, so place them above the card fields.

• Use the right keyboard. Number pads for card and phone numbers, an email keyboard for email.

• Turn on autofill and address lookup. Typing "Flat 2, 14B Something Road" on a phone keyboard is nobody's idea of fun.

• Keep the order total visible. A collapsible summary at the top lets shoppers check what they're paying without scrolling back.

• Make buttons easy to hit. A full-width Pay button at the bottom of the screen, within thumb reach.

• Test on a real phone. Use mobile data rather than office Wi-Fi, and try it one-handed.

Ecommerce Checkout Best Practices That Matter More Than Step Count

You can get the step count right and still lose people halfway through the ecommerce checkout process. These ecommerce checkout best practices tend to make a bigger difference:

• Show shipping and tax early. A total that jumps on the last screen is a well-known reason buyers leave. Show delivery costs on the product page or in the cart.

• Make guest checkout the obvious button. Offer to save details after the order is placed.

• Show error messages next to the field that needs fixing. "Invalid input" at the top of the page tells them nothing.

• Shrink the promo code box to a small link. A big empty field sends people off to hunt for coupons in another tab, and some don't come back.

• Show trust where people hesitate. Payment logos next to the card fields, and a link to your returns policy near the Pay button.

• Give a delivery date, not just a speed. "Arrives by Thursday" reassures more than "Standard delivery".

• Let people go back without losing anything. Every step should keep what was already typed.

Offer the payments your customers expect

The checkout is only one part of the store. Our list of ecommerce website design best practices covers the product pages, search and speed fixes that get shoppers this far.

How to Find and Fix Where Your Checkout Loses People

Measure each step separately, watch what people do at the worst one, fix it, then measure again. Overall conversion rate tells you something's wrong. Step-by-step numbers tell you where.

1. Track each checkout step

In GA4, the standard ecommerce events map neatly onto checkout: begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info and purchase. Build a funnel exploration with one stage per event. The biggest drop between two stages is the screen to fix first. Most platforms, including Shopify, also show a checkout funnel in their own analytics.

2. Watch what happens at the worst step

Session recordings, from a free tool like Microsoft Clarity, show what shoppers did right before leaving. Look for people scrolling back up, tapping things that aren't buttons or retyping the same field.

3. Fix one thing at a time

Start with whatever the recordings show most often. Change one thing, give it a couple of weeks of traffic, then check the funnel again. If you change five things at once, you won't know which one helped.

4. Recover the people who still leave

Some shoppers will always abandon. Send an abandoned checkout email for anyone who entered an email address, with their basket and a direct link back to checkout. Keep it helpful rather than pushy, and mention delivery costs or returns if those are likely to be the reason they stopped.

We've seen how much this matters on booking flows too. When we reworked Barbeque Nation's reservation flow after an audit, simplifying the steps and fixing slow mobile pages, booking conversion rose 45%. If you'd rather have experts find your checkout's weak spots, a UX audit agency can rank the fixes for you.

Also Read: How to Choose an Ecommerce Web Design Agency

Conclusion

Before you change anything, buy something from your own store on your phone. Time it. Write down every field that made you sigh.

That list will tell you more about your ecommerce checkout process than any benchmark. Fix the worst few things on it, check your drop-off numbers a few weeks later, and only then decide whether the step count needs to change.

Want a second pair of eyes on it? Talk to our team.

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