E-commerce Checkout Optimization: The EU Edition (2026)

The average e-commerce checkout abandonment rate is 70.19% (Baymard Institute, 2024). That is not a EU number or a US number. That is the global average.

In Europe, it is higher.

EU shoppers deal with friction that US-centric checkout guides do not acknowledge: unfamiliar payment methods, GDPR consent requirements, VAT-inclusive pricing inconsistencies, and address validation that fails on Dutch postcodes and Belgian street formats. The playbooks written for Shopify stores in California do not solve these problems.

This guide does.

Download our EU Checkout Audit Template - a structured spreadsheet for auditing your checkout against 47 EU-specific criteria. Get the template

EU vs US Checkout Differences

EU checkout optimization needs its own approach. Not a US guide with a few localisation notes appended.

Payment method expectations

In the US, credit card dominates. Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and PayPal cover 85%+ of transactions. A checkout without these fails.

In the EU, the picture is fragmented by market. iDEAL has 68% share in Dutch online payments. Bancontact processes 50%+ of Belgian e-commerce transactions. German consumers have historically preferred bank transfers and PayPal over cards. This fragmentation means a single payment method configuration cannot cover the EU.

If you are serving Dutch customers without iDEAL, you are not converting Dutch customers. The mental model is that simple.

GDPR compliance overhead

US stores collect data freely at checkout. Email for remarketing. Phone for SMS. Behavioral data for retargeting. The default is opt-out.

EU stores must work within GDPR. Marketing consent requires explicit opt-in. Data minimization means collecting only what you need. Consent banners at checkout add visual noise and decision fatigue. The question is how to meet the legal requirement without creating friction that kills conversion.

Good GDPR checkout design is possible. Most stores implement it badly by defaulting to the most conservative interpretation of the rules and then bolting on compliance widgets that fight the UX.

VAT expectations

European consumers expect VAT-inclusive prices everywhere. This is both a legal requirement and a cultural norm. If your checkout shows a price different from your product page, you will lose the sale.

The US convention of adding sales tax at checkout does not exist in the same form in most EU markets. B2C always shows VAT-inclusive. B2B often shows ex-VAT with VAT added as a line item.

Trust signals and brand familiarity

European consumers are less trusting of unfamiliar brands than US consumers in aggregate research. Nielsen Norman Group’s cross-cultural e-commerce studies identify trust signals as more conversion-critical in European markets. This affects checkout design: trust indicators (security badges, clear return policies, customer service contact) need to be visible at checkout, not just on marketing pages.

EU Checkout Conversion Benchmarks

Understanding where you stand requires the right benchmarks. EU-wide data is sparse, but the most useful figures come from Baymard Institute’s 4,500+ benchmark studies and Statista’s EU e-commerce payment reports.

By device

Desktop checkout completion rate: approximately 72%
Mobile checkout completion rate: approximately 58%
Tablet: approximately 64%

The mobile gap is a UX problem, not a demographic one. Mobile users in the EU are purchasing-intent visitors, not browsing-only visitors. The conversion gap represents fixable friction.

By checkout type

One-page checkout: tends to outperform multi-step for stores with fewer than 8 form fields
Multi-step checkout: tends to outperform for complex products, high-value orders, or B2B flows
Accelerated checkout (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay): converts significantly higher for returning users and mobile users; conversion uplift reported at 1.4x to 1.8x vs standard checkout

By payment method (Netherlands as example)

iDEAL: highest completion rate, lowest abandonment
Credit card: higher abandonment, more friction at input
Klarna Pay Later: high completion but slightly elevated return rates
Apple Pay: very high completion when shown; adoption still growing in NL

The pattern across EU markets is consistent: local methods outperform international card processing for completion rate, because they require fewer steps and no card number entry.

By abandonment reason

Baymard’s 2024 survey of US and EU checkout abandoners found the following reasons (excluding “just browsing”):

Extra costs too high (shipping, taxes, fees): 47%
Required account creation: 25%
Slow delivery: 24%
Did not trust the site with credit card info: 18%
Too long or complicated checkout process: 17%
Could not calculate total order cost upfront: 16%
Website had errors or crashed: 13%
Unsatisfactory return policy: 11%
Not enough payment methods: 9%
Credit card declined: 4%

Item 9 (payment methods) runs higher in EU markets where local methods are dominant. In the Netherlands specifically, no iDEAL option is cited as the abandonment reason by an estimated 15-20% of abandoners.

Payment Method Optimization

Payment method selection at checkout is one of the highest-leverage optimization points for EU stores. It is also one of the most neglected.

EU payment method priority by market

Netherlands:

iDEAL (68% market share, must-have)
Klarna (Pay Now, Pay Later)
Apple Pay / Google Pay
Credit card (Visa, Mastercard)
PayPal

Belgium:

Bancontact (50%+ market share)
Klarna
Visa/Mastercard credit card
PayPal
Apple Pay

Germany:

PayPal (still dominant despite decline)
SEPA Direct Debit / bank transfer
Klarna (strong in DE)
Credit card
Apple Pay

France:

Credit card (Visa/Mastercard/CB Cartes Bancaires)
PayPal
Apple Pay / Google Pay
Klarna

Display order matters

Show the most-used method for the customer’s detected locale first. Do not default to credit card for every EU market. Use the customer’s IP-based country to determine the default payment method display order.

Shopify Payments and Mollie both support market-specific payment method configuration. Set it up per market, not globally.

Accelerated checkout buttons (Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay)

Show these above the standard checkout form, not only at the bottom. Many stores put accelerated checkout as an afterthought at the end of checkout. Put it at the top of the payment step. For returning Shopify users, Shop Pay eliminates most form filling entirely.

Apple Pay conversion data from Shopify (2024): merchants enabling Apple Pay on mobile checkout saw 1.4x completion rates on mobile for users with Apple Pay available.

Klarna-specific guidance

Klarna’s “Pay Later” option increases AOV but can introduce return rates. More relevant: Klarna’s “Pay Now” option is a bank-redirect flow that functions like iDEAL and converts well. Distinguish between these in your analytics to understand actual impact.

In Germany and Sweden, Klarna has 30%+ market share. Not optional for those markets.

BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) and EU regulation

The EU’s Consumer Credit Directive update (effective 2026) extends consumer credit rules to BNPL. This means mandatory affordability checks and clearer disclosure at checkout for BNPL options. Klarna, Riverty, and Alma are updating their EU checkout widgets to comply. If you offer BNPL, verify your provider’s compliance status and ensure the disclosure appears clearly at checkout without adding confusing text that you wrote yourself.

Guest Checkout vs Account Creation

This is settled research. Requiring account creation at checkout kills conversion.

Baymard Institute’s checkout usability studies consistently rank forced account creation as one of the top three abandonment causes. Their quantified finding: 28% of users abandoned a checkout when required to create an account. That number has been consistent across their 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 benchmark studies.

Why stores still force account creation

Because it is commercially valuable. Registered customers have higher LTV. Email capture enables remarketing. Account data enables personalisation.

The mistake is forcing it before the purchase. The alternative is offering it after.

The right sequence

Guest checkout, no friction
Collect email for order confirmation (legitimate interest under GDPR for transactional email)
Post-purchase: “Save your details for next time. Create a password.” - one-click account creation from the order confirmation page
Follow-up email: offer account creation with access to order history and saved addresses

This sequence captures most of the commercial value of account creation without blocking the purchase. Shopify supports this flow natively.

The opt-in checkbox problem

Adding “Sign me up for marketing emails” as a pre-checked checkbox is illegal under GDPR and the EU ePrivacy Directive. It must be unchecked by default and must require explicit action.

Some stores respond to this by making the checkbox very prominent and hoping users check it. That is the wrong approach. Email capture works better through post-purchase sequences, value-based lead magnets, and targeted pop-ups earlier in the session. Not at checkout.

Social login

“Continue with Google” or “Continue with Facebook” buttons can reduce account creation friction. For EU stores, be aware of GDPR implications: using these means relying on the social platform’s data processing agreement and being transparent with users about what data is shared. Done properly, social login can increase account creation without adding friction to guest checkout flow.

EU Address Validation

Address input is one of the most underrated checkout problems. It is boring, invisible when it works, and conversion-destroying when it does not.

Dutch postcodes

Dutch postcodes follow the format: 4 digits, a space, 2 uppercase letters. Example: 1234 AB.

Common problems:

Address fields that reject the space in Dutch postcodes
Autocomplete that fills the street address based on the postcode but uses English-language field order (house number after street name) when Dutch convention is house number after street name in the same field
Postcode validation that rejects valid Dutch codes because the regex was written for UK format

If you are serving the Dutch market, test your postcode field with at least 10 real Dutch addresses, including edge cases like postcodes starting with 10 (Amsterdam) and codes in the 9000 range.

Belgian address format

Belgium uses separate street name and house number fields. The house number comes after the street name in the address string. Address autocomplete services often handle this correctly but display it in the wrong field order.

Test with Flemish and Walloon addresses - they follow the same format but the street names differ significantly in character composition (diacritics, length). Fields that look fine with English street names often break with long Flemish or French addresses.

German address format

Germany places house number directly after the street name with no comma: “Musterstraße 42”. Autocomplete services often format this correctly. The problem emerges when your checkout form has separate fields for street name and house number and the autocomplete fills only the combined field.

German users expect to see a combined street + number field (Straße + Hausnummer), not two separate fields.

Autocomplete recommendations

Google Places Autocomplete: excellent coverage, reliable EU accuracy, clear pricing above volume thresholds
Loqate: strong for UK, Belgium, Netherlands; good enterprise option
Postcode.nl API: best in class for Dutch address validation; 100% coverage of Dutch postal addresses; prices start at approximately €0.01 per lookup

For Shopify specifically: Shopify has native address autocomplete powered by Google. Enable it in your checkout settings. For markets where it is insufficient, supplement with a custom address validation app.

House number handling

Many EU addresses include house number additions: 42a, 42-2, 42 huis, 42 bg (Dutch apartment designations). Address input fields that do not accommodate these will produce delivery failures and customer service costs.

Provide an “Addition” or “Apartment/Suite” field. Make it optional but visible. Do not hide it behind a link (unlike address line 2 in the US, where it is rarely needed).

GDPR compliance and conversion optimization are not opposites. The stores that treat them as opposites build clunky consent layers on top of good UX and get the worst of both worlds.

Cookie consent at checkout

The consent banner should not appear in the middle of a checkout flow. It should appear once, on first visit to the site, and then be dismissed and not shown again.

If your cookie consent implementation shows the banner again when a user navigates to checkout, fix this. It resets attention and raises psychological questions about trust at the worst possible moment.

Use a consent management platform (CMP) that stores consent in a first-party cookie and does not re-trigger on checkout page loads. Cookiebot, Usercentrics, and Complianz are the three most common EU-focused CMPs for e-commerce.

Data minimization at checkout

Collect only what you need for fulfillment. For a physical goods order:

Name
Delivery address
Email (transactional)
Phone (optional, for carrier notifications)
Payment data (processed by your payment provider, not stored by you)

Everything else - birth date, title, marketing preferences, account creation prompts - should be optional and clearly labeled as optional.

Removing non-essential required fields is both a GDPR data minimization practice and a proven conversion improvement. Both goals point in the same direction.

Trust signals as GDPR-positive signals

Privacy-conscious EU consumers respond positively to explicit trust signals at checkout. These include:

“Your payment is processed by [Mollie/Stripe/Shopify Payments]. We do not store your card details.”
Security certification badges (though generic “Secure Checkout” badges are less effective than named, recognized providers)
Clear return policy link visible without leaving checkout
Contact email or phone number visible without leaving checkout

Position one or two of these near the payment input section, not in the footer. They work when users are actively considering whether to complete the purchase.

Right to be forgotten at checkout

If a user creates an account during checkout, your privacy policy must explain how they can request deletion. This is a disclosure requirement, not a UX decision. Handle it in your privacy policy (linked from checkout) rather than inline at checkout.

VAT Display and Pricing Transparency

VAT display is where EU checkout loses trust fastest.

The consistent pricing rule

Whatever price the customer sees on the product page must be the price they see in the checkout. No exceptions.

EU Consumer Rights Directive requires the total price including taxes and fees to be clear before the final purchase step. Showing €49.99 on the product page and then showing €49.99 + €10.49 VAT in checkout is not compliant and kills conversion.

The correct implementation: show VAT-inclusive prices everywhere, always. Add a small “incl. VAT” label near the price if your market expects it. In the Netherlands and Germany, showing “incl. BTW/MwSt.” is standard practice.

The shipping cost problem

Unexpected shipping costs are the number one stated reason for checkout abandonment (47% in Baymard’s 2024 data). This is not a checkout problem. It is a pre-checkout transparency problem.

Show the shipping cost before the user reaches checkout. On the product page: estimated shipping or shipping threshold. On the cart page: calculated shipping or a clear shipping policy.

If you cannot calculate exact shipping without a postcode, show a range and provide a postcode lookup tool on the cart page. Do not surprise users at checkout.

B2B VAT display

For stores serving business customers:

Show prices ex-VAT by default (or give a toggle)
Validate the customer’s VAT number via VIES at checkout
Generate invoices with proper VAT line items
For intra-EU B2B sales, apply zero-rated VAT on validated EU VAT numbers

Shopify B2B (available on Shopify Plus) handles most of this natively. For standard Shopify plans, use a B2B tax exemption app and VIES validation app in combination.

Mobile Checkout for EU Users

Mobile checkout abandonment in the EU runs higher than desktop. The gap is fixable.

Payment redirects

Local EU payment methods (iDEAL, Bancontact) often redirect users to their bank’s app or web interface to authorize the payment, then redirect back to your store. This is a fragile flow on mobile.

Problems that occur:

Bank app opens but does not return user to checkout after authorization
User loses the cart state during the redirect
Browser blocks the redirect as a popup on some mobile browsers
Slow network causes the redirect to time out

Test the full iDEAL and Bancontact flows on real devices: an iPhone on Safari and an Android device on Chrome. Use test payment credentials from your payment provider. Fix any redirect failures before going live.

Form keyboard types

Use correct HTML input types for all checkout form fields:

Email: type="email"
Phone: type="tel"
Postcode (numeric): inputmode="numeric" with type="text" (not type="number" which disables leading zeros)
Credit card number: inputmode="numeric" (or use your payment provider’s input component)
CVV: inputmode="numeric"

The wrong keyboard appearing for a field is a small friction, but small friction at the payment step is expensive.

Sticky elements on mobile checkout

The “Proceed to payment” or “Place order” button should be visible without scrolling at every step of checkout on mobile. If it requires scrolling to reach, some percentage of users will not scroll.

On long checkout forms: either use a sticky bottom bar with the CTA, or split the form into logical steps where each step fits in a single screen.

Progress indication

Multi-step checkout on mobile needs a clear progress indicator. “Step 2 of 3” or a visual progress bar reduces anxiety about how much remains. Nielsen Norman Group’s research on checkout progress indicators shows they reduce abandonment on longer checkout flows by reducing uncertainty.

The progress indicator should show completed steps (checkmark or filled state) and the remaining steps. Do not use language like “Almost there!” at step 1. It feels dishonest when the user hits three more steps.

Touch target sizes

44px minimum for all interactive elements. This includes:

Checkbox inputs (marketing consent, terms acceptance)
Radio button payment method selectors
Edit links for previously entered sections
The close button on any in-checkout modals

Undersize touch targets cause mis-taps on real devices. Test on physical hardware, not just browser simulators.

Checkout A/B Testing Framework

Testing checkout is harder than testing product pages. Users are in a committed state. Small changes matter more. Risks are higher.

Prerequisites before testing

You need a minimum baseline before checkout A/B testing is valid:

1,000+ checkout initiations per month (to reach significance in reasonable time)
Proper analytics tracking of each checkout step as a separate event
No major ongoing UX problems that have not yet been fixed (fix obvious problems before testing marginal ones)
A testing tool that handles Shopify checkout correctly (standard JavaScript injection tools often break on Shopify checkout pages)

EU-specific testing tool note

VWO, Convert, and Intelligems all work with Shopify. For Shopify Plus with Checkout Extensibility, A/B testing can be done natively within the checkout extension framework. This is the most stable approach.

Standard Shopify (non-Plus): you can test cart page and thank-you page. The checkout itself is harder to test reliably without Plus.

What to test, in order

Priority 1 (highest impact):

Payment method display order and visibility
Guest checkout prominence (“Buy as guest” vs “Continue without account”)
Trust signal placement (above or below order summary)
Shipping cost display format (free threshold message on cart vs checkout)

Priority 2:

Progress indicator format (text vs visual bar)
Address autocomplete on vs off
Order summary placement (collapsed vs expanded on mobile)
Postcode-first address flow (for Dutch addresses)

Priority 3:

CTA button copy (“Place Order” vs “Complete Purchase” vs “Pay Now”)
Form field label style (placeholder vs persistent label)
Security badge presence and type
Optional field visibility (show all vs hide optional fields behind link)

EU-specific hypotheses to test

Hypothesis 1: Showing iDEAL as the first and most prominent payment method for Dutch users will increase checkout completion vs showing credit card first.

Hypothesis 2: Adding “incl. BTW” labels to all prices throughout checkout will reduce price-related abandonment for Dutch/German users.

Hypothesis 3: Postcode-first address entry (enter postcode, get street autocomplete) will reduce address form abandonment for Dutch users vs sequential field order.

Hypothesis 4: Showing a returns policy summary at the payment step (“Free returns within 30 days”) will increase completion rate for first-time buyers.

Statistical discipline

Set significance thresholds before running. 95% confidence is standard. 90% is acceptable for lower-risk changes (copy edits, label changes). Never below 90%.

Run tests for a minimum of two full business cycles (two weeks). Four weeks is better for stores with weekend/weekday variation.

Document every test result, including null results. A test that shows no improvement is information. It rules out that hypothesis and helps you prioritize the next one.

10-Point EU Checkout Audit Checklist

Use this to identify your biggest checkout revenue leaks in under two hours.

1. Payment method audit Are the top two payment methods for each target market shown prominently? Test the full flow for each: iDEAL, Bancontact, Klarna. Do they complete without errors on mobile?

2. Guest checkout Is guest checkout the path of least resistance? Is account creation optional and post-purchase? Is the “sign up for marketing” checkbox unchecked by default?

3. Price consistency Does the price in checkout match the price on the product page for every product? Is VAT included in the displayed price throughout?

4. Shipping cost visibility Is the shipping cost shown before checkout? Is the free shipping threshold shown on product pages and cart? Are there no surprise fees at checkout?

5. Address validation Does the address autocomplete work correctly for Dutch, Belgian, and German formats? Does the postcode field accept Dutch format (1234 AB with space)? Does the form handle house number additions?

6. GDPR compliance Is the cookie consent banner not shown during checkout? Are all data collection fields either required for fulfillment or clearly optional? Is marketing consent opt-in and unchecked by default?

7. Mobile flow Do iDEAL and Bancontact redirects complete without error on Safari/iOS and Chrome/Android? Are all touch targets at least 44px? Is the CTA button visible without scrolling on each checkout step?

8. Form field optimization Are there any fields that are required but not needed for fulfillment? Is address line 2 collapsed by default? Is company name hidden for B2C? Are correct keyboard types set for email, phone, and postcode?

9. Trust signals Is there at least one trust signal visible near the payment input? Is a returns policy accessible without leaving checkout? Is a support contact visible?

10. Error handling When a user enters an invalid card number, does the error message explain clearly what went wrong? When an address autocomplete fails, can the user enter manually without the form breaking? Are error messages shown inline, next to the relevant field?

Score yourself: 9-10 points means your checkout is well-optimized. 6-8 means there are specific problems to fix. Below 6 means checkout is likely a significant revenue leak.

What to Read Next

What Does an E-commerce UX Audit Cost? - budget expectations for professional checkout audits
How to Run a Shopify UX Audit in Europe - the step-by-step process for Shopify-specific checkout review
EU E-commerce Conversion Benchmarks 2026 - the data behind the benchmarks referenced in this guide

Ready to audit your checkout? We run focused EU checkout audits for e-commerce teams - covering payment methods, GDPR friction points, mobile flow, and address validation. Book a free checkout audit \n- See our e-commerce design subscription →