Case Study: How a Dutch E-commerce Store Increased Checkout Conversion 23% in 8 Weeks

[Philip’s note before publishing: Replace [CLIENT] with actual client name, verify metrics, add real screenshots. Placeholder structure below.]

[CLIENT] is a Dutch online retailer in the [CATEGORY] category, doing approximately €[X]M annually with around [X]K monthly sessions. They came to BTNG with a clear problem: traffic was growing, ad spend was increasing, and revenue was flat.

The symptom: a checkout conversion rate of 1.1%. The European average for their category is 2.2–2.8%.

That gap — 1.1% actual versus 2.2% category average — represented roughly €[X]K in monthly revenue they were generating traffic for but not capturing.

Here’s exactly what we found, what we fixed, and what changed.

The Situation Before the Audit

[CLIENT]‘s store had launched 3 years earlier on Shopify. It had been redesigned once, about 18 months before we got involved. The redesign was primarily visual — new fonts, updated colors, improved product photography. It hadn’t addressed checkout or product page UX.

Their analytics setup showed:

1.1% checkout conversion rate (session-based)
68% cart abandonment rate (above their category average of 62%)
Heavy mobile traffic — 71% of sessions on mobile, but mobile conversion was 0.6% versus desktop at 2.4%
High exit rate on checkout step 2 (shipping information) — 34% of users who started checkout were leaving at this step

That exit rate on the shipping step was the most significant signal. Something about the shipping information experience was causing abandonment at a rate far above the Baymard benchmark for this step (15–20% is typical).

Phase 1: The Audit (2 Weeks)

What We Reviewed

Full heuristic analysis of all purchase-path pages (homepage → category → product → cart → checkout)
120+ session recordings (Hotjar) focused on mobile checkout flows
Google Analytics funnel visualization and enhanced ecommerce data
Competitor checkout flows for 4 direct competitors in the same category
Payment provider data (payment method selection and completion rates)

What We Found

Finding 1: Shipping costs appeared for the first time on step 2 of checkout

The product pages showed “Shipping calculated at checkout.” The cart showed the same message. Step 1 of checkout (contact info) showed nothing. Step 2 (shipping info) was where shipping costs appeared for the first time.

For orders under €75: €4.95 shipping. For orders over €75: free.

Not unreasonable costs. But revealed at the shipping info step — after the customer had entered their email and address — the cost felt like a surprise. The session recordings showed a clear behavioral pattern: users would pause at the shipping cost display, some would scroll back up to check the cart total, some would abandon entirely.

The 34% exit rate at this step was explained.

Finding 2: iDEAL was not immediately visible on the payment step

[CLIENT] used a payment provider that displayed credit card fields first. iDEAL appeared below the fold on mobile — users had to scroll to find it. On desktop, it appeared under a “More payment options” disclosure that required a click.

Payment selection data showed that only 41% of Dutch customers were selecting iDEAL. The expected rate for a Dutch e-commerce store is 55–65%. The gap represented customers defaulting to credit card (lower completion rate) or abandoning when they couldn’t easily find iDEAL.

Finding 3: Mobile checkout had critical form UX issues

Three specific form problems on mobile:

The phone number field triggered a text keyboard, not a numeric keyboard (type="text" instead of type="tel")
The postal code field didn’t trigger the right keyboard either and didn’t validate Dutch postal code format (4 digits + space + 2 letters)
After a form validation error, the page scrolled to the top rather than to the first error field — users had to manually scroll to find what was wrong

Each of these was a small friction point. Together, on 71% mobile traffic, they were compounding.

Finding 4: No trust signals on the product page

The product pages had a star rating display (4.7/5) but no individual reviews visible without clicking through to a separate reviews page. The return policy was linked in the footer — not accessible from the product page.

35% of session recordings showed users navigating to the footer, clicking return policy, reading it, and returning to the product page before adding to cart. This was a trust-seeking behavior that added 45–90 seconds to the purchase path.

Finding 5: No guest checkout option

Account creation was required before purchase. The account creation step appeared before shipping information — early in the checkout flow.

Baymard: 28% of checkout abandonment is caused by forced account creation. The [CLIENT] checkout showed higher than average exit rates at the account creation step in early-funnel analytics.

Phase 2: Prioritization

We identified 23 issues in total across the purchase path. We ranked them by a combination of:

Frequency — how often users encountered this issue
Severity — how much friction it created (did it cause abandonment or just delay?)
Implementation effort — how long would fixing this take?

The top 5 by impact × frequency × feasibility:

Priority	Issue	Estimated Impact	Effort
1	Show shipping costs before checkout	High	Low
2	Make iDEAL immediately visible	High	Low
3	Add guest checkout option	High	Medium
4	Fix mobile form keyboard types	Medium	Low
5	Add reviews + return policy to product page	Medium	Low

We agreed to implement all 5 within an 8-week sprint.

Phase 3: Implementation (6 Weeks)

Fix 1: Shipping cost transparency

Added a “Shipping estimate” to the cart page and product pages:

Cart page: Showed exact shipping cost based on cart total. For orders near the €75 free shipping threshold, added a progress bar: “Add €12.50 more for free shipping.”
Product page: Added shipping cost or “Free shipping on orders over €75” in a line near the add-to-cart button

No change to the shipping cost itself. Just moved the information to where customers expected to find it.

Implementation time: 2 days

Fix 2: iDEAL payment method positioning

Worked with the payment provider to reorder payment methods. iDEAL moved to first position in the payment method list. On mobile, it now appears without scrolling.

Also added payment method logos to the cart page (before checkout entry) — iDEAL, Mastercard, PayPal, Klarna visible at a glance.

Implementation time: Half a day

Fix 3: Guest checkout

Added guest checkout as the primary path. “Continue as guest” is now the most prominent option on checkout entry. Account creation is offered post-purchase on the order confirmation page.

This required Shopify Plus customization — [CLIENT] was already on Plus, so the change was straightforward using checkout extensibility.

Implementation time: 3 days

Fix 4: Mobile form improvements

Changed type="text" to type="tel" on phone field. Added Dutch postal code validation with specific error message. Fixed scroll-to-first-error behavior.

Implementation time: 4 hours with developer

Fix 5: Product page trust signals

Added:

Review block showing 3 most recent reviews directly on product page (no click required)
Return policy expandable section in product page sidebar: “Free returns within 30 days” with one-click expansion for details

Implementation time: 2 days

Phase 4: Results (60 Days Post-Implementation)

Before and After

Metric	Before	After	Change
Checkout conversion rate	1.1%	1.35%	+23%
Cart abandonment rate	68%	59%	-13%
Mobile conversion rate	0.6%	0.82%	+37%
Exit rate at shipping step	34%	17%	-50%
iDEAL selection rate	41%	61%	+49%

Revenue Impact

On [CLIENT]‘s traffic volume, the 0.25% conversion rate improvement produced approximately €[X]K in additional monthly revenue.

Total implementation cost, including BTNG’s audit and design work: €[X]K.

Time to break-even on the investment: [X] weeks.

What the Results Showed

The biggest single improvement was the shipping cost transparency fix. Moving shipping information earlier in the funnel cut the exit rate at the shipping step in half — from 34% to 17%. That one change drove the majority of the overall conversion lift.

The iDEAL visibility fix was the highest-ROI change relative to implementation effort: half a day of work produced a 49% increase in iDEAL selection rate and a corresponding improvement in payment completion.

Mobile conversion improvement (+37%) was the combination of all changes — guest checkout, form fixes, and shipping cost transparency all had disproportionate impact on mobile where friction compounds.

The important caveat: these results are from a specific store, in a specific category, at a specific traffic volume. The pattern — shipping cost transparency and payment method visibility as the highest-impact fixes — is consistent across most Dutch e-commerce stores we audit. The exact numbers will vary.

What [CLIENT] Did Next

After the initial 8-week sprint, [CLIENT] moved to BTNG’s design subscription for ongoing optimization. The initial audit established a baseline and fixed the critical issues. The subscription is now running monthly experiments on product page copy, cross-sell placement, and mobile checkout flow variations.

Conversion rate at 6 months post-audit: 1.7% (up from 1.1% at the start).

Is Your Store in a Similar Position?

The issues we found at [CLIENT] are not unusual. Shipping cost reveal, iDEAL visibility, forced account creation, and mobile form friction are the top 4 findings across 80% of Dutch e-commerce audits BTNG has run.

If your checkout conversion rate is under 2.5%, there are specific, fixable things causing it.

Book a free 30-minute audit preview. We’ll look at your store together and identify your top 3–5 issues.

Book your free audit preview →