Fewer steps, more finished orders

Maison Papier had good products, good photography and a checkout that asked for a password before it would take an order. Sixty-eight percent of carts were abandoned, and the shop had convinced itself this was normal.

Watching real sessions made the cause obvious. Shipping appeared only on the final step, after a five-field account signup, and it was frequently more than the customer expected on a small order of paper goods.

We cut the flow to two steps and removed the account requirement entirely. Guests can order with an email address; the account is offered afterwards, once there is a reason to want one.

Shipping cost is now calculated in the cart, before anyone commits, and the remaining amount to reach free shipping is shown alongside it, which turned a source of abandonment into a reason to add one more item. Carts persist across devices, address entry autocompletes, and the payment step accepts the wallets people actually have on their phones.

Abandonment fell from sixty-eight percent to just under forty, a forty-one percent reduction, with average order value up about eleven percent from the free-shipping threshold being visible early.

Almost none of this was new functionality. It was removing three steps and telling people the price sooner.