Overview
An e-commerce brand wanted to improve the purchase journey for returning customers and reduce friction between the cart and checkout stages
The existing experience required users to make additional decisions before progressing, which created unnecessary friction at a high-intent stage of the customer journey
Mersad reviewed the cart experience, user flow, purchase behavior, and checkout progression to identify opportunities to make the next action clearer and easier to complete
The Challenge
Returning customers already had familiarity with the brand and products, but the cart experience did not fully support a fast and confident purchase decision
At this stage, even small usability issues can interrupt momentum and reduce the number of users who continue toward checkout
The main challenge was to improve purchase efficiency without adding more content, distractions, or unnecessary promotional pressure
Research and Observation
The analysis focused on:
- Returning customer behavior
- Cart-to-checkout progression
- Purchase conversion rate
- Average order value
- Clarity of the primary checkout action
- Decision friction inside the cart
- Visibility of key reassurance information
The opportunity was not simply to increase clicks, but to make the checkout decision clearer for users who were already close to purchasing
Hypothesis
Because returning customers demonstrated strong purchase intent but faced friction before checkout, we believed that creating a more focused cart experience and making the next action clearer would improve purchase conversion and average order value
We would know this was true if the variation increased purchases without negatively affecting order value or checkout completion
The Experiment
The test introduced a more focused cart experience designed to:
- Reduce decision friction
- Improve the visual priority of the checkout action
- Make the next step easier to understand
- Support returning users who were already familiar with the brand
- Keep the path to purchase clear and direct
The experiment ran for 11 days and focused specifically on returning customers
Results
The winning variation achieved:
- 17.06% uplift in purchases
- 7.47% uplift in average order value
- 11-day experiment runtime
The result showed that improving clarity at the cart stage affected both conversion efficiency and the commercial value of each order
Business Impact
The uplift was not limited to more users completing a purchase
The increase in average order value indicated that the new experience supported stronger purchase outcomes without relying only on discounts or aggressive incentives
This meant the optimization improved both:
- Purchase volume
- Revenue efficiency per transaction
Key Learning
High-intent users do not always need more persuasion
In many cases, they need fewer distractions, clearer actions, and a smoother path between cart and checkout
For returning customers in particular, reducing friction can create meaningful improvements because these users often arrive with stronger brand familiarity and purchase intent
Conclusion
The experiment demonstrated how a focused cart and checkout experience can improve both purchase conversion and average order value
Rather than redesigning the entire customer journey, the optimization targeted a specific high-impact stage and translated a usability improvement into measurable commercial results
Improve Your Cart and Checkout Performance
Mersad helps e-commerce brands identify revenue leakage, reduce customer friction, and improve purchase efficiency through data, UX research, and experimentation