Checkout Revenue Doctor

Checkout diagnostic: shipping selection to payment

What is known

• Analytics indicate a drop between shipping selection and payment, but the time period, denominator, sample size, device mix, and instrumentation have not been provided.
• Three recent support tickets mention unexpected shipping costs. This is a useful signal, not proof that shipping disclosure explains the funnel drop.
• No payment error breakdown or session replay is available.

Prioritized checks

Validate measurement: confirm event definitions, order, duplicate firing, consent effects, bot filtering, and whether the same users are followed across steps. Segment by device, country, traffic source, and new/returning status only where sample sizes are adequate.
2.

Inspect total-cost disclosure: verify when shipping and taxes first appear, whether delivery options are comparable, and whether fees change after address entry. Review the three tickets in context; do not infer prevalence.
3.

Check mobile usability: test address entry, validation messages, keyboard behavior, loading states, and back navigation on supported devices. Record actual defects rather than assumed pain points.
4.

Request payment diagnostics: counts and coded errors by payment method, device, and step, with personal/payment data removed. Distinguish declines, technical failures, authentication issues, and customer exits.
5.

Review guardrails: margin after shipping and promotions, refund/cancellation rate, fraud losses, support contacts, and successful order quality.

Hypotheses to test (not findings)

• Shoppers may be surprised by shipping cost if the total appears late.
• A validation or loading issue may interrupt mobile users.
• Payment failures could contribute, but no failure data is available.

Low-risk experiment

If measurement is validated, test a clearer shipping-cost estimate earlier in the flow for a limited, representative cohort. Keep shipping options, price, and eligibility unchanged. Compare progression from shipping to payment and completed paid orders; guard against contribution margin, refund/cancellation rate, support contacts, and fraud changes. Predefine a minimum sample and test duration with the analytics team. Do not declare a winner from the three tickets or incomplete funnel counts.

Next steps

Collect the measurement specification, date range and sample size, anonymized step counts, shipping/tax display rules, mobile QA results, and privacy-safe payment error codes. Fix any confirmed functional defect first; reserve experimentation for uncertain design changes.