Make guest checkout the default path, not a hidden link
Checkout opens straight into a guest flow, with account creation offered as an optional step after the order is placed rather than a wall the shopper has to find a way around first.
What it is
The first checkout screen presents a guest email field as the primary path, with "sign in" available as a secondary link and account creation deferred to a post-purchase offer, rather than defaulting to a login-or-register screen that guest checkout has to be found underneath.
Why it works
A shopper who has already decided to buy is not thinking about account management, they are thinking about finishing. Forcing a password and a username choice into the middle of that intent introduces a task with no relationship to the purchase, and in a Baymard survey of US shoppers, 18% of checkout abandoners named exactly that as their reason for leaving: the site wanted them to create an account.1 Offering the account afterward, once the order is already placed, asks for the same commitment at a point where it costs the shopper nothing to say yes.
How to test it
- Hypothesis
- Making guest checkout the default path will lift checkout completion rate, because shoppers no longer need to create a password before they can pay.
- Primary metric
- Checkout completion rate (sessions that start checkout)
- Guardrail metric
- Post-purchase account creation rate, which could fall toward zero if the deferred offer fails to convert as well as a forced one did
References
- 1.Baymard Institute (2026). Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics. Baymard Institute. https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
Related ideas
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