Keep the order summary visible through every checkout step
The cart contents, shipping cost, and running total stay visible in a sidebar or collapsible panel on every checkout screen, instead of disappearing after the first step.
What it is
A persistent panel, usually a sidebar on desktop or a collapsible drawer on mobile, keeps the item thumbnails, quantities, and the running total visible on the shipping and payment screens, not only on the first checkout screen where the cart is reviewed.
Why it works
Once the cart contents scroll out of view, the shopper is being asked to trust that what they are about to pay for is still what they actually put in the cart, entirely from memory. That is a small but real doubt, and doubt at the payment step is the worst place for it to surface, because the alternative to trusting is going back a step to check, which is itself a moment where checkout can be abandoned. Keeping the summary visible removes the need for that memory check entirely.
How to test it
- Hypothesis
- Keeping the order summary visible on every checkout step will lift checkout completion rate, because shoppers no longer need to navigate backward to confirm what they are paying for.
- Primary metric
- Checkout completion rate (sessions that start checkout)
- Guardrail metric
- Checkout page load time, which could rise if the added summary panel pulls in extra images on the exact pages where speed matters most
Related ideas
Want this tested on your store?
We run the experiment, call the result honestly, and get paid on what it adds.
See the performance program