7 Best Practices for Faster and Frictionless Payments

Online retailers lose an estimated $18 billion annually to abandoned carts, and a significant chunk of that loss happens not because customers changed their minds, but because the checkout experience got in the way. Payments that feel slow, complicated, or unfamiliar push buyers out the door at the worst possible moment — the finish line. Here's what businesses can do about it.

What Makes a Payment "Frictionless"

Frictionless payments aren't simply fast ones. The distinction matters. A payment can process in seconds and still feel frustrating if the customer had to dig out a card, re-enter a shipping address, or navigate three confirmation screens to get there. Frictionless means the customer barely notices the transaction happening at all.

The most frictionless payment systems are the ones that require little to no effort outside of clicking a button. That's the target. Everything else — digital wallets, biometric verification, one-click checkout, saved credentials — exists to get closer to that standard.

The market reflects how seriously businesses are taking this. The checkout friction reduction technologies sector was valued at $4.2 billion in 2025 and is projected to expand to $10.3 billion by 2036. That's not speculative spending — it's businesses trying to close the gap between a customer's decision to buy and a completed transaction.

The Real Cost of Getting It Wrong

Before getting into solutions, it helps to understand the scale of the problem. In 2025, eCommerce retailers lose approximately $18 billion annually due to abandoned carts. Mobile is the worst offender. Abandonment rates sit at 72.6% for desktop, 82.1% for tablet, and 87.3% for mobile, numbers that reveal just how differently customers behave when they're paying on a phone versus a laptop.

A complicated checkout process drives 18% of abandonments, with customers simply giving up on purchases they initially intended to complete. And forced account creation, something businesses often require thinking it builds loyalty, actually does the opposite — requiring account creation before purchase causes 24% of abandonments, making it one of the most impactful checkout friction points.

The flip side of this, though, is encouraging. Some 50% of consumers say they shop more frequently when payments feel seamless, and 48% say they spend more at checkout when the process is fast and frictionless. Fix the experience, and customers don't just convert — they come back and spend more.

1. Give Customers the Payment Methods They Prefer

The single most direct way to reduce friction is making sure customers can actually pay the way they want to. Nearly 13% of online shoppers abandon their carts because the store didn't offer a payment method they preferred. That's revenue walking out because of an easily solvable gap.

Customers want the maximum choice available so they can always pick the payment option they're familiar with — whether that's a traditional card, an Open Banking transfer, an alternative method like PayPal, or a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) plan. BNPL has grown particularly fast, driven by shoppers who want flexibility at checkout without applying for credit. Displaying the logos of accepted payment methods early in the checkout flow — not just on the final page — also matters more than it might seem. It signals to customers that their preferred option is available before they've invested time filling out forms.

2. Remove the Account Creation Wall

Forcing new customers to register before they can pay is one of the oldest friction mistakes in eCommerce, and it still costs conversions daily. Platforms that replaced the registration wall with a one-click social login via Google saw abandonment drop significantly, while those offering fully frictionless guest checkout with optional post-purchase account creation achieved the lowest abandonment rates.

The logic here is straightforward. A first-time buyer hasn't yet decided whether they like your brand enough to commit to an account. Asking them to register before completing a purchase front-loads the commitment and gives them a reason to leave. Offering guest checkout removes that obstacle entirely, and prompting account creation after a successful purchase — when the customer already feels good about the transaction — converts far better anyway.

3. Optimize Checkout Specifically for Mobile

Why Mobile Demands Its Own Approach

Responsive design isn't the same as mobile-optimized checkout. A form that works fine on a desktop screen can feel tedious on a phone — too many fields, wrong keyboard type, buttons that are hard to tap accurately. Brands deploying device-adaptive checkout UX, where the number of form fields, payment options displayed, and button sizes dynamically adjust based on detected device type, reduced overall cross-device abandonment by an average of 14.7 percentage points.

With $2.5 trillion worth of eCommerce sales expected to happen on mobile in 2025, any checkout experience must look great and function flawlessly on smaller screens. That means numeric keypads auto-loading for card number fields, autofill working correctly, and digital wallet options like Apple Pay or Google Pay appearing prominently — because a single tap is always going to outperform typing out a 16-digit card number on a phone.

4. Use Tokenization for Returning Customers

For customers who've purchased before, having to re-enter payment details on each visit is friction that serves no one. Tokenization solves this cleanly. Instead of storing actual card data, the system stores an encrypted reference — a token — that can authorize a transaction without exposing sensitive information.

This is the technical foundation behind one-click checkout experiences. The customer sees a fast, effortless process; the merchant handles a secure, compliant transaction without directly touching card data. It cuts both abandonment risk and PCI compliance complexity at the same time.

5. Make Authentication Feel Invisible

Security Without the Interrogation

Authentication is where many otherwise good checkout flows quietly fall apart. SMS one-time passwords, security questions, and password prompts add steps that feel like hurdles rather than protection — and they often push customers to abandon rather than comply.

Biometric authentication — fingerprint or face ID — and passkey-based login built on FIDO standards offer a better tradeoff. Security stays strong; the customer experience stays smooth. Risk-based authentication takes this further by applying additional checks only when signals suggest elevated risk — an unfamiliar device, an unusual location, a transaction pattern that looks off — while letting known, low-risk transactions pass through without interruption.

The goal isn't less security. It's security that works in the background instead of making itself the customer's problem.

6. Connect to Real-Time Payment Infrastructure

Real-time payment networks have moved from an emerging trend to an active competitive factor. FedNow recorded a 49,000% year-over-year increase through Q2 2025, with over 1,600 financial institutions now participating. For businesses, faster settlement means better cash flow. For customers, immediate payment confirmation removes the uncertainty that can make digital transactions feel unreliable.

Open Banking payments made in the UK reached over 31 million in a single month in March 2025, accounting for nearly 8% of all electronic payments that month. Account-to-account transfers reduce reliance on card networks, lower processing fees, and deliver a genuinely faster experience — particularly for higher-value transactions where customers pay close attention to confirmation timing.

7. Let AI Handle Payment Personalization

The checkout experience doesn't have to be the same for every customer. AI-driven systems can surface a customer's preferred payment method without them asking, apply stored loyalty points automatically, suggest BNPL for transactions above a certain value, and route payments across different networks in real time to maximize authorization rates.

AI-powered payment orchestration enables institutions to select the most appropriate available payment rail across RTP, SWIFT, ACH, card networks, and cross-border options based on transaction type, cost, and speed. The result is a checkout that adapts quietly to the customer rather than presenting a generic interface every time. For repeat buyers especially, a checkout that recognizes their habits and defaults to them is meaningfully faster than one that starts from scratch on every visit.

Frictionless Payments in B2B — Still an Underserved Area

Most of the conversation around payment friction centers on consumer retail, but business payments carry the same problems at considerably higher transaction values. Checks remain the leading source of payment fraud, accounting for over 60% of incidents, yet many companies continue using them simply because switching requires organizational effort.

The top B2B eCommerce payment trends in 2026 include virtual cards for flexible supplier payments, embedded real-time payment options inside procurement platforms, and the expansion of digital cross-border transactions that reduce FX risk. Companies that modernize their accounts payable and receivable processes aren't just reducing fraud exposure — they're settling invoices days or weeks faster, which compounds into real working capital advantages over time.

Conclusion

Faster and frictionless payments are not a UX nicety — they're directly tied to revenue. When merchants offer seamless, incentive-driven checkout experiences, 52% of consumers say they shop more often, and among Gen Z that figure rises to 72%. The seven practices covered here — expanding payment options, eliminating forced registration, optimizing for mobile, deploying tokenization, using smarter authentication, connecting to real-time rails, and personalizing with AI — represent the clearest path from a checkout flow that loses customers to one that keeps them. None of it requires a complete platform overhaul. Most of it requires prioritizing payment experience with the same seriousness given to product and marketing.