Could you be losing 22% in sales by not offering your customers a digital wallet option at checkout? That’s the average conversion uplift businesses see when they add Apple Pay alone, according to Stripe. By mid-2025, digital wallets accounted for half of all global e-commerce transactions – more than credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers combined.
There’s a familiar moment in online shopping. You’ve found the thing you need, the price feels fair, the site has done its job well enough. You click checkout – and then come the forms, the data entry, the need to sign up for an account…
Anyone who shops online will likely have experienced this recently. A straightforward purchase, no friction up to that point. But the checkout page felt dated and slow: Do you have an account? Would you like to create one? Continue as a guest? Shipping details, billing details, password fields, dropdowns that don’t quite behave on mobile. This is the old way of doing things and it’s costing businesses more than they might realise.
Express checkout is the new normal
When someone reaches the checkout, they’ve already made the decision to buy. Your job at that point isn’t to gather more information or encourage account creation – it’s to get out of the way, otherwise they might abandon their cart (and your business). The moment a customer lands on the checkout page, they should immediately see clear and confident options to pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Shop Pay. Using these recognisable logos, customers purchase in one-tap actions.
Prioritise convenience
Every additional step in a traditional checkout is a small interruption. A pause creates a chance for doubt to creep in, or for attention to drift. On mobile (where most people are already juggling notifications, messages, and a dozen open tabs) that pause is often enough. People leave – not because your product isn’t right, but because the process asked for too much.
We’re designing for people in motion, often distracted, making quick decisions. If your checkout doesn’t match that reality, it creates friction. Express checkout reduces that friction to almost nothing.
Your digital wallet checkout questions answered
If you’re reviewing your own e-commerce site, here are a few things worth checking.
How much does it cost to add a digital wallet option at checkout on my website?
With some payment providers, like Stripe, it’s largely a case of switching it on. If your setup is already configured correctly, there’s minimal development work involved and the cost reflects that. It’s one of those rare wins where the effort is low and the payoff is significant.
Other providers can require some custom coding to get digital wallets working, which takes more time and will cost accordingly. If you’re unsure where your current setup sits, it’s worth asking your developer before assuming it’ll be straightforward.
Either way, given the impact digital wallets have on mobile conversion, it’s one of the more worthwhile investments you can make in your checkout experience.
Are digital wallets compatible with all payment gateways?
Not quite. Most major payment gateways (like Stripe) support digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, but it’s not universal. Compatibility depends on the gateway, your platform, and sometimes the device your customer is using. It’s worth checking before you commit to a setup.
Do digital wallets work with WooCommerce?
Generally, yes — but it depends which payment gateway you’re using. Stripe supports Apple Pay and Google Pay within WooCommerce, and setup is fairly straightforward. Some lesser-known gateways lag behind, so if digital wallet support matters to your customers, it’s worth making it a deciding factor when choosing your gateway.
What's the conversion rate for mobile users on websites with vs without a digital wallet?
The honest answer is that a clean, direct comparison is hard to come by, but the data that does exist tells a pretty clear story. Mobile cart conversion sits around 16% versus 26% on desktop, and that gap is largely down to checkout friction.
BigCommerce reported conversion rates tripling when digital wallets were introduced as a payment option. It’s a widely cited figure, so take it with a pinch of salt, but the underlying logic holds. 28% of mobile users abandon their cart because checkout feels too long, and 19% don’t trust a site with their card details. Digital wallets solve both problems at once.
In the UK, 57% of adults had a mobile payment service in 2024 – up from 42% the year before. Two in five online purchases were already made via digital wallet, and that’s predicted to rise to 68% by 2030.
Will adding a digital wallet slow my website down?
No, as long as it’s implemented well. Digital wallet options like Apple Pay and Google Pay load as part of your existing payment gateway scripts, so there’s no significant extra weight added to your pages. With a provider like Stripe, the impact on page speed is negligible.
Where things can go wrong is if the implementation is clunky – poorly written custom code or conflicting plugins can create issues. But that’s a reason to make sure it’s done properly, not a reason to avoid it altogether. If page speed is something you’re mindful of (which it should be, given its impact on both user experience and SEO) then a well-implemented digital wallet won’t move the needle in the wrong direction.
What's the fastest way to reduce checkout abandonment on mobile?
Enable digital wallets. It’s not the only lever worth pulling, but it’s arguably the most impactful one.
The reason a lot of people abandon a mobile checkout is friction. Typing card details on a small screen is tedious, and handing payment information to an unfamiliar site feels risky. Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay remove both barriers in a single tap.
Beyond that, the other things worth looking at are: keeping the checkout to as few steps as possible, offering guest checkout rather than forcing account creation, and making sure your site loads quickly. Slow pages and complicated forms are conversion killers on mobile.
But if you’re only going to do one thing, start with digital wallets. The effort-to-impact ratio is hard to beat.
Do digital wallets work with subscription payments?
Yes, but careful setup is requried. The initial payment is seamless – one tap and done. The recurring side depends on whether your gateway supports billing via tokenised payments. Stripe does this well via billing agreements.
If you’re on WooCommerce, Stripe and WooCommerce Subscriptions is a tried and tested combination. Just confirm your specific setup supports it before switching anything on.
How many steps should it actually take to check out on an e-commerce website?
We belive the answer is 3:
Step 1: Product detail page click ‘add to basket’
Step 2: Checkout
Step 3: Tap the Apple Pay / Google Pay button
If there are more steps than this you’re inviting a decline in conversions. Ask what can be removed, combined, or automated to reduce any friction.
Energy efficient checkouts
There’s also a more subtle benefit to an efficient express checkout, one that aligns with our carbon strategy and wider digital sustainability values. A shorter checkout flow means fewer page loads, fewer server requests, less processing. It’s a small saving each time, but at scale it adds up. Efficiency isn’t just good for conversion rates, it also reduces your website’s carbon impact. This is how you can design a more sustainable express checkout.
If your checkout still asks customers to stop, think, and fill in forms before they can pay, it’s worth revisiting. Got an e-commerce site that needs updating?