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A focused checkout test that turned a Shopify limitation into measurable revenue.
The brand
BioLite designs off-grid energy products that bring power, light, and clean cooking to people wherever they are. Their direct-to-consumer business runs on Shopify, and like every Shopify merchant, the team had inherited a checkout flow that was hard to question and harder to change.
The team knew checkout was leaking, but Shopify's limited customization options had stalled previous attempts to fix it. They came to Surefoot looking for a way to test inside the checkout itself, validate a fix with real data, and ship it without compromising the platform.
The impact
Surefoot listened to our concerns about testing on Shopify checkout and addressed them thoughtfully. We appreciated how closely they monitored the test and kept us up-to-date with regular communication. The end result was definitely worth it!
The challenge
Funnel data showed visitors abandoning between checkout Step 1 (Shipping Address) and Step 2 (Shipping Method), but Shopify's native checkout left the BioLite team with little room to redesign the form or test alternatives.
Customers were being asked for personal information before they understood why. Without context for the email and phone fields, hesitation built up exactly where the team needed momentum.
Any fix had to coexist with Shopify's checkout updates and the team's own release cadence. A workaround that quietly broke the next time Shopify pushed an update was not an option.
The approach
Using Google Analytics funnel reports and Enhanced E-commerce events, we isolated Step 1 of checkout as the single largest source of abandonment, and quantified what closing that gap would be worth.
User research surfaced a recurring theme. Customers paused when asked for email and phone immediately, without knowing how those details would be used. The fix was less about layout and more about reassurance.
We grouped the email and phone fields into a clearly labeled Contact Information section positioned below Shipping Address, with helper text explaining how each field would be used. The page felt calmer and the ask felt smaller.
To respect Shopify's update cycle, we built a dashboard control that let BioLite turn the new checkout variant on or off without code changes. The team could keep the win running and disable it instantly if Shopify shipped a conflicting update.
What we learned
Major checkout overhauls fight the platform. A focused, well-instrumented test inside an existing step can ship inside Shopify's constraints and still move the business.
Most checkout drop-off is not a UX problem in isolation. It is a confidence problem. Adding a short line of context next to a sensitive field can outperform a redesign.
Platforms change. Treating any checkout customization as something the client can toggle off in seconds protects the result and the relationship.
The results
The reorganized checkout reduced drop-off between Step 1 and Step 2 by 14% and lifted overall transactions by 18% on both desktop and mobile. Email capture moved with it, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars in projected annual net profit. Surefoot also built a Shopify dashboard toggle so the BioLite team could turn the variant on or off as the platform evolved.
The takeaway
A few well-placed lines of context delivered what a full checkout overhaul set out to do. Three metrics moved at once.
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