Ask for email or phone first at checkout
Starting checkout with email or phone lets you recover abandoned carts. Put contact details before the long address form.
2 min read
Area
CRO & UX
Severity
Medium
Fix effort
Medium
Stores failing
Not enough data
The first field in checkout should be email or phone. Once you have it, you can follow up if the shopper leaves, and the form feels short from the start. This check reads the first field of checkout.
Why it matters
Abandonment is common, and a recovered cart is cheap revenue. With contact details captured first, even partial checkouts can be followed up. Starting with a long address form delays that.
What the audit looks at
The audit loads checkout and checks that the first input is an email or phone field.
What usually causes it
- A checkout that starts with shipping address
- An account sign-in that comes first
- A custom form with name fields at the top
- Third-party checkout defaults
How to fix it
Ask for email or phone first so an abandoned checkout can be followed up. The effort is medium, a theme or template edit that takes an afternoon.
- Make contact (email or phone) the first field on the checkout form.
On Shopify
- Shopify's checkout already starts with contact. If yours does not, a custom or third-party checkout is in use; check Settings > Checkout.
On WooCommerce
- Reorder the billing fields so email is first (a checkout field editor plugin or the woocommerce_checkout_fields filter).
How to check it yourself
- Open checkout and read the top field.
- Check that contact details can be entered before the address.
- Test guest and signed-in views.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal to follow up abandoned carts?
In many regions you need consent to send marketing. Check local rules and tell shoppers what you will do.
Does this apply to Shopify?
Shopify checkout asks for email or phone first by default.
Related checks
Check your own store
See whether your store passes this check
Paste your store URL. The audit loads your pages in a real browser and shows the result for this check with the evidence behind it.