What: Business of Fashion explores how different tools and services can help fashion and beauty industries prevent financial loss caused by abandoned carts by making checkout frictionless both online and in-store.

Why it is important: Brands and retailers need to optimize operations around shifting shopping behaviours by using technologies that eliminate checkout steps, reduce financial and psychological barriers to purchase (such as Buy Now, Pay Later services), and reformat in-store checkout through RFID tags.

When used well, these tools help retailers convert more browsers of their sites into buyers and

create a better UX that helps to convince shoppers to return for future purchases as well. This is paramount as consumers are growing more cautious due to economic and geopolitical pressures causing businesses to compete for every purchase from cash-strapped consumers, adding to the already tough conditions they face from data-privacy measures that have made digital advertising more expensive and returns on spend harder to track. Coresight Research, an advisory firm specialising in retail and technology, recently found that US online retailers are losing between USD 111 billion and USD 136 billion in sales due to a less-than-optimal checkout.

While the case study’s guidance largely focuses on US and European shopping, the lessons can be applied globally to improve overall performance and customer loyalty.

BoF case study: removing friction from commerce