Imagine a store selling home textiles. Someone arrives from an ad, likes a duvet set on their phone, adds it to the cart and taps "Buy". A sign-up screen appears. They create an account, fill in an eleven-field address form and see on the last screen that the total has gone up by 90 lira. They enter the card details, move to the bank's approval page, type the SMS code and land back in the store with an empty cart. They don't try again.
The store owner sees none of this in the admin panel. All that shows is plenty of people adding to the cart and few orders. The first reaction is usually to change the ad or the price. Yet this customer already wanted the product; what lost them had nothing to do with the product.
You don't need to start a software project for the eight checks below. Most of them can be reviewed in one evening with your own phone.
1. How late does the total become clear?
If the shipping fee and any cash-on-delivery charge only appear at the last step, the customer has come that far with the wrong figure in mind. A surprise on the last screen hurts trust even when the amount is small: "What else will they add?"
Show the estimated shipping fee or the free shipping threshold on the cart page. A line like "60 lira away from free shipping over 400 lira" removes the surprise and also gives a reasonable motive to add one more item.
2. Is an account required to buy?
For a first-time visitor, signing up is the store's business; the customer just wants the duvet set. Inventing another password, switching apps to confirm an email and coming back pulls their attention away at exactly the moment they made up their mind.
Allow guest checkout. Move the account offer to the thank-you screen after the order: "Set a password to track your delivery." The details are already filled in, so a single field is enough at this point.
3. How does the address form feel on a phone?
Fill in the form on a phone, not a computer, using one hand. Look at the following: Does the phone field open a number keyboard? Does the browser's autofill work? Do the right districts load after you pick a province? When one field has an error, does the page jump to the top and wipe everything you typed?
Review why each field is being asked, too. The billing address matches the delivery address on most orders; ticking "same" by default and hiding the second form cuts the screen in half.
4. Are installment options visible before payment?
In Turkey, installments are part of the buying decision. If customers can't see how many installments they get and the monthly amount before entering a card, they either go back to the product page to look for it or leave for another site to compare.
Give the installment table by bank through a short link on the product page. On the payment screen, show the valid options and the interest difference once the first digits of the card are entered. The gap between the single-payment total and the installment total should be learned on this screen, not on the card statement.
5. What happens on the way back from the bank's approval page?
This is the most fragile point in the flow. The customer goes to the bank's page for 3D Secure, enters the SMS code and returns to the store. If the session dropped in the meantime, the cart may look empty, the order may not exist or, worse, the card may be charged with no order saved.
Don't leave this to the browser redirect alone: also listen for the server-to-server notification from the payment provider and confirm the order based on it. Then try these: pressing back on the approval page, closing the tab, entering the wrong code, buying from Instagram's in-app browser. A customer coming from social media is very often in exactly this browser.
6. What do you tell the customer when a card is declined?
"Transaction failed" gives the customer nothing to act on. Was the limit too low, are online purchases switched off, was the code mistyped? In most cases the payment provider returns a reason code; turn it into a plain sentence and say what can be done: "Your card may be closed to online purchases. You can open it in your bank's app or try another card."
After an error, the cart and the address should stay in place, and the customer should only refill the card fields. Asking for the form from the start often removes any chance of a second attempt.
7. Does the last screen build trust or get in the way?
The Turkish pre-information form and distance sales contract are legally required, but they don't have to take over the screen. Show the texts in an expandable panel with the order details filled in, and confirm with your legal adviser which texts are mandatory.
Reduce distractions on this screen too. "You may also like" boxes, newsletter pop-ups and the full top menu do no good here. Instead, write the return policy in one sentence, a phone number and when the delivery will ship. Those are usually the questions on a customer's mind at the last moment.
8. Do you know at which step you lose the customer?
Knowing the "add to cart" and "order" counts doesn't tell you where the loss happens. Split the flow into steps and measure them: cart, address, shipping, payment screen, leaving for bank approval, returning from bank approval, order. Look at phones and computers separately, and at browsers separately.
A sudden drop at one step usually points to a problem. If the gap between those leaving for bank approval and those returning opens up overnight, that is most likely a new technical fault, not a pricing issue. Log payment errors separately as well; until you see which error comes up how often, you can't choose where to start.
A test you can run this evening
Pick up your phone, tap your own ad and actually buy a product from your store. Then repeat it from inside Instagram, with a card from another bank and with a wrong SMS code. Write down every place you stumble; your customers stumble in the same places, they just don't tell you.
In short
- Show the total and shipping on the cart page.
- Allow guest checkout and leave the account until after the order.
- Try the form on a phone with one hand and remove needless fields.
- Make installment options visible before a card is entered.
- Confirm orders through the provider's server notification and test interrupted bank returns.
- Turn card errors into clear sentences and keep the cart and address.
- Simplify the last screen and keep return and contact details visible.
- Measure the flow step by step, by device and browser.
In our e-commerce projects we set up the payment flow with 3D Secure through iyzico, PayTR or the bank's virtual POS, and while connecting orders to the ERP and shipping side we run these checks on a phone before delivery.
Planning a project like this?
Plan it in 10 steps