Costs shown only at checkout: why you lose carts and where to show shipping early
Shipping and fees that appear only at payment drive customers away. What the law requires, where to show costs early, on the product page, in the cart and in Merchant Center, and how to measure it.
Vasile Dingă
.comparison-cards { display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 1.5rem; } .comparison-card { background: #fff; border-radius: 16px; padding: 20px; border: 2px solid #efefef; } .comparison-header { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 12px; } .comparison-row { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; padding: 8px 0; border-top: 1px solid #efefef; font-size: 14px; color: #1f2937; } .comparison-label { font-size: 14px; width: 30%; } .comparison-value { width: 65%; text-align: right; } @media (max-width: 600px) { .comparison-row { flex-direction: column; align-items: flex-start; } .comparison-value { text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; } } The customer chose the product, has €49 in the cart, typed their address, and only on the last step sees: shipping €4.99, plus a €1.50 service fee. The total went up by more than 10% right at the moment of payment. Some customers close the page and never come back. Costs that appear late are a classic reason for checkout abandonment and, luckily, one of the easiest to fix. With three weeks to go before Black Friday, which falls on 27 November this year, it's a change worth making now. Below: what the law says, where to show costs early and how to measure whether it worked. 1. Which costs usually appear only at the end Shipping , calculated only after the customer types their address. Cash on delivery fee , added when the payment method is chosen. Packaging, handling or "service" fees , with no clear link to the product. Small order surcharge below a certain value. Pre-ticked options : parcel insurance, gift wrap, express delivery. A fee for paying by card. The first four are mainly a conversion problem. The last two are a legal problem too. 2. What the law says The rules come from the EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU, which every member state has transposed into national law, for example OUG 34/2014 in Romania and the Consumer Contracts Act in Denmark. In short: Total price.…