Secret Sauce Blog

Why Friction at Checkout Is Killing Your Sales—And How to Fix It

Written by Admin | Jul 23, 2025 6:30:00 AM

Your customer finds a piece they love. The photography shows the product beautifully. The price feels good. The product description? On point. Then they look at sizes.

Suddenly, it’s not a sure thing anymore.

Do they go with their usual size? Size up? Cross-reference the chart? Dive into reviews? That tiny moment of doubt—the pause, the click-away, the internal debate—is where you start losing conversions.

It’s also where most retailers and brands still underestimate the cost of friction.

The Silent Sales Killer: Sizing Hesitation

In e-commerce, we obsess over optimization. We shave milliseconds off load time. We A/B test button colors. We streamline every funnel.

But sizing friction? It often flies under the radar.

And yet, it's one of the biggest culprits behind:

  • Cart abandonment
  • Return rates
  • Lost customer trust

In usability tests we’ve conducted across global fashion brands, sizing uncertainty consistently triggers hesitation. Even when customers want the product, they hold back—not because of price or style, but because of one nagging thought: "Will it fit?"

Friction Doesn’t Just Feel Bad—It Performs Badly

Traditional size charts and quizzes add friction. They ask the customer to stop, analyze, input. And in that pause, momentum dies.

What’s worse? Most of these tools only help a small fraction of your shoppers. On average, traditional sizing solutions cover just 3-5% of customers.

Meanwhile, your traffic—your investment—is slipping away.

The Fix: Make the Fit Challenge Disappear

We designed Fit Predictor to eliminate that friction point entirely.

It provides personalized size recommendations at exactly the right moment in the shopping journey—without pop-ups, without forms, and without asking your customers for personal data.

And it works for 100% of your shoppers:

  • New customers can get results in 2–3 clicks.
  • Returning shoppers get instant recommendations based on past purchases.
  • Passive users still see sizing insights drawn from behavioral data.

It’s seamless. It’s fast. And it performs:

  • +50% conversion uplift among Fit Predictor users
  • −30% returns from shoppers who follow the recommended size
  • Higher loyalty and repeat purchases across the board

Fit Shouldn’t Be a Friction Point—It Should Be an Accelerator

Your product pages are your most valuable real estate. The last thing you want is a potential customer hovering over the size selector like it’s a quiz they don’t want to take.

Remove that barrier. Give them clarity and confidence—automatically.

Because frictionless fit isn’t just a better experience. It’s a smarter path to growth.

Want to see how Fit Predictor performs on your site? Contact us now. 

About Secret Sauce Partners

Secret Sauce Partners is a pioneer in AI-powered fit and sizing solutions, trusted by leading marketplaces and retailers worldwide. As a pioneer in the Artificial Intelligence field focusing on fit & sizing, we developed the world’s first Fit AI solution 15 years ago, and continued to optimize it over the past 15 years covering every possible category and price point globally. Our AI has been trained by over 4.1 billion purchases and returns across 140,000+ brands. In Fit AI, the size of training data is critical to achieving success and we have the expertise to show it. Let us help you eliminate sizing friction, reduce returns, and build customer experiences that convert.