Redesign a confusing checkout flow

You are a Product Designer at Hearth — a direct-to-consumer home goods e-commerce company with $28 million in annual revenue and 180,000 monthly visitors.

Your head of product shares this brief:

PROBLEM: Cart-to-purchase conversion is 2.1%. Industry benchmark for our category is 3.8%. We are losing approximately $1.1M in annual revenue versus benchmark.

EXIT SURVEY DATA (n=412 abandoned carts, past 60 days): - "I couldn't find a guest checkout option" — 41% - "Too many steps" — 35% - "I wasn't sure my payment was secure" — 29% - "Promo code didn't work" — 14% - "Shipping cost was higher than expected" — 11%

CURRENT CHECKOUT FLOW (5 steps): 1. Cart review (items, quantities, subtotal) 2. Account creation (required — no guest option) 3. Shipping address entry 4. Payment information 5. Review and confirm (full order summary, then place order button)

SESSION RECORDING ANALYSIS: - 68% of drop-offs happen on step 2 (account creation) - Of users who reach step 4, 91% complete the purchase - Mobile accounts for 58% of traffic but only 31% of completions - Average time to complete checkout for users who finish: 4 min 12 sec

ENGINEERING CONTEXT: - Full rebuild: 6 weeks - Guest checkout addition only: 1.5 weeks - Trust badge / security messaging: 3 days