How Amazon and Apple once shared the same UX

I’ve been preparing for a UX conference on conversions and came across one of my favorite stories — maybe the conversion story of all conversion stories.

Back in the late 90s, Amazon had the same problem most online shops still face today: too many abandoned carts and low conversion. Nearly 70% of carts were left behind, and average purchase conversion sat below 2%.

The reason? Checkout friction. Four or five steps to buy. Manual data entry. Far too many chances to change your mind.

Amazon’s answer was simple but radical at the time — 1-Click checkout.

Store customer details after the first purchase Collapse checkout from 5 steps to 1 Add trust signals — confirmations, instant feedback. The results were huge.

Conversion jumped from around 2% to nearly 10% — a 500% lift.

Cart abandonment fell by more than 40%. Average order value was +5%!!!

Apple even licensed it for iTunes and the App Store, paying Amazon for the privilege. And once the patent expired in 2017, every platform copied it.

It’s a great reminder — sometimes a small UX change can be worth billions.