How to Stop Fraud Attacks Without Increasing DeclinesAn Interview With Bounce CEO Bator Sutton

One of the biggest issues is actually the “post checkout friction” which is payment declines: when a good customer tries to pay but their payment method is incorrectly rejected or blocked. This creates confusion, frustration, and lost sales.

Other common friction points include long checkout forms with multiple pages, forced account creation, and unexpected verification steps. In many cases, new buyers will abandon the cart if you are not offering their preferred payment. These disruptions break the flow and often lead shoppers to abandon their cart, even if they were ready to buy.

Today’s shoppers want things fast and easy. They expect instant checkouts, fewer clicks, and clear pricing. At the same time, they want to feel safe. If anything seems off, like extra steps or payment fails, then they leave. That means merchants need checkout experiences that feel smooth but still catch real fraud behind the scenes. With that, merchants should also be ready for the next wave of shopping which will include some form of AI agents shopping.

One-click checkout can boost sales by removing the big part of information that is commonly asked from buyers at checkout. However, using third-party solutions that offer one click checkouts also takes the control out of your hands, so you need to make sure to choose the right provider that won’t end up blocking too many good users (or let too many bad ones in).

One of the biggest factors is declined payment, which is even sort of “post checkout” if the customer did everything right. Other common issues include too many pages, too many form fields, unclear pricing, expensive or inadequate shipping, and also missing payment options. Every small delay or extra steps can be enough to make someone drop off and never return.

Flexible payments or any sort of flexible charge are additional forms of payments that can create higher conversion especially for customers that need more control over their purchases, or have some limitation around the value of their payments. If someone wants to split a big payment or pay later, and that option isn’t there, they might leave. It’s also great for people trying a product for the first time. These models can remove the “now or never” pressure and lead to more completed purchases.

New customers need reassurance: show clear pricing, secure payment options, and fast support. Returning customers want speed and convenience: saved details, one-click checkout, and no extra steps. Both need a smooth experience, but the priorities are different; first-time trust vs. speed for repeat.

Yes, we worked with Scale, a wellness brand offering both one-time and subscription purchases. They were seeing strong traffic but quietly losing revenue to payment declines of good buyers, both at checkout and during subscription renewals.

Our analysis found that nearly 60% of their declined transactions were actually good customers being blocked by mistake. After implementing Bounce, they recovered lost deals in real time. As a result, Scale saw a 3% lift in checkout revenue, a 2.5% increase in subscriber retention, and even higher improvements in customer lifetime value, all without changing their user experience. A small fix made a big impact.

Merchants should watch for time spent on the checkout page, and page-by-page and field-by-field conversion funnel (where do you see the biggest drop off). They should also look for how many of their customers complete the entire checkout process but don’t click “pay,” chargeback rates, and fraud and refund rates. Lastly, and most importantly, are card decline rates, and how many of these customers drop off after a failed payment.

Keep your checkout fast and easy to use, but also pay close attention to what happens after the customer hits “pay.” Many new merchants focus on design and speed but overlook payment performance, like decline rates.

Decline rates are impacted by so many factors; the gateway you are using, the type of transaction and average order value, the countries you are targeting, and more. It’s important to track these declines, understand why they happen, and have a way to recover good payments.

A successful checkout isn’t just about getting people to the “pay” button. It’s about making sure they actually complete the purchase.

In global markets, issues like local payment preferences, currency mismatches, and stricter bank rules can decrease conversions and increase friction.

Customers expect to see their local currency, payment methods and checkout flow, which is not always the same as in markets such as the US and Europe. In some countries, the chances of completing a card transaction are very low, so you must include other forms of payment. If you have fraud solutions in place and started to target new markets, then good customers might be declined just because they look “different.” Merchants need to properly plan their market expansion, and closely monitor patterns around each market’s checkout funnel.

From the buyer side, AI can take over the entire shopping process, including checkout, and basically eliminate any user experience aspect (or rather, turn it into “agent experience”).

From the merchant side, merchants can use AI to look at thousands of signals instantly to decide whether a payment should go through. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all fraud rule, AI adapts in real-time, approving good payments and flagging only real risks. It helps merchants reduce steps while keeping conversion high and fraud low.

We believe the future is about real-time intelligence; smart systems that know when to approve, when to ask for more info, and when to simplify. Combined with flexible payment methods, the next wave will focus on recovering lost revenue without ever slowing the customer down.

At Bounce, we're exploring how machine learning can quietly improve approval decisions in the background, so effectively that the customer never even sees the decline or feels any friction. We're constantly tracking new technologies and refining our approach to stay ahead of what “frictionless” really means.