Five Checkout 'Perks' That Could Cost You: A 30-Minute Pre-Peak Audit for Small Shops

There's a moment every shop owner knows. You're setting up your checkout, you see a toggle labelled something like "Add urgency" or "Boost average order value", and you switch it on because it seems harmless. It isn't always. A few of those helpful little defaults now sit squarely inside the unfair commercial practices rules, and the enforcement teeth behind them have been getting sharper.

Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, the CMA can investigate and fine businesses directly for misleading or aggressive selling practices — up to 10% of global turnover in the worst cases. Trading standards still handles plenty of day-to-day complaints too. You don't need to be a household name to attract attention; you need one annoyed customer who screenshots everything.

The good news: this is fixable in half an hour, with a cup of tea and your own laptop.

Start by walking your own checkout like a stranger

Buy something. Properly. Use a phone, not just the desktop preview in your admin panel, and go through as a first-time customer would. Keep a notepad open and jot down every single thing that happens between "add to basket" and the confirmation email. Most of the problems below only show up when you're not in admin mode.

One: the timer that resets

Countdown clocks are legal. Fake ones aren't. If your basket timer says the offer expires in 12 minutes and then quietly restarts the moment it hits zero, you're creating a false sense of urgency about a deadline that doesn't exist. That's a misleading commercial practice, full stop.

The fix: either genuinely end the promotion when the clock runs out, or reword the widget so it's honest — something like "your basket is held for 15 minutes" if that's what's actually happening with stock reservation. Untick the "reset on refresh" setting if your platform has one.

Two: delivery charges at the last click

Drip pricing — revealing compulsory fees only at the final stage — has been a target for years and the rules have tightened further under the current regime. If the headline price is £24.99 and the only way to discover the £4.95 delivery is to reach the payment page, that's a problem. So is a "handling fee" that appears after the customer has typed their card details.

The fix: show the total, including compulsory delivery, at the point the price is first stated — product page or basket, ideally both. Optional extras (gift wrap, next-day upgrade) can stay optional, as long as they're clearly a choice.

Three: boxes that arrive pre-ticked

Pre-ticked consent for extra payments is one of those practices that's been on the banned list for a long time, and it still catches people out. Insurance add-ons, donation round-ups, a subscription upgrade, a "priority packing" charge — if the box is already ticked, the customer hasn't actively agreed to it, and you can't rely on that consent.

The fix: untick everything by default. Yes, your average order value will dip slightly. Yes, your complaint rate will drop more. If you're selling add-on protection or a recurring subscription, make the price and the cancellation route obvious at the point of sign-up, not buried in a PDF.

Four: the 'was' price you can't back up

Reference pricing has its own guidance, and the general principle is simple: the "was" figure has to be a price you genuinely charged, for a meaningful period, recently enough to be relevant. A price you advertised for nine days in February doesn't automatically make "was £79, now £39" fair in November.

The fix: keep a dated price history — screenshots, exported product logs, even a spreadsheet with dates. If you can't produce evidence of the higher price being real, don't show it. "Save £10" against your own previous price is safe ground if you can prove it.

Five: reviews you can't stand behind

Fake and incentivised reviews are now explicitly in scope. Commissioning them is banned, writing them is banned, and publishing reviews without taking reasonable steps to check they're genuine is risky. That includes the imported widget on your product page that you've never really looked at.

The fix: switch off any auto-imported review feed you can't moderate, ask your platform what verification it applies, and keep a simple log of any reviews you've removed and why. If you offer samples to reviewers, make the disclosure visible.

What to keep if someone asks

You don't need a compliance department. You need a folder. Call it something forgettable like checkout evidence 2026 and drop in:

• Dated screenshots of your product pages and checkout flow, taken today and again after any promo change
• Your delivery and returns policy, with version dates
• Price history records for anything you've shown as discounted
• A short note of your review moderation process, plus any widget settings
• Copies of order confirmation emails as the customer receives them

That folder is your answer if a customer complains to trading standards or the CMA asks a question. It also quietly protects you in a chargeback dispute, which is where most small shops actually meet this stuff first.

The half-hour version

Buy something on your phone with a timer running. Fix the clock if it lies. Move delivery charges earlier. Untick every default box. Delete any "was" price you can't evidence from the last few months. Check where your reviews come from.

That's it. Peak trading is coming, and the last thing you want is to be explaining your urgency widget to someone official in January.