Stall library · Buy
The cart can only be paid with an express wallet
An express only checkout is a cart whose only ways to pay are wallet buttons such as Shop Pay, Apple Pay or PayPal, with no plain checkout button beside them. A person with the wallet taps it and pays. An AI agent buying for someone has no wallet to sign in to, so it reaches a full cart and stops there.
Why the agent stops
An express wallet hands the purchase to a payment provider, which identifies the shopper by their own account: a Shop Pay code sent to their phone, an Apple device, a PayPal sign in. That is the point of the button, and it is also why an agent cannot use it. The agent holds none of those, and pressing the button on a stranger’s behalf is not something an honest agent does.
A plain checkout button leads to the store’s own checkout, where a guest types an address and chooses how to pay. That is the path an agent can take. When a theme or an app hides it to push the wallets, the cart has a way to pay for some people and none for agents.
How often we see this
Not stated here. A frequency means nothing without the cohort it was counted over, and this page is about one stall rather than one category. Where a category has enough stores measured at every stage, the share of them showing this stall is published on its benchmark page, with the methodology beside it.
See it for yourself
- Add a product to the cart and open the cart drawer or the cart page in a private window.
- Look for a button or link that says checkout and leads to your own checkout. Wallet buttons do not count.
- Check the cart on a phone and on a desktop: some themes hide the checkout button on one of them.
What to change
- Show a plain checkout button in the cart beside the express buttons: a link to /checkout, or a submit button named checkout inside the cart form.
- If an app replaced the cart, check its settings for an option that hides the standard checkout button, and turn it off.
- Keep the express buttons. They are good for people who have the wallet, and they cost an agent nothing once the plain button is there.
What Ottom looks at
Ottom reports this when the cart offers no checkout control an agent could press, and the cart does show express wallet buttons. The walk looks at the wallets and never presses one, and no AI agent is asked to try, because an agent may not press a wallet either. It is High rather than Critical: a shopper with the wallet can still buy.
Questions
Our wallets convert well. Why add a checkout button?
They may well, for people who have them. The plain button is for everyone else, agents included, and the wallets stay where they are. Nobody who taps Shop Pay today stops doing so because a checkout button sits beside it.
Why does the agent not just press Shop Pay or PayPal?
Because the wallet asks for the shopper’s own sign in, a code sent to their phone or a device they hold, which the agent does not have. Pressing it on their behalf would not get further, and an honest agent does not try.