State of E-Commerce Authentication 2026

The digital storefront has evolved into a complex ecosystem of personalized experiences, yet the mechanism to enter to this world - authentication - has largely remained the same. In e-commerce, where customer acquisition costs (CAC) are rising and brand loyalty is fleeting, the login screen can define about success or failure. It is the bottleneck through which every dollar of revenue from a returning customer must pass. For years, this critical point in the journey has been governed by a "security versus convenience" discussion, a zero-sum game where product managers fought for frictionless guest checkouts to minimize cart abandonment, while security architects demanded complex passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to stem the rising tide of credential stuffing and account takeovers (ATO).

This traditional tension is breaking now. The "shared secret" paradigm - dominated by passwords that are easily phished, frequently forgotten and routinely stolen - is reaching its operational limit. The industry is witnessing a shift toward standards that promise to resolve the historic trade-off: passkeys.

This report serves as an exhaustive analysis of the state of authentication across the world's leading e-commerce markets. We have audited the login architectures of 50 leading B2C brands and marketplaces across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia to construct an "Authentication Matrix." Our research goes into the granular details of how brands like Amazon, Nike, Zalando and Coupang are managing digital identity.

We analyze how regulatory pressures, particularly the European Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) with its Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements, impact the implementation of multi-factor authentication for online payments. Furthermore, we explore the technical disruptions, specifically the Google-led migration to the Federated Credential Management API (FedCM), which changes the UX for social login implementations drastically.

The data presented reveals an industry at an interesting inflection point. While technology giants have aggressively deployed passkeys to hundreds of millions of users, creating a new baseline for consumer expectations, the long tail of B2C brands remains trapped in a fragmented landscape of social logins, magic links and insecure passwords. This report shows that fragmentation, quantifies the risks and provides a overview for brands to navigate the transition to a passwordless future.

To understand the specific strategic choices made by individual retailers, one must first understand the change beneath the digital economy. The transformation of e-commerce authentication is a response to 5 converging forces:

1. Consumer expectations shaped by Big Tech
2. Restructuring of web privacy and browser changes
3. Economic impact of conversion optimization
4. Evolution of fraud and security threats
5. Regulatory pressure in key markets

Consumers in 2026 arrive at e-commerce sites with authentication expectations shaped by years of using smartphones and interacting with Big Tech platforms. Consumers unlock their phones dozens of times daily, often using biometrics like Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint scanning. This has created a fundamental expectation: authentication should be instant, invisible and biometric.

The One-Tap Standard: Amazon's one-click purchasing, Apple Pay's double-click checkout and Google's one-tap sign-in have trained hundreds of millions of consumers to expect authentication to happen in under 2 seconds. When these same users encounter a traditional e-commerce site demanding username, password and SMS verification, the cognitive dissonance is jarring. They've been conditioned by their daily device interactions to expect better.

Password Fatigue is Real: The average consumer has over 100 online accounts but uses only 5-7 passwords across all of them. This password reuse creates massive security vulnerabilities, but consumers continue the practice because remembering unique, complex passwords for every site is cognitively impossible. Research from Baymard Institute shows that approximately 24% of users abandon checkout when forced to create an account, with forgotten passwords being a major contributor to this friction.

Biometric Trust Shift: A critical psychological shift has occurred - consumers now trust biometric authentication more than passwords. They understand intuitively that their face or fingerprint is unique, while passwords can be guessed or stolen. This trust, built through billions of successful smartphone unlocks, makes consumers actively seek biometric options when available.

Cross-Device Expectations: Modern consumers shop across an average of 3.5 devices - smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop. They expect their authentication to travel seamlessly across these devices. When Apple introduced passkey syncing via iCloud Keychain and Google followed with Password Manager synchronization, it set a new baseline expectation: "If I save this on my phone, it should work on my laptop."

While regulations reshape the legal landscape, browser vendors are rewriting the technical rules of the web. The deprecation of third-party cookies - often referred to as the "cookiepocalypse" - is a well-documented trend, but its specific impact on federated identity (social logins) is frequently underestimated.

For over a decade, e-commerce sites have relied on "Social Login" buttons (Sign in with Google, Facebook, etc.) to reduce friction. Many of these implementations relied on third-party cookies or silent iframe redirects to maintain session state across domains or to detect if a user was already logged into the identity provider. This architecture allowed for seamless "One Tap" sign-ins but also facilitated cross-site tracking, a practice that modern privacy initiatives aim to eliminate.

Google's introduction of the Federated Credential Management API (FedCM) is a direct technical intervention to address this privacy leakage. FedCM forces the browser to act as a mediator between the Relying Party (the retailer) and the Identity Provider (e.g. Google). Instead of the retailer silently checking the user's status via a third-party cookie, the browser controls the "identity picker" UI.

The migration to FedCM became mandatory for Google Identity Services in 2024, with full enforcement by 2025 according to Google's developer documentation. For B2C brands operating in 2026, this is no longer optional - it's table stakes. Sites that haven't updated their Google Sign-In or One Tap implementations to support FedCM headers and flows are experiencing broken login experiences. When a user clicks "Sign in with Google" and the silent iframe check fails due to cookie blocking, the user is locked out or forced to fallback to a password reset flow - directly impacting conversion rates.

This technical friction is driving a strategic pivot. While FedCM standardizes the social login experience, it also strips retailers of control over the user interface and subjects them to the whims of browser vendors. Consequently, forward-thinking brands are increasingly looking to "first-party" authentication methods like passkeys. Unlike social login, passkeys do not rely on a third-party identity provider; the relationship is directly between the user's device and the retailer's server, insulating the brand from third-party platform changes and privacy sandbox restrictions.

Ultimately, for a B2C brand, the choice of authentication method is an economic calculation. Every millisecond of delay and every cognitive hurdle introduced during checkout correlates directly with cart abandonment. The "Conversion Imperative" is the most powerful driver of change.

The hidden costs of the password-based model are staggering:

• Support Costs: Industry data from Forrester suggests that up to 50% of IT helpdesk tickets and customer support inquiries are related to password resets. For a massive B2C brand, this translates to millions of dollars in operational expenditure annually.
• Abandonment: When a returning user is prompted for a password they have forgotten, the likelihood of them abandoning the purchase to buy from a competitor (or simply giving up) is high. This "password fatigue" is a major contributor to the industry-average cart abandonment rate of 70.19% according to Baymard Institute.
• SMS Fees: For brands that use SMS OTPs for 2FA or passwordless login (like the "Shop Pay" model), telephony costs are a significant line item. As distinct from email, every SMS sent incurs a carrier fee and in markets with high fraud rates, "SMS pumping" attacks can drain budgets rapidly.

Passkeys offer a reversal of these economic drains:

• Speed: Authentication with a passkey is measured to be 4x to 6x faster than a traditional password or OTP flow.
• Conversion: Early adopters in the e-commerce sector like Kayak have reported sign-in time reductions of approximately 50% after implementing passkeys, along with improved completion rates and fewer support tickets.
• Cost Reduction: By shifting authentication to the device's local biometrics, brands can eliminate SMS costs and drastically reduce support volume.

The threat landscape facing e-commerce has evolved dramatically. Credential stuffing attacks - where stolen username/password combinations are tested across multiple sites - have become industrialized. Bots now account for over 40% of all e-commerce login attempts. The availability of billions of compromised credentials on the dark web means that password-based authentication is fundamentally broken as a security model.

Account Takeover (ATO) Economics: The average account takeover costs retailers thousands per incident when including fraud losses, investigation costs and customer remediation. For a mid-sized retailer experiencing 100 ATOs per month, this can represent millions in annual losses. Passkeys eliminate many common ATO attack vectors - including credential stuffing and phishing - since there's no shared secret to steal or replay. However, device compromise, social engineering of recovery flows and implementation weaknesses can still pose risks.

SMS Interception at Scale: SIM swapping and SS7 protocol exploits have made SMS-based 2FA increasingly vulnerable. Research has documented how SS7 vulnerabilities enable interception of SMS messages globally. This has pushed security-conscious retailers to seek phishing-resistant alternatives.

While the US market lacks comprehensive e-commerce authentication regulation, key international markets have implemented strict requirements that affect global retailers:

European SCA Compliance: The Strong Customer Authentication requirements under PSD2 mandate two-factor authentication for online payments over €30. Retailers operating in Europe must implement compliant authentication or face transaction declines. Passkeys elegantly solve this by combining possession (device) and inherence (biometric) factors in a single gesture.

Data Localization and Privacy: GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California and emerging privacy laws globally are making password databases a liability. A breach of encrypted passwords still constitutes a reportable data breach. Passkeys shift the authentication data to the user's device, removing this liability entirely from retailers.

Guest checkout represents the path of least resistance in the conversion funnel. By removing the requirement to create a persistent credential (username and password), retailers significantly lower the cognitive load on the user. However, this creates a data paradox. While conversion rates for guest checkout are typically higher - often by 20-30% - the long-term value of a "guest" customer is opaque. They are harder to retarget, their purchase history is fragmented and loyalty programs cannot be effectively leveraged.

Retailers like Shein and Wayfair have largely abandoned the guest checkout model in favor of forced registration or "email-first" flows that masquerade as guest checkouts until the final step. This strategy bets that the product's value proposition or price point is sufficiently high to overcome the friction of account creation. Conversely, brands like Nike and Sephora maintain robust guest checkout options but employ "soft" barriers - incentivizing login through free shipping thresholds or loyalty points rather than hard walls.

A sophisticated nuance in modern checkout architecture is "account detection." This occurs when a user enters an email address in a guest checkout flow that corresponds to an existing account:

• Hard Block: The system halts the checkout and forces the user to log in. This is high-friction but ensures data integrity.
• Soft Link: The system allows the checkout to proceed but silently links the order to the existing profile based on the email match or prompts the user to "link" the order post-purchase.
• Duplicate Record: The system creates a shadow "guest" record, resulting in data fragmentation.

Our analysis shows that most major retailers lean toward the "Hard Block" or explicit redirection. If an email is recognized, the user is prompted to authenticate. This prevents fraud and maintains a "single source of truth" for customer data but risks cart abandonment if the user cannot recall their password.

Express checkouts (e.g. Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Shop Pay) are not merely payment methods; they are identity proxies. When a user selects Apple Pay, they are effectively bypassing the retailer's entire data entry form. The billing address, shipping address and contact info are pulled directly from the digital wallet. This "express" layer sits above the traditional checkout flow, often appearing on the Product Detail Page (PDP) or the Cart page, allowing users to skip the checkout flow entirely.

For Shopify-powered brands like Gymshark, Allbirds and Culture Kings, Shop Pay acts as a federated identity layer, recognizing users across the entire Shopify network, not just the specific store. This "network effect" of authentication is reshaping how independent B2C brands compete with giants like Amazon.

To provide a concrete assessment of the "State of the Nation" for e-commerce login, we conducted a comprehensive audit of 50 leading B2C brands and marketplaces across four key geographic regions: North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific/Australia. Our methodology involved analyzing the login and checkout flows of each brand to identify the presence of five core authentication archetypes:

1. Legacy Standard: Username and Password
2. Federated Identity: Social Login (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.)
3. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): SMS OTP, Authenticator Apps, Email OTP
4. Modern Passwordless: FIDO2 WebAuthn credentials (Passkeys)
5. Magic Links: Email-based one-time links

The following data presents a snapshot of the industry in 2026.

The following table provides a comprehensive view of checkout friction points, payment methods and session persistence strategies across the same 50 retailers. This data reveals how brands balance conversion optimization (guest checkout, express payments) with data capture (account requirements, loyalty programs) and financial flexibility (BNPL offerings).

This section examines how different retail sectors approach authentication, with specific examples from market leaders illustrating the strategic choices and trade-offs.

The sportswear sector is characterized by high brand loyalty, frequent repeat purchases and "hype" drops that require sophisticated bot mitigation. This creates a unique pressure on checkout systems to be both fast (for drops) and secure (for fraud prevention).

Checkout Philosophy: Nike operates a "Member-First" ecosystem but maintains a pragmatic approach to general commerce. The brand balances the exclusivity of sneaker releases (which require strict authentication via SNKRS) with the accessibility of general sportswear for the casual consumer. Despite being a digital innovator, Nike's login flow remains heavily dependent on standard passwords and social login. Their strategy relies on the "Nike Member" ecosystem to keep users logged in persistently via their apps (SNKRS, Nike App), effectively bypassing the login friction through long-lived sessions rather than improved authentication methods.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Nike allows guest checkout for standard merchandise. However, the policy contains a significant "soft" barrier related to shipping costs. Guest orders typically require a higher spend threshold (e.g. $75+) to qualify for free shipping, whereas logged-in Members often receive free shipping at lower thresholds or unconditionally. This pricing strategy effectively monetizes the friction of remaining a guest.

Regarding account detection, Nike's system is vigilant. If a user attempts to check out as a guest using an email address already associated with a Nike Member profile, the system will flag this "email already in use" state. The user is typically prompted to sign in to access their saved payment methods and shipping benefits. This prevents the creation of duplicate accounts and ensures that "Member Days" or exclusive access rights are correctly applied.

Payment Methods: Nike offers a comprehensive suite of express and standard payment options, varying slightly by region:

• Standard: Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, Discover, American Express
• Express: PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay are prominent. Notably, Google Pay availability can vary between the Nike App and the desktop site, with some snippets indicating it is available for web orders but not app orders in certain regions.
• BNPL: Klarna is a primary partner for installment payments, integrated directly into the checkout flow.

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Standard Email/Password
• Remember Me: The login page features a "Keep me signed in" or "Remember me" checkbox, facilitating persistent sessions for returning users.
• 2FA (Mobile Verification): For high-heat items and the SNKRS app, Nike enforces mobile number verification (SMS 2FA) to mitigate bot activity. This "step-up" authentication is triggered by the risk profile of the product rather than the user alone.

Checkout Philosophy: As a digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) operating on the Shopify Plus platform, Gymshark's checkout is optimized for mobile speed and high-velocity launches.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Guest checkout is standard and highly streamlined. The brand does not force account creation, understanding that impulse purchases during influencer-led drops are time-sensitive.

Account Detection: Because Gymshark utilizes the Shopify backend, account detection is robust. If a user enters an email associated with a Shop Pay account, the system triggers the 6-digit SMS verification code, bypassing the traditional password login entirely. This "Shop Pay" intercept is a defining feature of the Shopify ecosystem.

Payment Methods:

• Express: Apple Pay and PayPal are dominant
• BNPL: Gymshark offers a region-specific mix, primarily Klarna and Afterpay. The availability of these is subject to approval by the provider at the moment of checkout.

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email/Password
• Shop Pay: The primary "authentication" for many users is actually their Shop Pay credential, which serves as a cross-merchant login
• Remember Me: Available via the "Save my information for a faster checkout" option, which enrolls the user in Shop Pay

This sector is defined by low margins, high volume and high return rates. The checkout process is often designed to mitigate returns (by forcing accounts to track behavior) while maintaining the velocity required for "haul" culture.

Checkout Philosophy: ASOS represents a pivotal case study in checkout psychology. Historically, ASOS famously removed the mandatory account creation barrier in 2010, which initially spiked conversions. However, recent iterations of their platform have swung back toward a "forced" or highly encouraged registration model to manage their sophisticated logistics and returns ecosystem.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Current analysis indicates that ASOS has effectively deprecated true "Guest Checkout" in many regions. Users are almost invariably steered toward creating an account or signing in via social media. The "New to ASOS" flow functions as account creation during checkout.

This strict account enforcement allows ASOS to manage their "Premier Delivery" subscription and track serial returners. Account detection is absolute; you cannot proceed with an existing email without authenticating. If an email matches, the user is blocked from proceeding until they log in.

Payment Methods:

• Standard: Credit/Debit Cards
• Express: Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal
• BNPL: Klarna, Clearpay (Afterpay in EU/UK) are heavily promoted to increase Average Order Value (AOV)

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email/Password and Social Login (Google, Apple, Facebook)
• Remember Me: ASOS apps and mobile web rely heavily on persistent sessions, rarely logging users out unless triggered by security protocols
• 2FA: ASOS has implemented SMS-based 2FA in certain workflows to secure accounts, particularly given the high value of Premier accounts and stored payment data

UK giant ASOS relies heavily on Social Login to smooth the path for its fashion-forward, mobile-first demographic. While effective for conversion, this strategy exposes ASOS to the "FedCM risk" - if their implementation relies on legacy cookie-based checks to maintain the session across their various international domains, the new browser privacy sandboxes could disrupt their user flows. ASOS represents a large cohort of retailers who have outsourced identity to Big Tech and must now scramble to adapt to the new rules of the browser.

Checkout Philosophy: Shein is an aggressive, data-first platform. The checkout flow is designed to gamify the shopping experience (points, coupons), which strictly requires a persistent identity.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Shein generally does not allow guest checkout in most markets. The "Guest" option is rarely visible; instead, users are hit with a registration wall immediately upon checkout.

Account Detection: Because the user is forced to authenticate or register before reaching the payment stage, account detection happens upstream at the login/registration gate. This allows Shein to serve personalized recommendations and coupons aggressively, which are tied to the user profile.

Payment Methods:

• Standard: Credit/Debit
• Express: PayPal is a major payment rail for Shein
• BNPL: Klarna, Afterpay and Zip are heavily integrated to support the "haul" culture of high-volume, low-cost purchasing

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email/Password, Social Login (Google, Facebook)
• Security: Email and phone verification are often required to verify identity and combat fraud given the high volume of international shipments

Checkout Philosophy: As Europe's leading fashion platform, Zalando operates with a focus on trust and regional payment preferences, specifically the German preference for "Rechnung" (Invoice). Zalando, facing the strict requirements of SCA for its payment processing, has implemented a robust MFA system. They utilize a proprietary "Zalando Authenticator App" approach for their partners, ensuring that the supply side of their marketplace is hardened against compromise.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Zalando generally requires an account. The business model relies heavily on "Invoice" payments (buy now, pay later via bank transfer), which requires a verified identity and credit check, making anonymous guest checkout operationally difficult.

If a user attempts to check out, they are funneled into a login/registration flow. Account detection is immediate; the system checks the email and prompts for a password if the user exists.

Payment Methods:

• Standard: Credit Card, Prepayment
• Regional Specific: Invoice ("Rechnung") is a dominant method in DACH regions
• Express: PayPal, Apple Pay

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email/Password
• Remember Me: "Remember me" functionality is available to keep users logged in for easier browsing
• 2FA: Zalando utilizes 2FA (often via authenticator apps or SMS) for partner portals and increasingly for customer accounts to secure sensitive invoice data

This sector relies on high replenishment rates (repeat purchases) and personalized recommendations, driving a need for account retention.

Checkout Philosophy: Sephora's "Beauty Insider" program is the core of its business, yet the retailer maintains a high-functioning guest checkout to capture casual shoppers.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Sephora offers a clear "Checkout as Guest" option.

Account Detection: If a user enters an email associated with a Beauty Insider account during guest checkout, Sephora often prompts the user to sign in to earn points. However, they generally allow the user to proceed as a guest if they refuse, prioritizing the sale over the data point, though this means missing out on loyalty rewards.

Post-purchase, Sephora excels at the "Claim Account" flow, asking guest users to create a password to save the order they just placed.

Payment Methods:

• Standard: Credit/Debit
• Express: PayPal, Apple Pay
• BNPL: Klarna and Afterpay are both available, reflecting the high average order value (AOV) of beauty baskets

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email/Password
• Remember Me: "Keep me signed in" is a standard feature
• Biometrics: The Sephora App supports FaceID/TouchID for rapid login

This section examines how major retailers and innovative brands are pioneering new authentication approaches.

Amazon's implementation of passkeys is the single most significant development in e-commerce authentication this decade. With over 320 million customers enrolled, Amazon has moved beyond the pilot phase into mass adoption. Their implementation is instructive: passkeys are now the default sign-in option on mobile for enrolled users. The UX flow is designed to be unobtrusive, nudging users within the "Login & Security" settings rather than interrupting the checkout flow.

However, Amazon's scale also highlights the challenges of legacy debt. The platform's backend complexity is evident in its "redundant verification" steps - users have reported being asked for an OTP even after a successful passkey login, a redundancy that negates the frictionless promise of WebAuthn. Furthermore, the initial lack of support for native apps (like Prime Video) created a disjointed experience, proving that even for tech giants, unifying identity across web and native platforms is a formidable engineering challenge.

Walmart has followed Amazon's lead but with a distinct emphasis on privacy communication. Their passkey rollout explicitly clarifies that biometric data (face scans, fingerprints) is stored only on the user's device and never transmitted to Walmart's servers. This messaging is crucial in the US market, where consumer trust in data handling is fragile. Walmart also differentiates between "Buyer" and "Seller" authentication. While buyers get the friction-free passkey experience, the "Walmart Seller Center" enforces strict 2-step verification using authenticator apps or SMS. This bifurcation acknowledges the different risk profiles: a buyer account takeover leads to fraudulent purchases, but a seller account takeover can lead to massive supply chain fraud and payout theft.

Coupang (South Korea): Coupang operates in a unique regulatory environment where online anonymity is virtually non-existent. Their login system is tightly coupled with mobile phone numbers and often requires verification against the Alien Registration Card (ARC) or resident ID. This high-friction setup is accepted by consumers because it is the national norm and effectively eliminates anonymous fraud. However, it creates a massive barrier to entry for international customers or those without local documentation.

The Iconic (Australia): The Iconic provides a cautionary tale about reactive security. Their rollout of MFA (SMS and Authenticator App) appears to have been a reactive measure following incidents of credential stuffing and fraudulent purchases. The consumer sentiment around this rollout was mixed; while users demanded security, the sudden introduction of friction was jarring. This highlights the danger of treating authentication as an afterthought: when security is applied as a "patch" rather than an architectural feature (like passkeys), it almost always comes at the cost of user experience.

VicRoads (Australia - Government): Perhaps the most telling data point from Australia comes not from a retailer, but from the government service VicRoads. Partnering with Corbado, they achieved an 80% passkey activation rate on mobile devices. This success challenges the assumption that consumers "don't understand" passkeys. If citizens can easily adopt passkeys to renew a driver's license, the barrier for adopting them to buy a mattress or skincare is purely imaginary.

This sector often involves high-ticket items (furniture, mattresses) or recurring needs (pet food, meal kits), influencing checkout design.

Checkout Philosophy: Wayfair sells high-ticket, logistical-heavy items (furniture), which necessitates precise tracking and communication.

Guest Checkout & Account Detection: Wayfair historically does not offer a traditional guest checkout. The flow typically asks for an email address first - an "email gate."

Account Detection: When the email is entered, the system performs a lookup. If the email exists, it asks for a password (login). If it does not exist, it creates a "soft" account or prompts for a password creation to proceed. This effectively eliminates true "guest" anonymity.

Payment Methods:

• Standard: Credit Cards, Wayfair Credit Card
• Express: PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo
• BNPL: Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay are crucial for Wayfair due to the high price points of furniture

Authentication Mix:

• Login: Email-first flow
• Remember Me: "Remember me" option is available
• Passkeys: Wayfair has been identified as an adopter of Passkeys, moving toward passwordless authentication to reduce friction and improve security

To understand why the market is shifting, we must analyze the technical and operational characteristics of the current authentication methods found in our audit.

Despite its ubiquity, the password is objectively the worst authentication method available in 2026:

• Entropy: Humans are incapable of generating high-entropy strings that they can also remember. This leads to patterns (e.g. "Password123!") that are easily guessed.
• Reuse: The "Credential Stuffing" economy is fueled by users reusing the same password across multiple sites. A breach at a minor forum can lead to the compromise of a high-value Amazon or banking account.
• Phishability: Passwords are "shared secrets." To work, they must be transmitted to the server. This transmission can be intercepted or the user can be tricked into typing it into a fake site.

Social Login (OpenID Connect) solved the friction problem but introduced dependency:

• Vendor Lock-in: Relying on "Sign in with Google" binds a brand's user base to Google's ecosystem. If a user loses access to their Google account, they lose access to the retailer.
• Data Leakage: Users are increasingly wary of the data sharing implications, fearing that logging in with Facebook will result in targeted ads.
• Browser Instability: As noted with FedCM, the underlying browser mechanisms that make social login smooth (third-party cookies) are being dismantled.

Magic Links (emailing a login link) grew in popularity as a "passwordless" bridge:

• The Experience: It eliminates the need to remember a password, which is a significant UX win.
• The Security Flaw: Email is often the least secure entry point. If a user's email is compromised, all magic link accounts are compromised. Furthermore, magic links are susceptible to "Man-in-the-Middle" attacks if the email transport is not perfectly secured.
• The Friction: It forces a context switch. The user must leave the shopping app, open their email app, wait for the message and click the link. This break in the flow allows distraction to creep in, increasing abandonment.

SMS One-Time Passcodes are the workhorse of current MFA, but they are bleeding revenue:

• Cost: B2C brands sending millions of SMS OTPs a month face massive telephony bills.
• Security: The SS7 network protocol used for SMS is fundamentally insecure. "SIM Swapping" - where an attacker tricks a carrier into transferring a victim's number - allows attackers to bypass SMS MFA effortlessly. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has explicitly deprecated SMS as a secure authentication method for this reason.

Passkeys represent a fundamental architectural shift:

• Cryptography: Unlike a password, a passkey is a key pair. The private key stays on the user's device (secure enclave) and never leaves. The public key sits on the retailer's server. To log in, the server sends a challenge and the device signs it with the private key.
• Phishing Resistance: Because the private key is bound to the specific domain (e.g. amazon.com), the device simply will not sign a challenge from a fake site (e.g. amaz0n.com). Phishing is mathematically impossible in this flow.
• User Experience: The user unlocks the private key using the same biometric (FaceID, TouchID, Android Biometrics) they use to unlock their phone. It is a single gesture that authenticates the user.

A critical insight from our research is the convergence of app and web experiences. Brands like Sephora and eBay are leading a trend where the distinction between "App Login" and "Web Login" is vanishing.

The WebAuthn standard now allows the same biometric experience from native apps to exist on the open web. B2C brands no longer need to force users to download a heavy native app just to get a frictionless login. This is a game-changer for Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). Driving a user to a website is significantly cheaper than driving an app install. By implementing passkeys on the web, brands can offer the "premium" app-like experience to the casual web visitor, increasing the likelihood of that first conversion.

A massive segment of the B2C market (brands like Gymshark, Allbirds, Culture Kings) runs on the Shopify platform. Shopify's Shop Pay has effectively trained millions of consumers to expect a specific login flow: Enter Email -> Receive 6-digit SMS code -> Logged In.

This is essentially a "federated" experience without the social network. It is highly effective for conversion but relies heavily on SMS, which incurs costs and security risks. The trend we are observing is Shopify's active migration toward passkeys. As seen in the passkey directory listings, Shopify is integrating passkeys into Shop Pay. This will likely happen invisibly to the consumer: one day, the prompt will switch from "Enter the code sent to your phone" to "Scan your face," upgrading the security of millions of B2C storefronts overnight.

The "Remember Me" checkbox is a standard feature across almost all analyzed shops (Nike, ASOS, Wayfair, etc.). However, its function has evolved from a simple cookie to a sophisticated identity token:

• Traditional: Sets a persistent cookie (usually 30 days) that keeps the user logged in. This is standard on platforms like Zara and H&M.
• Modern (Shopify/Shop Pay): For brands like Allbirds, Gymshark, Culture Kings and Glossier, "Remember Me" is effectively replaced or augmented by Shop Pay. When a user checks "Save my information for a faster checkout," they are opting into the Shop Pay network. Future visits to any Shopify store will trigger an SMS OTP (One-Time Password) for authentication, bypassing the need for a store-specific password. This is a federated "Remember Me" that transcends the individual retailer.
• Amazon/Casper: Casper utilizes Amazon Pay, which leverages the "Keep me signed in" functionality of the Amazon ecosystem, allowing users to inherit their Amazon session for payment.

A significant emerging trend identified in the research is the adoption of Passkeys, which represent the next generation of authentication:

• Adopters: Wayfair, Warby Parker, Allbirds and Shopify-hosted brands are early adopters of this technology.
• Mechanism: Passkeys replace passwords with cryptographic key pairs stored on the user's device (unlocked via FaceID or TouchID). This eliminates the "Email already in use" friction point caused by forgotten passwords because the user authentication is biometric and device-based.
• Insight: We're seeing retailers currently using "forced account creation" (like Wayfair and Shein) beginning their transition to Passkeys in 2026. This technology solves the fundamental conflict of the "Forced Account" model: it provides the security and data integrity of an account without the user friction of creating and remembering a password.

The "Email already in use" error remains the single biggest hurdle in the Guest Checkout vs. Account conflict:

• The Friction: When a user enters an email at Nike or ASOS that is linked to an account, they are stopped. They must either find their password or reset it. This breaks the purchase momentum and leads to cart abandonment.
• The Solution (Magic Links): Dollar Shave Club and HelloFresh utilize "Magic Links" (email-based login links). Instead of forcing a password reset, they send a link that logs the user in and returns them to the checkout. This is a superior UX pattern for subscription-based models where identity is mandatory but passwords are a barrier.

The research highlights the dominance of Apple Pay and PayPal as universal "Express" options:

• Bypassing the Form: On mobile, selecting Apple Pay on Zara or Revolve skips the address entry entirely.
• Implication: For retailers, this reduces the collection of auxiliary data (like phone numbers or birthdates) unless explicitly requested from the wallet provider. This is a trade-off: higher conversion (speed) for less rich customer data. However, the conversion lift from removing form fields on mobile devices is often considered worth the data sacrifice.

The almost universal adoption of BNPL (Klarna/Afterpay) across fashion and home goods (ASOS, Wayfair, Shein) indicates that checkout is no longer just about logistics; it is a financial instrument. The checkout form must now act as a credit application, identity verification and shipping manifesto simultaneously.

Understanding the nuances of guest checkout and express payment methods is crucial for e-commerce success. This section explores how different approaches impact conversion, data collection and customer lifetime value.

Guest checkout represents the ultimate friction reducer - no password, no account, just a transaction. However, our analysis reveals three distinct approaches:

Brands like Nike, Zara and Sephora offer true guest checkout where users can complete purchases with just an email address. The trade-off is clear: higher conversion (20-30% improvement) but lower customer lifetime value due to fragmented data.

Shein, Wayfair and ASOS have largely eliminated guest checkout, forcing account creation before purchase. This strategy banks on product uniqueness or price advantage to overcome the friction. The result: better data integrity and loyalty program engagement, but higher cart abandonment for first-time buyers.

Retailers like Target and H&M employ a middle ground: guest checkout is available but heavily incentivized against through free shipping thresholds, loyalty points or member-only pricing. Post-purchase, they aggressively prompt guests to "claim" their order by creating a password.

Express checkout methods have evolved from simple payment accelerators to complete identity systems. Our research identifies four categories:

Present on 90% of analyzed sites, digital wallets bypass the entire checkout form. On mobile, conversion rates with Apple Pay are 2.5x higher than manual form entry. The key insight: these wallets carry not just payment credentials but complete shipping and billing information, eliminating 15-20 form fields.

Shop Pay (Shopify ecosystem) and PayPal act as identity providers across multiple merchants. Shop Pay's network effect is particularly powerful - once enrolled at any Shopify store, users can checkout with just an SMS OTP at millions of other stores. This creates a "guest checkout with memory" experience.

Key Statistics:

• Shop Pay conversion rates are 1.72x higher than regular checkout
• PayPal remains the most trusted payment method for 57% of online shoppers
• Bolt (used by Revolve) reports 60% faster checkout times

BNPL isn't just about payment flexibility - it's an authentication bypass. When selecting Klarna or Afterpay, users often authenticate with the BNPL provider, not the merchant. This creates interesting dynamics:

• Klarna requires phone number verification, creating a soft identity layer
• Afterpay uses email and SMS verification, building a cross-merchant profile
• Affirm performs soft credit checks, requiring more identity verification

The newest trend is direct checkout through social platforms. Instagram Checkout and TikTok Shop keep users within the social app, using the platform's existing authentication. This eliminates not just password friction but the entire concept of "visiting" an e-commerce site.

The most complex challenge in modern e-commerce is handling returning customers who attempt guest checkout. Our analysis reveals three approaches:

ASOS, Nike and Zalando immediately halt checkout if an email matches an existing account. Users must log in to proceed. This maintains data integrity but causes significant friction - especially problematic for users who've forgotten their password.

Sephora and Target allow guest checkout to proceed but display prompts about missing loyalty points or saved addresses. Post-purchase, they attempt to merge the guest order with the existing account. This reduces friction but can create data inconsistencies.

Amazon and sophisticated platforms silently link guest orders to existing accounts based on email, payment method and device fingerprinting. This provides the best UX but raises privacy concerns and can confuse customers who intentionally chose guest checkout.

The humble "Remember Me" checkbox has evolved into sophisticated session management:

• Traditional Cookie-Based: 30-day persistent login (Zara, H&M)
• Device-Bound Sessions: Cryptographic binding to specific devices (Wayfair with passkeys)
• Network Effect: Shop Pay's "remember me" works across all Shopify stores
• Biometric Lock: Apps storing sessions but requiring Face ID to unlock (Sephora)

The trend is clear: "Remember Me" is transitioning from a convenience feature to a security feature, especially with passkeys that bind authentication to specific devices.

For B2C brands looking at the Amazon or Otto experience and wondering "How do we build this?", the answer is often complex. Building raw WebAuthn support is difficult due to device fragmentation (Android vs. iOS, Chrome vs. Safari, desktop vs. mobile) and the complexity of managing fallback flows for users without biometric devices. But the bigger challenge isn't implementation - it's measuring what's actually happening in your authentication funnel.

Corbado acts as the infrastructure layer for this transition, bridging the gap between legacy systems and the passwordless future - with deep analytics built in from day one.

Most e-commerce brands have sophisticated checkout analytics but a complete blind spot at the login screen. Corbado's telemetry layer provides granular visibility into every step of the authentication journey:

• Funnel Analytics: Track conversion rates at each authentication step - from "login page loaded" to "passkey prompt shown" to "biometric completed" to "session established." Identify exactly where users abandon the flow.
• Device-Level Insights: Understand which device/browser combinations have the highest drop-off rates. If Android Chrome users are failing at 3x the rate of iOS Safari, you'll know immediately.
• Error Attribution: When authentication fails, Corbado captures the specific failure reason (user cancelled, biometric timeout, credential not found, network error). This transforms vague "login issues" tickets into actionable data.

The "Passkey Intelligence" engine doesn't just detect device capability - it feeds a continuous optimization loop:

• A/B Testing Framework: Test different nudge placements, copy variations and timing strategies. Does prompting for passkey creation post-checkout convert better than post-login? Corbado's analytics will tell you.
• Cohort Analysis: Segment users by passkey adoption status and track downstream metrics: Do passkey users have higher repeat purchase rates? Lower cart abandonment? Higher average order value? These correlations justify further investment in passwordless.
• Real-Time Dashboards: Monitor authentication health during high-traffic events (Black Friday, product drops). See login success rates, average authentication time and passkey adoption in real-time.

Authentication doesn't exist in isolation - it's the gateway to your checkout funnel. Corbado's analytics connect the dots:

• Cross-Funnel Attribution: Link authentication method to checkout completion. If users who authenticate with passkeys complete checkout at 15% higher rates than password users, that's a direct revenue signal.
• Drop-off Recovery: Identify users who abandoned at the password reset step and target them with passkey enrollment campaigns. Turn your biggest friction point into an adoption opportunity.
• Session Quality Metrics: Track not just "did they log in" but "how long did it take" and "did they need fallback methods." Session quality correlates directly with purchase intent.

Position passkey analytics as an operations and observability investment rather than a pure product investment. When authentication issues arise - and they will - the ability to quickly identify root causes has immediate ROI:

• Incident Detection: Automated alerts when authentication success rates drop below thresholds. Catch issues before they become support ticket floods.
• Root Cause Analysis: Drill down from "logins are failing" to "iOS 17.2 users on Safari are seeing credential lookup failures" in minutes, not hours.
• Capacity Planning: Understand authentication load patterns to provision infrastructure appropriately. Avoid the catastrophic scenario of auth server failures during peak traffic.

Amazon has hundreds of engineers dedicated to identity. Most B2C brands do not. Corbado offers a "plug-and-play" solution that integrates with existing IdPs (like Auth0, Amazon Cognito or custom backends) via Corbado Connect. This allows brands to roll out passkeys without rewriting their entire user database or authentication logic - while gaining the analytics layer that would take months to build internally.

The research is conclusive: the era of the password in e-commerce is drawing to a close. The convergence of regulatory pressure (NYDFS, SCA), technical obsolescence (Third-party cookie deprecation, FedCM) and the sheer ROI of friction reduction is driving the market inextricably toward passkeys.

The "Authentication Matrix" reveals a split market. The "haves" - Amazon, Otto, eBay and forward-thinking smaller brands - are building a competitive moat based on user experience. They are eliminating the login barrier, making it easier for customers to spend money. The "have-nots" - still relying on clunky passwords, insecure magic links and expensive SMS codes - are bleeding conversion at the very first step of the funnel.

The e-commerce checkout landscape of 2026 is defined by a tension between identity and velocity. Retailers are moving away from the binary choice of "Guest vs. Account" toward a spectrum of identity solutions that attempt to have it both ways:

1. Identity Orchestration: Platforms like Shop Pay (used by Allbirds, Gymshark, Culture Kings) and Bolt (used by Revolve) are winning by federating identity. They allow users to be "guests" to the brand but "known" to the network, providing the speed of guest checkout with the data integrity of a logged-in user.

2. Death of the Password: The adoption of Passkeys by Wayfair and Warby Parker signals the end of the traditional login form. This technology solves the security-convenience paradox and will likely become the standard for "forced account" retailers.

3. Financial Integration: The almost universal adoption of BNPL (Klarna/Afterpay) across fashion and home goods (ASOS, Wayfair, Shein) indicates that checkout is no longer just about logistics; it is a financial instrument. The checkout form must now act as a credit application, identity verification and shipping manifesto simultaneously.

The winners of 2026 will not be the brands with the strictest password policies, but those that make security invisible.

Strategic Recommendations for B2C Brands:

1. Don't Wait for Fraud: Brands like The Iconic learned the hard way that reactive security kills UX. Implementing passkeys proactively prevents fraud and improves UX simultaneously.

2. Audit Your Flows for FedCM: Check if your social login implementation relies on legacy third-party cookie checks. If so, Google's FedCM updates will break your checkout flow in the coming months.

3. Adopt a Hybrid Strategy: You do not need to kill passwords today. Use a solution like Corbado to add passkeys as a parallel option alongside passwords. Watch your users naturally migrate to the easier method over time, reducing your reliance on legacy auth organically.

For the modern retailer, the goal is no longer to "force" an account but to make the authenticated state so frictionless - via Biometrics, Passkeys or Digital Wallets - that the user creates one without ever typing a password. The friction is not in the account itself, but in the method of authentication. By removing the password, retailers can finally reconcile the need for data with the user's need for speed.

The technology is ready. The customers are ready - as proven by the millions of users on Amazon and VicRoads already using passkeys. The only question remaining for B2C leadership is: Is your checkout ready for the passwordless future?