Skip to content 
You did the hard part. The shopper found you, browsed, chose something, and added it to their cart. Every expensive part of the funnel — the advertising, the content, the product photography — has already been paid for.
Then the checkout gets in the way, and they leave.
Average cart abandonment sits around 70%. Not all of that is fixable — plenty of people were only ever browsing. But a meaningful share of it is self-inflicted, caused by a handful of decisions that are entirely within your control.
1. Forcing people to create an account
This is the big one, and it is astonishing how many stores still do it.
A shopper with their card in hand does not want a relationship with you. They want the thing they came for. Demanding they invent a password before you will take their money is asking for commitment at the exact moment they are most price-sensitive and least patient.
Offer guest checkout. Then, after the purchase is complete, invite them to save their details with a single click — at which point creating an account is a convenience rather than a toll gate. You will capture most of the accounts you would have got anyway, without losing the sales.
2. Hiding the true cost until the last step
Unexpected shipping, taxes, or fees appearing at the final step is consistently one of the top reasons people abandon carts — and it is not really about the money. It is about the feeling of a bait and switch.
A shopper who discovers a $12 delivery charge on the payment screen does not simply recalculate. They feel misled, and that feeling overrides the arithmetic.
Show the full cost as early as possible. Put shipping thresholds on the product page. Estimate delivery in the cart. If there is a fee, name it before they are emotionally committed. Honesty early costs you a few sales; dishonesty late costs you far more, and it costs you the repeat purchase too.
3. Asking for more than you need
Every additional form field is another small reason to give up.
Do you genuinely need their company name? Their date of birth? A second address line? A phone number “for delivery updates” that you never use? Each one is friction you have chosen to add.
Strip the form to what you truly require to fulfil the order. Use address autocomplete. Do not split the name into two fields if one will do. Do not ask them to confirm their email by typing it twice — show it back to them instead.
Every field you remove is a small increase in completion, and they compound.
4. Offering too few ways to pay
If a shopper’s preferred payment method is missing, a good proportion simply leave. They do not go and find their card. They close the tab.
Support cards, digital wallets — Apple Pay and Google Pay in particular, since they remove almost all of the typing — and whatever is regionally dominant for your market. Wallet checkout in particular can turn a two-minute form into a two-second confirmation, and on mobile that difference is enormous.
5. No reassurance at the moment of payment
The instant before someone enters their card details is the single most anxious moment in the entire purchase. It is precisely the moment most checkouts go bare and functional.
This is where doubt creeps in: what if it does not fit? what if it never arrives? who do I even contact?
Put the answers right there. A one-line returns policy. A delivery estimate. A visible contact method. A security indicator. It costs nothing, and it addresses the doubt at the exact moment it forms rather than in a footer nobody reads.
The mobile checkout is the real checkout
Most traffic is mobile, and mobile is where checkouts fall apart — tiny tap targets, forms that force zooming, keyboards that cover the button, address fields that fight autofill.
Do not test your checkout on a desktop with a saved card and a fast connection. Test it on a phone, on mobile data, as a new customer, with your hands. Most people have never done this on their own store, and the experience is usually clarifying.
Recovering the ones who still leave
Some abandonment is inevitable. A well-timed recovery email — sent within a few hours, showing the item, with a direct link back to the filled cart — reliably recovers a slice of it.
Do not lead with a discount. You will simply train people to abandon deliberately. Lead with the reminder; the discount is a second-touch tool, if at all.
Fix the last three clicks first
It is tempting to respond to weak sales by driving more traffic. But the shoppers already in your checkout are the warmest, most qualified people who will visit your store all month. They have already decided.
Fixing the last three clicks is cheaper than buying more of the first one — and it improves the return on every visitor you have ever paid for, retroactively, forever.
