Roughly two thirds of carts are abandoned, and the reasons are consistent enough across stores to be worth listing. Almost none of them are price.
Ranked causes
- 01Unexpected costs at the final step. Shipping, tax or fees appearing after someone has mentally committed. This is consistently the largest single cause.
- 02Forced account creation. Asking a first-time buyer to make an account before paying is asking them to do work for your benefit.
- 03A long or confusing form. Every field is a chance to leave, and half of them are usually optional in practice.
- 04No visible progress. People abandon when they cannot tell how much further there is.
- 05Payment method missing. Especially in markets where a local method is the norm and a card is not.
- 06Trust. No visible policy, no contact detail, an unfamiliar payment page.
The fixes, in order of value
| Fix | Effort | Typical impact |
|---|---|---|
| Show shipping cost before checkout | Low | Large |
| Offer guest checkout | Low | Large |
| Cut optional fields | Low | Medium |
| Add a progress indicator | Low | Medium |
| Add locally expected payment methods | Medium | Large in affected markets |
| Address autocomplete | Medium | Medium, larger on mobile |
The first four are an afternoon of work between them and outperform most redesigns.
Mobile specifics
- Correct keyboard per field. A numeric keypad for the card number, email keyboard for email.
- Autofill attributes on every field. Filling an address by hand on a phone is where people give up.
- Tap targets large enough to hit while walking.
- Never open a payment method in a new tab. Returning to a lost session ends the purchase.
Measure before redesigning
Set up funnel tracking per step first. Abandonment is rarely spread evenly; there is usually one step losing most people, and it is often not the step anyone assumed. Fixing that step is cheaper and more effective than rebuilding the whole flow on instinct.
Working on something like this?
We build websites, stores and custom applications, and we will tell you honestly if the thing you are describing does not need one.