Imagine many people visiting your Shopify store. They already show interest and add items to their carts, but don't continue to checkout. This is a common situation known as Shopify cart abandonment.
To reduce lost sales at the cart stage, it's important to look at the customer journey and detect frictions. In this article, we'll explain clearly the key reasons why Shopify shoppers leave before checkout and what you can do to solve them.
1. The concept of customer journey
Customer journey describes the journey a potential customer goes through, from brand awareness to brand loyalty. It represents the entire experience that customers have while interacting with a business.
There are five main stages of a customer journey:
- Awareness: People realize they have a need and discover your brand as a possible solution.
- Consideration: The user begins to think about what they have discovered and considers if and where to buy it.
- Purchase: The customer decides to buy.
- Retention: Keep the customer satisfied after the purchase.
- Customer advocacy: Satisfied customers recommend your brand to others.
At each stage, customers will interact with your brand in different ways. Their experience will encourage them to make a decision on buying or walking away.
🌟 For a Shopify store, the buyer's journey can include: visiting the store, viewing products, adding items to the cart, and completing the checkout.
Sometimes, this journey happens in a single session. Other times, customers leave, come back later, or never return at all. These drop-offs can happen at any stage of the customer journey. By identifying drop-offs in the digital customer journey, you can improve conversion rate.
2. Understanding about Shopify cart abandonment
2.1 What is cart abandonment?
Shopping cart abandonment is the situation where potential customers add products to their online carts but suddenly leave before starting the checkout process.
To understand its impact on a business, retailers can calculate the Cart Abandonment Rate. This tool shows the rate of interested potential customers who leave without buying anything, compared to the total number of shopping carts created.
$$ \text{Cart Abandonment Rate} = \left( 1 - \frac{\text{Completed Transactions}}{\text{Initiated Carts}} \right) \times 100\% $$
If you have 200 completed purchases and 1000 shopping carts created, the cart abandonment rate would be 80%.
(1 - 200/1000) * 100% = 80%
2.2 Cart abandonment vs Checkout abandonment
Cart abandonment and checkout abandonment sound alike, but they describe different drop-off points in the buying journey.
- The cart stage precedes the checkout stage.
- Cart abandonment refers to customers who leave before they even begin the checkout process.
- Checkout abandonment happens when a customer has already reached the checkout, but leaves without completing the payment.
Understanding the difference between them is key to fixing the right problem.
| Feature | Cart Abandonment | Checkout Abandonment |
|---|---|---|
| Where it happens | On the cart page / the cart drawer | On the checkout pages |
| Customer journey phase | Consideration phase | Purchase phase |
| Buyer Intent | Low / medium purchase intent | High buying intent |
2.3 Industry benchmarks for cart abandonment rate
The average cart abandonment rate ranges from 60% to 80%, depending on the industry. According to Baymard's latest research, the average e-commerce rate is 70.22%.
Essential goods like fresh food or FMCG products usually have lower abandonment rates. In contrast, categories like fashion and jewelry tend to have higher abandonment rates. With so many styles, sizes, and options available, shoppers are more likely to hesitate or compare before making a decision.
- Luxury and Jewelry: 81.68%
- Home and Furniture: 78.65%
- Fashion, Accessories and Apparel: 76.48%
- Beauty and Personal Care: 72.04%
- Multi-Brand Retail: 68.07%
- Consumer Goods: 65.41%
- Food and Beverage: 58.23%
- Pet care and Veterinary services: 53.19%
Screen size and user interactions (clicking vs. tapping) can affect how content is displayed. That's why tracking metrics by device is important. It can help you spot issues and improve the checkout experience for each device.
- Mobile peaks at 78.74%
- Tablet stands at 70.26%
- Desktop remains lower at 66.74%
2.4 How abandoned carts hurt your Shopify stores?
- Wasted traffic: You spend time and money bringing people to your store, but many of them leave without buying anything. Your marketing effort is not being fully used. Beyond wasted traffic, you're burning your budget, or reallocating resources inefficiently.
- Potential revenue loss:On average, around 70% of shopping carts are abandoned. Most of your potential sales never turn into actual purchases.
- Low profitability: Running an online store costs money, including ads, apps, design, and operations. These costs stay the same even while revenue stays low, which reduces your profits.
- Low conversion rate:High abandonment lowers your overall conversion rate, making your store look less effective even if traffic is high.
- Reduced customer lifetime value: Visitors who leave their first cart without buying are less likely to come back. Your store loses not only the first sale, but also the chance to build long-term customer relationships.
3. Why are Shopify shoppers leaving without buying? (and how to solve)
Not every shopper who adds items to their cart is willing to complete an order. Research shows that about 43% of shoppers abandoned a cart because they were just browsing or not ready to buy. This behavior is often called “window shopping” in e-commerce.
But if we ignore the "just browsing" reason, many Shopify cart drop-offs occur due to real issues in your store. Fortunately, these are the problems you can fix.
Let’s look at the most common reasons below.
3.1 Your store has poor mobile experience
Mobile devices make up about 70-75% of all e-commerce traffic. Mobile commerce accounts for 57% of total e-commerce sales. However, mobile still converts at a lower rate than desktop due to smaller screens and less convenient navigation. This gap makes mobile optimization especially important.
Many store owners review their websites on a desktop, but most visitors are browsing on their phones. A site that looks clean on a large screen can feel crowded or difficult to use on mobile. If the transition from the product page to the cart isn't seamless, shoppers will abandon their journey before the first payment step.
Check your mobile checkout mobile flow:
Check your store on your own phone and move through it like a customer. Try browsing products, opening cart pages, and going through checkout. Pay attention to details like:
- Whether text is easy to read
- Whether buttons are easy to tap
- Whether images load properly
- Whether menus are easy to open
- Whether pages scroll smoothly
You can also use the Inspect tool on your browser to preview how your website looks on different devices.
3.2 Your page load speed is slow
Speed matters more than you think. Even small delays can break the buying momentum. If your store takes too long to load, many shoppers will leave before they even reach checkout.
- Internal factors: Large images, too many widgets, inefficient code, etc.
- External factors: Server response time, network quality, etc.
Device type is also a critical factor, as mobile devices often load slower than desktop. 53% of mobile users leave if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load.
You can run PageSpeed Insights to check how fast your site loads and identify what is slowing it down.
- Optimize your images: Large images slow down your site the most.
- Converting images to WebP format
- Compressing images to reduce file size
- Also, avoid adding animations to important images
- Remove apps you don’t use: Too many apps can slow your store down because each one adds extra code. Regularly review and remove anything you don't use.
- Limit pop-ups and lightboxes: Pop-ups (like email signups or cookie notices) can delay page loading, especially on mobile. Keep them simple, lightweight and not appearing too early.
- Check your CDN and server performance:A CDN (Content Delivery Network) helps your site load faster by delivering content from servers closer to your users. Shopify includes a CDN, but performance can still vary. Make sure your store loads quickly across different locations and devices.
- Choose a fast, optimized theme to significantly improve your site speed.
- Install a cart drawer instead of a full cart page: A cart drawer lets shoppers view their selected items instantly without leaving the current page. By removing the extra page load, you reduce waiting time and keep users moving toward a faster checkout.
3.3 Your cart page is cluttered
A messy cart page can overwhelm shoppers and cause Shopify cart abandonment issues. At this stage, customers expect a clear and simple overview of what they’re about to buy.
- Too many upsell or cross-sell suggestions
- Excessive app widgets
- Multiple competing calls-to-action
- Confused line items
When shoppers have to think too much or search for the next step, they’re more likely to leave.
To reduce abandoned carts on Shopify, everything on your cart page should lead to the "Checkout" button.
Each well-designed cart page will include the crucial components below:
a. Cart items
- A small, high-quality product image
- Product name
- Selected options (size or color)
- Quantity
- Individual price and total price
Cart items on Swarovski's cart page.
b. Shipping information
Unexpected costs at the very end of a purchase can be one of the most common reasons for abandonment (39%). By showing estimated shipping costs and delivery time upfront, you build transparency. Shoppers also decide more easily whether they're willing to proceed.
Note: Add a free shipping banner to display how much a customer needs to spend to qualify for free shipping. By offering a free shipping threshold, shoppers tend to add more items to their carts.
How Swarovski shows shipping information on their cart page.
c. Discount and coupon field
- Apply their code easily
- See their savings immediately
The section where you enter your promo code.
d. Cart summary
- Subtotal (cost of items)
- Additional fees (shipping, taxes, etc.)
- Final total
You can see cart summary clearly on The Ordinary's cart page.
A transparent breakdown builds trust and helps customers feel more confident about completing the purchase.
e. Payment options
- Payment by credit/debit cards
- Payment by e-wallet
- Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
- Cash on Delivery (COD)
Swarovski offers a lot of payment options.
Displaying accepted payment methods reassures visitors that they can use their preferred option.
f. Cart trust badges
- Security badges
- Payment protection icons
- Return or refund guarantees
Sephora mentions "Free returns on all purchases" guarantee.
- Outstanding: Implement a color that is easy to notice.
- Action-oriented: Use clear text like "Checkout" or "Buy It Now."
- Accessible: Ensure it is easy to click, especially on mobile.
"Checkout" button should be easy to notice.
3.4 The cart drawer also needs improving
A cart drawer is a small panel that slides in from the side of the screen when a shopper adds an item to their cart. It lets customers quickly review their items without leaving the current page. Many online stores apply the cart drawer instead of a separate shopping cart page.
- Stay on the product page: Customer can add an item, see it in the drawer, and keep browsing after closing the drawer.
- Faster checkout: The drawer usually features a direct "Checkout" button. Shoppers don't need to review the products on the cart page.
- Better mobile experience: On a phone, navigating back and forth between pages is a chore. With a cart drawer, users don't have to jump to another page to see their total. It also solves page load speed issues.
Look at how the cart drawer replaces the cart page.
Because the cart drawer is often the first place shoppers check their order, it needs to be clear and easy to use.
- Here are tips to optimize your cart drawer:
- Suggest relevant add-ons to increase order value.
- Show free shipping threshold to encourage customers to add more items.
- Build trust by free returns or satisfied guarantees.
- Show multiple payment options to reduce friction and speed up checkout.
- Clearly display items, prices, and total so shoppers can review their order easily.
3.5 There's no urgency to buy
Sometimes visitors don’t buy simply because there’s no reason to buy now. Online shoppers often delay decisions when nothing encourages immediate action. They might add your products to their carts and consider returning later. But without a sense of urgency, your potential customers can forget and never come back.
- Useful signals to push urgency:
- Cart reservation: Tell your customers you are holding their items for a few minutes. They can feel they already own the product and don't want to lose it.
- Low stock alerts: Display a message when an item is almost sold out to create FOMO.
- Free shipping banner: Show how much more they need to spend to get free shipping.
- Limited-time discount: Offer a small discount that expires soon to encourage faster decisions.
- Abandoned cart tab reminder: Use a flashing browser tab to remind shoppers to comeback and finish their purchase.
You can add simple cues to remind visitors not to miss out, such as:
3.6 Your store lacks trust
Even after adding items to their cart, shoppers may still hesitate. Sales only happen when visitors feel confident enough to complete the checkout. At the cart stage, they need to enter personal and payment details, so even small doubts can cause them to leave.
Since customers can’t meet you in person, your website needs to do the work of building trust.
Trusted signals you can add:
- Shopify trust badges: Shopify trust badges could persuade shoppers that your brand is legitimate, including:
- Security badges
- Payment badges
- Money-back guarantee badges
- Third-party endorsements
- Customer live chat: Features like live chat can allow shoppers to ask questions while they’re browsing your site. Even simple or automated replies can reassure visitors that there’s a real business behind the store.
- Clear return and refund policy
- Transparent shipping details and cart summary
Live chat appears at the cart page.
Conclusion
To reduce Shopify shopping cart abandonment, you should focus on removing friction at the cart stage. When your cart page or cart drawer is simple, fast and trustworthy, shoppers feel more confident moving forward.
Small improvements can lead to more completed checkouts and better conversion overall.
FAQs about abandoned carts on Shopify
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Shopify cart abandonment?
Shopify cart abandonment happens when shoppers add products to their cart but don't finish a purchase. It usually occurs during the consideration phase of the buyer's journey.
2. Do cart abandonment issues hurt Shopify sales?
Yes. Every abandoned cart is potential revenue lost. It lowers your conversion rate, reduces profits, and makes it harder to build long-term customer relationships.
3. How do I recover abandoned carts on Shopify?
- Make the cart simple and fast.
- Show clear shipping cost, totals, and payment options.
- Build trust with Shopify trust badges, live chat, and customer satisfaction guarantees.
- Create urgency and remind customers to come back.
- Optimize mobile experience and page speed.