Why people abandon your checkout, in order of frequency

Cart abandonment sits around 70% across the industry. That number is not a law of nature — a good part of it is caused by specific, fixable things.

1. Unexpected costs at the last step

Shipping, taxes or fees revealed at checkout is the single largest cause. Fix: show shipping cost on the product page, or state the threshold for free delivery in the header. In the EU you must display prices including VAT to consumers anyway — do it prominently rather than in small grey text.

2. Forced account creation

Guest checkout should be the default and the account offer should come after the order is placed. Nobody wants a relationship before they have bought anything.

3. Too many fields

Every optional field costs conversions. Do you need a company name, a second address line and a phone number? Ask for what you need to ship and bill, nothing else. Autofill the city from the postcode.

4. The missing payment method

Market-specific and decisive. German shoppers expect invoice, SEPA and PayPal; card-only checkout loses a large share of that market outright. Canadian shoppers expect cards and Interac. Look at your analytics by country before choosing providers.

5. No visible trust signals

Return policy, delivery time, a real address, a contact route that is not a form. A German buyer will look for an Impressum. Its absence is read as risk, whether or not the visitor could name the law.

6. Slow or broken on mobile

Over half of traffic and usually the worse experience. Test the actual checkout on a real mid-range phone on mobile data, not a simulator on office wifi.

How to find your own version of this list

Set up funnel tracking so you can see which step loses people. Then do the thing almost nobody does: buy something from your own shop, on your phone, using a payment method you never test. Most of the list above is discovered in that one purchase.