FIELD GUIDE

Why people abandon checkout.

About 7 in 10 carts that get filled are never paid for. A good share of that is people browsing, and nothing you do will change it. The rest comes down to a short list of reasons that shoppers name themselves.

3 sources, each one read in October 2026 and linked at the bottom.

THE SHORT ANSWER

The quick version.

Extra costs come first by a distance. After that it is slow delivery, not trusting the site with a card, being made to create an account, and a checkout that is too long. Most of those can be changed on the page.

THE NUMBERS

What shoppers told Baymard.

  • 7 in 10

    carts that get filled are never paid for. Baymard averaged 50 separate studies and got 70.22%. Baymard Institute

  • 42 in 100

    US shoppers say they have left a cart because they were only browsing or not ready to buy. Baymard sets these aside as mostly unavoidable before counting the reasons below. Baymard Institute

  • 40 in 100

    of the rest blame extra costs: shipping, tax and fees that were too high. Baymard Institute

  • 19 in 100

    did not trust the site with their card details. Baymard Institute

  • 18 in 100

    left because the site wanted them to create an account. Baymard Institute

  • 17 in 100

    found the checkout too long or too complicated. The same number hit an error or a crash. Baymard Institute

  • 23 things

    to fill in, tick or pick is what the average US checkout shows. Baymard says 12 to 14 is enough. Baymard Institute

People could give more than one reason, so the reasons add up to more than 100.

WHAT TO CHANGE

Why it happens, and the fix for each.

  1. 01Costs that appear at the last step

    Extra costs are the top reason by a distance, and a further 12 in 100 left because they could not see or work out the total up front. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISShow shipping and tax, or an honest estimate, on the product page and in the cart. If shipping is free over an amount, say so before checkout.

  2. 02An account before a purchase

    Baymard found that 42 in 100 sites in its benchmark interrupt shoppers before or during checkout to suggest an account, and that some shoppers read the suggestion as a rule. Asking after the order did better in its testing. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISLet people buy as a guest, and offer the account on the confirmation page, once the order is safe.

  3. 03More boxes than the order needs

    The average checkout shows about 23 things to fill in where 12 to 14 would do. One usual suspect is a second address line. In Baymard's testing people came to a halt at it, puzzled over it, or typed the wrong thing into it. Only 20 in 100 sites tuck it away. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISHide address line 2 behind an "add apartment or suite" link. Baymard's own caveat: only do this if most of your buyers do not need the line.

  4. 04A card form that does not feel safe

    19 in 100 did not trust the site with their card details. The doubt arrives at the exact moment they are asked to type the number. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISShow the cards you accept and a short line saying payment is secure, right beside the card fields and not in the footer.

  5. 05Errors nobody on your side has seen

    17 in 100 hit an error or a crash. A checkout that works on your laptop can still fail on a phone, with one kind of card, or with a postcode from another country. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISBuy something from your own store on a phone, with a real card, start to finish. Then do it again with a mistake in every field.

  6. 06Things a page cannot fix

    Slow delivery (20 in 100), the returns policy (13), a declined card (10) and too few ways to pay (9) are real reasons, but they are business decisions, not layout. Baymard Institute

    TRY THISSay the delivery time and the returns rule plainly near the buy button, so nobody has to reach checkout to find out.

ON YOUR OWN SITE

The step, not only the rate.

Seven in ten is an average over other people's stores. This is the walk through one store, with the worst step marked.

THE WALKsimulated

Landed

0

Viewed product

0

Added to cart

0

Reached checkout

0

Paid

0

Still walkingDropped outStill counting

Moxel builds a funnel from steps you choose and marks the step where the largest share of people stop. Not the biggest raw number, because most arrivals leave at step one and that is normal. On a checkout you built yourself it also follows the form field by field, and card fields are never named or timed. On Shopify, checkout does not run theme scripts, so it takes a small custom pixel that reports each checkout step and which field showed an error. That pixel has not been tested on a real store yet, so treat Shopify checkout numbers as early.

THE LIMITS

What this cannot tell you.

Baymard's reasons come from asking US shoppers why they left, and people are not always right about their own reasons. Baymard also says a large store can lift its conversion rate by about 35% through checkout design. That is its estimate for large stores, not a promise for a small one. A store with 40 checkouts a month cannot tell a real change from a quiet week, so make one change at a time and give it a few weeks.

QUESTIONS

Asked a lot.

What is the average cart abandonment rate?
70.22%, by Baymard Institute's average of 50 studies, last updated in September 2025. Roughly 7 in 10 filled carts are never paid for.
What is the main reason people abandon checkout?
Extra costs. In Baymard's survey of US shoppers, 40 in 100 of those who left for a reason other than browsing said shipping, tax or fees were too high.
Does guest checkout help?
18 in 100 shoppers who left named being asked to create an account. In Baymard's testing, offering the account after the order, on the confirmation page, did better than asking at the start or in the middle.

SOURCES

Where the numbers came from.

  1. Cart abandonment rate statisticsBaymard Institute, updated September 2025.
  2. Delayed account creationBaymard Institute, Edward Scott, September 2023.
  3. Address line 2Baymard Institute, Edward Scott, October 2022.

Read in October 2026. Studies get updated, so follow the link for today's figures.

KEEP READING

More from the field guide.

How Moxel records all of this is in the docs. What it never records is on the privacy page.

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