You did the hard work of getting a customer to add something to their cart, and then most of them leave before paying. It is the most frustrating moment in selling, and the most fixable. The reasons people abandon are well documented, and almost all of them are within your control. Here is a step-by-step checklist to plug the leaks at your checkout.

The scale of the problem, and the opportunity

Cart abandonment is enormous. Baymard Institute's analysis of fifty studies puts the average abandonment rate at just over seventy percent, meaning roughly seven in ten carts never become orders. But that is also the opportunity: Baymard estimates better checkout flow and design could recover around two hundred and sixty billion dollars in lost orders across the US and EU. The carts you are losing are not gone by nature, they are leaking through fixable cracks.

Fix the costs problem first

The single biggest reason people abandon, beyond just browsing, is unexpected cost. Thirty-nine percent abandon because extra costs like shipping, tax, and fees felt too high. The fix is transparency:

  • Show shipping costs early, on the product page, not as a checkout surprise.
  • Avoid nasty surprises at the final step, where an unexpected total feels like a betrayal.
  • Consider a free-shipping threshold, which removes the objection and can lift order value.

Most abandonment is not about your product or price, it is about a surprise at checkout. Remove the surprise and you recover the sale.

Simplify the checkout itself

The next batch of reasons is friction. Nineteen percent of shoppers abandon because a site forced them to create an account, and eighteen percent because the checkout was too long or complicated. The cure is to ask for less and make it quick:

  • Offer guest checkout, so no one is forced to create an account to buy.
  • Keep the form short, asking only for what you truly need.
  • Make it work on mobile, where most shopping now happens.

Build trust at the moment of payment

Another nineteen percent abandon because they do not trust the site with their card details. Trust is what closes the gap at the payment step:

  • Offer recognized payment methods, so buyers see names they already trust.
  • Show your store is legitimate, with clear contact details and honest policies.
  • Offer the way they prefer to pay, whether by card or finishing over WhatsApp.

How Shourly helps you close the gap

Shourly is built to remove these exact frictions. You can show shipping clearly, offer card payments through trusted processors like Stripe and PayPal, and give customers a WhatsApp checkout when they would rather finish in a conversation, which sidesteps a long form entirely. Each option attacks a documented reason carts get abandoned, so more of the customers who were ready to buy actually do.

Every fix on this list targets a known reason shoppers leave. You do not have to guess. You just have to close the gaps one by one.

Conclusion

Seven in ten carts are abandoned, but the reasons are known and the fixes are in your hands. Make costs transparent and early, simplify and shorten your checkout, and build trust at the payment step with recognized options. Work down the checklist and you recover sales that were already within reach, turning abandoned carts back into the orders they were about to be.

Ready to recover more sales? Create your free store or see how Shourly's checkout works.