Cart Abandonment Causes You Can Fix Inside the Cart

Six causes of cart abandonment can be fixed inside the cart itself: costs that appear late, no idea when the order will arrive, detours between the cart and checkout, a price that changes at checkout, clutter, and a discount field that is either hidden or too prominent. Each has a specific fix that needs no change to your prices or products. This guide takes them one at a time, then covers how to find which one applies to your store and what the cart cannot fix.

1. Costs that appear late

The shopper sees one number in the cart and a larger one at checkout. Shipping is the usual addition; fees and add-ons are the others.

Fix: tell them in the cart.

• Show the free shipping threshold and how far the cart is from it. A progress bar does this in one line.
• If shipping is charged, say what it costs or how it is worked out, before checkout does.
• Label the cart figure 'Subtotal' and state what is added later, such as shipping and taxes.
• Never pre-tick a paid extra. An add-on the shopper did not choose is a surprise cost you created.

Setting the threshold itself is covered in how to calculate a free shipping threshold.

2. No delivery estimate

A shopper who needs the order by a certain day, and cannot tell whether it will come, leaves to find a store that says.

Fix: one line of text in the cart with a dispatch or delivery estimate you can keep. 'Ships within two working days' is enough. Use a promise your warehouse meets on its worst week, and update it when that changes, most of all around holidays.

3. Detours between cart and checkout

Anything that makes the shopper go somewhere else before paying:

• A cart page that loads after every 'Add to cart', pulling them off the page they were on.
• A requirement to create an account or log in before checkout.
• A popup that opens when they reach for the checkout button.

Fix: shorten the path. Use a drawer that opens over the current page, with one checkout button. Let shoppers check out as guests; Shopify's customer account settings allow that. Remove any popup triggered from the cart. Whether to go further and drop the cart altogether is weighed up in should Shopify stores skip the cart.

4. A price that changes at checkout

The cart showed a discount, a free gift or a bundle price. Checkout shows something higher. The shopper concludes, fairly, that the store misled them.

This happens when the cart calculates a discount for display and Shopify's checkout, which does its own sums, never applies it.

Fix: only show discounts that Shopify applies. Discounts run by a Shopify Function are calculated inside checkout, so the cart and checkout arrive at the same figure. Marka Cart Drawer applies its rewards, gifts and deals this way, and its Discount Explainer shows why a given cart got its price. Then test: build a cart with each offer you run, go to checkout, and compare line by line. The causes and tests are set out in full in why the cart total does not match checkout.

5. Clutter

The cart has become a second storefront: a carousel of recommendations, a countdown, badges, a newsletter box, three banners. The items and the checkout button are in there somewhere.

Each element takes attention from finishing the order, and on a phone clutter also pushes the button off the screen.

Fix: cut down to what serves the purchase.

• The items, editable.
• One progress bar.
• One or two offers that go with what is in the cart.
• The total and one primary button.

6. The discount field, hidden or shouting

This one cuts both ways.

• Hidden: a shopper holding a code cannot see where to enter it. They hesitate, unsure whether it will be accepted later.
• Prominent: a large empty box labelled 'Discount code' tells every shopper that a code exists and they do not have one. Some leave to search for it and do not come back.

Fix: a small text link, 'Have a code?', that opens the field when tapped. Shoppers with a code find it; shoppers without one are not prompted. If most of your discounts are meant for everyone, make them automatic so no code is needed.

How do you find which cause is yours?

Start with the numbers Shopify already gives you. Its analytics show how many sessions added to cart, how many reached checkout and how many completed. The drop between 'added to cart' and 'reached checkout' is the cart's share of the problem. The drop after that belongs to checkout.

Then look at the cart the way a shopper does:

1. On your phone, on mobile data, add a product and go through to payment.
2. Write down every moment you waited, were surprised or had to look for something.
3. Read recent support messages for questions that start 'Where do I...' or 'Why was I charged...'.
4. Fix the most obvious fault, leave everything else alone, and compare the same two figures a few weeks later.

What can the cart not fix?

Problems that sit before or after it, and visits that were never going to be orders: people also use carts to compare and to save things for later. A price the shopper thinks is too high, a payment method you do not offer, a checkout form that fails, or a delivery time that is simply too long are not cart problems. Shopify's abandoned checkout emails recover some shoppers who reached checkout and left, and they are worth switching on, but they are a second attempt and no substitute for a cart that works.

A short checklist

1. Show shipping cost or the free shipping threshold in the cart.
2. Add a delivery estimate you can keep.
3. Use a drawer with one checkout button, and allow guest checkout.
4. Confirm every discount shown in the cart is applied at checkout.
5. Cut the cart to items, one bar, one or two offers and the total.
6. Put the discount field behind a 'Have a code?' link.
7. Track the step from 'added to cart' to 'reached checkout' before and after.

For the positive side, what a cart should contain to raise order value, read our cart drawer guide. To replace a theme cart that has these faults, see Marka Cart Drawer.