How to Find Where Shoppers Drop Off in the Shopify Checkout

To find where shoppers drop off, count how many visits reach each step from product view to purchase, then divide each step by the one before it. The step with the largest proportional loss, compared with your own earlier periods, is where to look first. This guide lists the steps, including the three inside the checkout, shows how to read the loss between them, sets out the usual causes at each one, and explains why the visit counts are never complete.

What are the steps in the funnel?

There are two layers: the store funnel that leads to the checkout, and the steps inside the checkout itself.

The store funnel:

1. Product viewed. The visit included at least one product page.
2. Added to cart. Something went into the cart.
3. Reached checkout. The shopper started the checkout.
4. Purchased. An order was completed.

Inside the checkout, between steps three and four:

1. Information. Contact details and delivery address.
2. Shipping. Choice of delivery method, with its cost and estimated time.
3. Payment. Payment method and billing details, then the final confirmation.

Shopify's checkout can present these on one page or across several; the sequence is the same either way.

Shopify's built-in funnel reports sessions, added to cart, reached checkout and purchased. It does not separate the three checkout steps, which is the gap discussed in our guide to what Shopify's built-in reports leave out.

How do you read the loss between steps?

Divide each step's count by the count of the step before it. Comparing every step with total visits hides where the loss happens, because early steps always dominate.

Here is an example with made-up round figures. Say that in a month:

• 5,000 visits view a product
• 600 add to cart
• 300 reach checkout
• 240 complete the information step
• 216 complete the shipping step
• 150 purchase

Step to step, that is 12% of product views adding to cart, 50% of carts reaching checkout, 80% of checkouts completing information, 90% of those completing shipping, and about 69% of those paying.

In this example the weakest step inside the checkout is payment: 66 shoppers gave their address, picked a delivery method and then did not pay. That is where to start, even though the largest raw number of lost visits is far earlier, between product view and cart. Early losses are mostly browsing. Late losses are people who wanted to buy.

Whether 69% is poor for your store is something only your own history can say. Track each ratio monthly and act when one moves.

What usually causes drop-off before the checkout?

Before the checkout, the causes are about the offer and the cart.

• Product view to cart. Price, missing sizes or variants, weak images, unclear delivery times, or simply visitors who were never going to buy. Split this by traffic source before judging the page; our guide to reading the landing page report helps here.
• Cart to checkout. Shoppers using the cart to hold items for later, a total that surprises once several items are in, or a checkout button that is hard to find on a phone.

What causes drop-off at each checkout step?

Each step has its own typical reasons, which is why it is worth measuring them separately.

Information. The shopper is asked to type. Loss here tends to come from:

• too many fields, or fields that do not suit the shopper's country;
• being pushed to create an account;
• address forms that are awkward on a small screen.

Shipping. This is the first moment the shopper sees the real delivery cost and time. Loss here points to:

• a delivery charge higher than expected;
• delivery that is slower than the product page implied;
• no option offered for the shopper's address.

Payment. The shopper has decided to buy and is stopped by the means. Look for:

• a preferred method that is missing, such as a wallet on mobile or a local method in a particular country;
• card declines and failed authentication;
• a final total that differs from what was expected, through tax or duties added at the end.

Splitting the payment step by device and country usually narrows it down quickly. Our guide to sales by payment method covers what the payment mix can tell you.

Why are the visit counts lower than real traffic?

Because step-by-step behaviour is recorded by tracking, and tracking needs consent in many markets. Visitors who decline analytics in the cookie banner are not followed through the funnel, so every count above describes only those who agreed.

That has two practical effects:

• Totals are a sample. The number of visits at each step is lower than the true number. The number of orders, which comes from Shopify's order records, is complete. So do not expect the funnel's final step to equal your order count.
• Ratios are still useful. The loss between one step and the next among consenting visitors is a fair guide to where the friction is, provided you compare like with like over time.

Consent rules are not the same in every market, so a change in where your traffic comes from can shift the sample. More on this in our piece on how cookie consent affects Shopify analytics.

How do you get the step-by-step numbers?

You need a tool that records checkout steps as events and reports them in order. Marka Metrics includes drop-off analysis on its Growth and Pro plans, covering every page, the purchase funnel and each checkout step, with traffic sources, landing pages and devices alongside. It records events such as pages viewed and checkout steps for visitors who allow analytics, and it reports where visits end.

A short checklist

1. List the steps: product view, cart, checkout, information, shipping, payment, purchase.
2. Calculate each step as a share of the step before it.
3. Compare each ratio with your own previous periods.
4. Start with the weakest step inside the checkout.
5. Split that step by device, country and traffic source.
6. Read the counts as a consented sample, and orders as the full record.
7. Change one thing at a time and measure the same ratio again.

Checkout problems are usually specific and fixable once you know which step they belong to. For that step-by-step view inside the Shopify admin, see Marka Metrics.