How to Reduce Cart Abandonment: 12 Checkout Fixes (2026)

What Is a Normal Cart Abandonment Rate?

The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, calculated by Baymard Institute from 50 studies. In other words, roughly seven in ten shoppers who add an item to their cart leave without ordering. Your own rate depends on what you sell and who visits, so measure it before you set a target.

To calculate yours, divide completed orders by the number of sessions that created a cart, then subtract the result from one. For example, if 1,000 shoppers add something to their cart in a month and 300 of them order, your abandonment rate is 70%. Track it monthly, by device.

Not all abandonment is fixable. In Baymard's latest survey, 42% of US online shoppers said they had abandoned a cart because they were "just browsing / not ready to buy" (Baymard). That's normal shopping behavior. What matters is the abandonment you cause yourself.

Why Do Shoppers Abandon Their Carts?

Set aside the 42% who were just browsing, and US shoppers most often abandon because extra costs like shipping, tax and fees were too high (40%). After that come slow delivery (20%), distrust of the site with card details (19%), forced account creation (18%) and a long or complicated checkout (17%), according to Baymard.

Two things stand out. Most of these reasons are about the checkout, not the product: costs shown too late, forced accounts, long forms, errors and missing payment options. Baymard says many of them "can be fixed purely through design changes." They also overlap: showing the full cost early addresses both "extra costs" and "couldn't see total cost." Baymard's checkout research gives the sample behind the 18% account-creation figure as 1,026 US adults who had shopped online in the previous three months (Baymard, 2025).

How Much Revenue Can a Better Checkout Recover?

A lot. Baymard's checkout testing found that the average large ecommerce site can gain a 35.26% increase in conversion rate through better checkout design. Applied to $738 billion of combined US and EU ecommerce sales, that comes to $260 billion of lost orders that Baymard calls recoverable through a better checkout flow and design alone.

The 35.26% comes from large sites, so treat it as a sign of how much design can matter, not as a forecast for your store. In Baymard's 2025 benchmark of leading US and European sites, 64% of desktop sites and 63% of mobile sites had "mediocre" or worse checkout UX, and only 2% rated "good" (Baymard).

How Do You Reduce Cart Abandonment? 12 Fixes at a Glance

Reduce cart abandonment by fixing the reasons shoppers give, in order of how often they give them. Show the full cost early, make guest checkout obvious, cut form fields, show delivery dates, make the payment step look secure, offer the payment methods buyers expect, and write error messages that explain exactly what to fix.

#	Fix	Reason It Targets	Baymard Data Point
1	Show the full order cost in the cart	Extra costs (40%); total not visible (12%)	—
2	Show free-shipping progress in the cart	Extra costs (40%)	—
3	Make guest checkout the most prominent option	Account creation (18%)	62% of sites don't
4	Move account creation to after the order	Account creation (18%)	84% of sites don't
5	Cut form fields to the minimum	Long checkout (17%)	23.48 elements on average vs. 12–14 needed
6	Support browser autofill	Long checkout (17%)	—
7	Mark required and optional fields	Long checkout (17%)	61% of sites don't
8	Show a delivery date, not a speed	Slow delivery (20%)	48% of sites don't
9	Make the card form look secure	Trust (19%)	—
10	Link the returns policy in cart and checkout	Returns policy (13%)	—
11	Offer the payment methods buyers expect	Payment methods (9%); declined cards (10%)	—
12	Write error messages for the specific problem	Long checkout (17%)	94% of sites don't

Reason percentages are from Baymard's abandonment survey. Site percentages are from its 2025 checkout benchmark, except fix 4, which is from its 2024 form-field study.

How Do You Stop Extra Costs From Ending the Sale?

Show the full order cost in the cart, before checkout starts. Extra costs like shipping, tax and fees are the top reason US shoppers abandon (40%), and 12% leave because they couldn't see or calculate the total up front (Baymard). If you can't show an exact total yet, show a clear estimate and explain it.

That is Baymard's own first fix (Baymard, May 2026). If you offer free shipping above a threshold, put that information directly in the cart summary so shoppers know right away whether they qualify. In practice, that means a shipping estimate by ZIP code on the cart page, an estimated tax line, and a progress message such as "You're [amount] away from free shipping."

If the shipping price itself is the problem, consider flat-rate shipping, building part of the cost into prices, or a cheaper, slower option. Check what each choice does to your margin with the profit margin calculator, and compare carriers and fulfillment models in our shipping and fulfillment guide.

Should You Offer Guest Checkout?

Yes, and make it the most prominent option. In a Baymard survey, 18% of US online shoppers had abandoned an order because they didn't want to create an account, yet 62% of sites still fail to make guest checkout the most prominent choice. Label it clearly, put it first, and offer account creation after the order instead.

A guest option shoppers can't spot is as bad as none, so use a button labeled "Checkout as Guest" or "Continue as Guest" and place it above the sign-in fields. Google's web.dev guidance puts it the same way: "the simplest way to reduce form friction is to make guest checkout the default" (web.dev).

Then move account creation to the confirmation page, where it needs only a password field or two. Baymard found 84% of sites don't do this (Baymard, 2024). For returning customers, keep password rules simple. In the 2025 benchmark (Baymard), 65% of sites had overly complex password requirements, and strict rules can cause up to 19% checkout abandonment among existing account holders who have trouble signing in.

How Many Form Fields Should a Checkout Have?

Fewer than most stores use. Baymard's testing shows an ideal checkout can be as short as 12 to 14 form elements, or 7 to 8 form fields, while the average US checkout shows 23.48 elements (14.88 fields) by default. Baymard says most checkouts could cut the number of form elements they show by 20% to 60%.

That matters because 17% of shoppers abandoned over a too long or complicated checkout. Baymard's 2024 form-field study counts slightly differently and puts the 2024 average at 11.3 form fields, down from 12.7 in 2019, against the 8 most sites need. Either way, most checkouts ask for too much. The study's quick wins:

Field Fix	Sites Not Doing It (Baymard, 2024)
Use one “Full name” field instead of first and last	89% have more than one name field
Hide “Address Line 2” behind a link	75% show it by default
Collapse the coupon code field behind a link	35% of sites with one show it by default
Default the billing address to the shipping address	24% show separate billing fields by default

Source: Baymard, “5 Ways to Minimize Form Fields in Checkout”, June 2024.

Make the fields that remain fast to fill. Google's web.dev form guidance says to use the right autocomplete values, such as name and cc-number, so browsers can fill forms for the shopper. It also recommends type="email" and type="tel" for the right mobile keyboard, a single input for the card number, and no card-type selector, since the card type can be read from the number (web.dev).

Label every field clearly. In Baymard's testing, 32% of participants missed at least one required field on forms that marked only the optional ones, and 61% of sites still don't mark both. If you ask for a phone number, say why. Over 70% of survey respondents said they were reluctant to give one, and 49% of sites don't explain the request (Baymard, 2025).

Is a One-Page Checkout Better Than a Multi-Step Checkout?

Not automatically. Baymard's research finds the number of steps matters less than the total number of form fields shoppers must deal with. It notes that a one-page checkout with 30 form fields is often worse than a three-step checkout with well-designed forms. Choose whichever layout keeps each screen short, focused and clear.

The average checkout in 2024 was 5.1 steps long (Baymard, 2024). Count fields before you merge pages. Two layout changes help in either format (Baymard, 2026):

• Use an enclosed checkout. Remove the main site navigation during checkout, but keep a clear way back to the shop.
• Keep offers out of the way. Ads, financing offers and cross-sells should stay visually secondary, or move to the confirmation page, rather than interrupting checkout with forced decisions.

If you use several steps, show progress with clearly named steps and button labels that say what happens next, as web.dev recommends.

How Do You Make Shoppers Trust Your Checkout?

Make the payment step look as secure as it is. Nineteen percent of US shoppers who abandoned didn't trust the site with their card details (Baymard). Baymard's testing found that setting the card fields apart, with a border or shaded background unique to them, and placing one or two security icons inside that area raises perceived security.

The same research adds two points. In Baymard's 2023 seal study, Norton's seal ranked highest, and most of the top-trusted seals were trust seals rather than SSL seals. Visual glitches on checkout pages can also make shoppers suspect phishing, so test the checkout on every major browser and device. These cues change perception, not actual security, so you still need a PCI-compliant payment provider underneath.

Returns are part of trust too: 13% of shoppers abandoned because the returns policy wasn't satisfactory (Baymard). Link your policy from the cart and checkout, and keep it short and specific. Our return and refund policy guide covers the wording, and designing a store customers trust covers the rest of the site.

How Do Delivery Times Affect Cart Abandonment?

Slow delivery is the second most common reason US shoppers abandon (20%, per Baymard), and delivery details hidden until the last step cause late surprises. Show an estimated delivery date for each shipping option rather than a speed like "3–5 business days", and show it early. Baymard's 2025 benchmark found 48% of sites still don't.

The same benchmark found 83% of sites don't show the order cutoff time as a countdown, such as "Order in the next few hours for Friday delivery." It also found 52% don't include every fulfillment option, like in-store pickup, in the shipping selector. Keep shipping information visible from the cart onward, not just on the review step (Baymard, 2026).

Which Payment Methods and Error Messages Matter Most?

Offer the payment methods your buyers already use, and make every error easy to fix. Nine percent of US shoppers who abandoned said there weren't enough payment methods, 10% had a card declined, and 17% hit site errors or crashes (Baymard). Baymard's 2025 benchmark found 94% of sites don't tailor error messages to the specific problem.

Which methods to add depends on your customers, so check your analytics and support emails first. LaunchMyStore supports 34+ payment gateways on every plan, with 0% platform transaction fees; you pay only your gateway's rate. Compare what each gateway costs with the Stripe fee calculator, and follow our guide to setting up payment gateways. When a card is declined, say so in plain words, keep everything the shopper already entered, and offer another way to pay.

For errors, Baymard recommends adaptive messages that match the exact problem, such as "ZIP code is missing a digit" rather than "Invalid input" (Baymard, 2025). Its inline validation research found 31% of sites have no inline validation at all. It advises checking each field when the shopper leaves it, not while they're still typing, and clearing the error the moment the input is valid (Baymard, 2024). Keep the usual checks on submit as well. For crashes and site errors, re-test the whole checkout on phone and desktop after every theme or app change.

Do Recovery Emails, Popups and Discounts Reduce Cart Abandonment?

They win back some sales, but they don't fix the cause. Baymard says reminder emails work for shoppers who got distracted, not for those driven out by checkout friction. And when the checkout itself is the problem, a discount popup "just makes the broken experience cheaper." Fix the checkout first, then add recovery on top.

Bringing shoppers back to a frustrating checkout just shows them the same friction again (Baymard, May 2026). Once the basics are fixed, recovery still helps:

• Ask for the email address first, with clear consent, so a reminder is possible.
• Start with a plain reminder that links back to a saved cart.
• Answer objections next: shipping cost, delivery date and returns.
• Hold incentives back and test them, so you don't train regular customers to wait for a code.

Our email marketing guide covers how to set up automated flows like these.

How Do You Find Where Your Checkout Loses Shoppers?

Measure abandonment step by step, then watch real sessions. A funnel report from cart to shipping to payment to confirmation shows which step loses the most shoppers. Then place a test order on your own phone as a new customer, and note every point where you hesitate. Fix the biggest drop first and test the change.

Baymard suggests ranking fixes by impact and effort (Baymard, 2026):

1. High impact, lower effort: guest checkout and showing total costs in the cart.
2. High impact, medium effort: better payment error handling and browser autofill.
3. High impact, high effort: simplifying the flow and cutting form fields.
4. Medium impact, medium effort: removing interruptions from checkout.

Session recordings show where shoppers stall, and an A/B test confirms whether a change helped. Our A/B testing guide explains how to run one, and the ecommerce conversion rate optimization guide covers the steps before the cart.