Abandoned carts mostly come down to three things: hidden costs, a checkout process that takes too long and a lack of trust in the store. The good news? You can remove most of them with changes to the store’s design and configuration.
Do your stats show plenty of started orders and only a handful of completed ones? Then the problem usually sits in a specific checkout step, not in the product itself. First we will break the causes down into parts. Then comes a list of fixes you can roll out one by one.
Table of contents
How many carts do customers abandon and which ones can you win back?
On average, seven out of ten carts do not end in an order. But not every one of those can be won back. The 2026 Baymard Institute cart abandonment roundup puts the average documented rate at 70.22%. The same research shows that 42% of US shoppers abandoned a cart because they were just browsing or were not ready to buy yet. A better form will not convince these people (they are comparing prices or simply putting the decision off). There is no point dwelling on them. The rest of the causes are more interesting, because they come from how the store and the ordering process work.
Cart abandonment: causes that lie on the store’s side
At the top of the list: extra costs, slow delivery and a lack of trust in the payment step. After leaving out the people who were only looking, the reasons for abandonment come in this order: extra costs too high, meaning shipping, taxes and fees; delivery too slow; not trusting the store with credit card details; being required to create an account; a checkout that is too long or complicated; website errors and crashes; an unsatisfactory returns policy; not being able to see the total cost up front; a declined card; too few payment methods.
Look at that list once more. Almost every item can be fixed in the design, the configuration or the store’s integrations. So you have real influence over most of the orders you lose.
Shipping costs and cart abandonment: how to show the price with no surprises
The customer clicks “next”, “next”, and on the last step sees an amount higher than expected. And that is the last you see of them. This is why the delivery cost and delivery time should be visible on the product page and in the cart, not only after the address has been entered.
A simple shipping calculator before checkout is enough, or a note saying from what order value shipping is free. Do you work with several carriers? Show their prices and delivery times side by side. And put a short version of the returns policy close to the order button, with a link to the full terms and conditions. The shopper should not have to hunt for it in the footer.
Checkout optimization: a shorter form and buying without an account
Every field and every step is one more chance for the customer to change their mind. An ideal flow needs only a handful of form fields, while the average checkout shows far more of them by default. So in most stores the number of fields can be cut noticeably.
In my opinion the starting point is obvious: guest checkout. Offer account creation only after the order has been placed, when the details are already filled in anyway (the customer fills in a single password field and that is it). Add address autocomplete, field validation as the customer types and error messages that say in plain language what to fix. Not “Form error”, but something specific. We write more about how screen layout affects sales in our article on UX in an online store.
Payments and trust: what makes a customer unafraid to pay
The shopper needs to see familiar payment methods and security signals exactly where they enter their details. In Poland that mainly means BLIK, fast bank transfers, cards and digital wallets. The second thing, often brushed aside: what happens after a failed transaction. Payment declined? The customer should be able to try again or pick another method without losing the contents of the cart. Because who is going to put an order together from scratch after a slip like that? A well thought out payment integration in your store solves both problems in one go.
Trust is also built by an SSL certificate, full company details, terms and conditions and contact information within easy sight. And then there are errors. Crashes are a separate cause of abandonment, so treat server stability and the loading speed of the final order steps as part of sales. Not as something “a developer will sort out one day”.
Abandoned cart reminders: how to win back some of the orders
Some people break off a purchase for a completely random reason. The phone rang, the signal dropped, a child called out. An automated message with a link to the saved cart lets them come back. The rollout usually looks more or less like this:
- Save the cart contents together with the email address given in the first step.
- Send the first message within a few hours, while the decision is still fresh.
- Show product photos, prices and one clear link back to the cart in it.
- Consider a second reminder after a day or two, without flooding the inbox.
- Measure how many people come back and complete the order after each message.
Oh, and one caveat. Sending messages like these requires a proper legal basis or the customer’s consent. And the reminders themselves work best as one piece of a broader strategy, which we describe in our article on how to run effective email marketing in your company.
Where should you start fixing your store?
With measurement. Check at which order step the most people drop off and make your first changes there. Set up a funnel in your analytics: cart, customer details, delivery, payment. Add session recordings and your own tests on phones, because it is on mobile that forms cause the most trouble (anyone who has tried to type an address on a small screen with autocorrect knows).
The order? Quick fixes first: delivery costs shown earlier and buying without an account. Then a checkout rebuild and new integrations. For bigger changes it helps to have a team that handles designing and building online stores, and for unusual sales processes, custom e-commerce solutions. Abandoned carts will never disappear completely. But every obstacle you remove means genuinely more completed purchases.
Frequently asked questions
Can abandoned carts be eliminated completely?
No. Some customers are only browsing, comparing prices or setting products aside for later, and no store will change that. The point is to reduce the abandonment caused by the store’s design, meaning hidden costs, a long form and payment problems.
What should you fix first when customers do not complete their orders?
Show the full cost with delivery already in the cart and let people buy without registering. These are among the most common reasons for dropping out that depend on the store. And fixing them usually does not require rebuilding the whole checkout.
Is sending abandoned cart reminders always allowed?
Not always. Messages like these require a proper legal basis or the customer’s consent. In practice I also recommend moderation: one reminder, two at most. Any more and instead of winning back the order, you will put the person off the brand.
