Cart abandonment is rarely one big problem
Average cart abandonment rates across e-commerce hover around 70%, and the instinct is to blame price. In practice, a meaningful share of abandonment comes from solvable friction in the checkout flow itself, not the price tag.
Unexpected costs at the final step
Shipping fees, taxes, or surcharges that only appear on the last screen are one of the most cited reasons shoppers abandon carts. Showing estimated total cost — including shipping — earlier in the flow, even as an estimate, reduces the "surprise tax" effect that causes last-second drop-off.
Forced account creation
Requiring a full account signup before checkout adds friction at the exact moment a customer is ready to buy. Offering guest checkout, with an option to create an account after the purchase completes, recovers a meaningful share of would-be abandoners who simply didn't want another password to manage.
Too many form fields
Every additional field is a micro-decision and a chance to bail. Auto-filling city/state from postal code, using address autocomplete, and combining fields where possible (full name instead of first/last) shortens the perceived effort of checking out.
Limited payment options
Shoppers increasingly expect to pay however they normally pay — credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Buy Now Pay Later. Not offering a shopper's preferred method doesn't just lose that one option; it can stall the whole transaction if it's the only one they trust.
No visible trust signals at the payment step
Security badges, clear return policy links, and visible customer support contact at the point of payment reduce hesitation, particularly for first-time buyers who don't yet have a trust relationship with the brand.
The fix that's often skipped: abandoned cart recovery flows
Even with a perfect checkout, some carts will be abandoned — distraction, comparison shopping, or just running out of time. A well-timed abandoned cart email sequence (typically one within an hour, a follow-up within 24 hours) recovers a real share of otherwise-lost sales, and is one of the highest ROI automations a store can set up.