Every ecommerce dashboard shows the same number eventually. Seven out of ten carts leave empty. The instinct is to treat that as a verdict on the whole checkout and rebuild it top to bottom.
That instinct is usually wrong. A 70% abandonment rate is an average of several different problems stacked on top of each other, and a redesign that doesn't target the actual dominant cause spends a development cycle moving a number that was never the real one to move.
This is the same discipline behind why custom software still wins when a workflow is complex: the fix that looks obvious from the outside is rarely the fix that actually works, and checkout is one of the clearest places we see that play out for ecommerce clients.
Key takeaways
- Cart abandonment sits near 70% industry-wide, but that single number hides which step is actually broken, and most teams fix the wrong one first.
- Complex checkout is cited by roughly 22% of shoppers, hidden costs by about 21%. Two different problems. Two different fixes. Not one generic redesign.
- Baymard estimates $260 billion in recoverable orders across the US and EU from checkout-flow fixes alone, real money left on a page most teams never instrument properly.
- Rebuilding checkout before you know which cause dominates burns a development cycle without moving the number you're trying to move.
01What the 70% abandonment number actually includes
The Baymard Institute, which has tracked cart abandonment across 50+ studies for over a decade, puts the average rate at 70.22% for 2026. That figure gets quoted constantly and explains almost nothing on its own, because it's an average of several distinct failure modes, not one.
Broken down by cause, a complicated or unfamiliar checkout process accounts for roughly 22% of abandonments, and unexpected costs revealed late in the flow, shipping, taxes, fees, account for about 21%. Website errors and crashes add another slice. Those are three different engineering problems wearing the same 70% number.
$260B
Recoverable orders across the US and EU from checkout-flow fixes alone (Baymard Institute)
A 70% abandonment rate is an average of several different problems stacked on top of each other.
02Is your abandonment a checkout problem or a trust problem?
Here's the question most teams skip before they redesign anything: are shoppers leaving because the flow is confusing, or because the flow revealed a cost they didn't expect? Those look identical on an abandonment chart and need opposite fixes.
A confusing flow gets fixed by removing steps, cutting form fields, and making the next action obvious. A trust problem gets fixed by showing the real total earlier, not by streamlining a checkout that was never actually the thing driving people away. Ship the wrong one and the abandonment rate barely moves, because you fixed a problem the data never actually named.
03What we build to fix each cause
Mutishop, an ecommerce platform we built with integrated payment gateways, is the kind of build where this distinction actually matters: a hyper-personalized shopping flow only helps if the checkout underneath it is instrumented well enough to show where people actually stop.
The pattern we build to: step-level funnel tracking, not just 'cart created' versus 'purchase complete,' so you can see exactly which screen loses people. Total cost shown before the final step, not after. Graceful handling of payment failures instead of a dead end. And the fix gets picked from what the data shows, not from whichever redesign is easiest to ship this sprint.
04What not to do
Don't rebuild checkout wholesale before you've instrumented the funnel. A full redesign feels like progress, but if the dominant cause was hidden costs, a prettier flow with the same pricing surprise fixes nothing.
Don't assume guest checkout is the answer by default. It helps with friction-driven abandonment. It does nothing for a trust problem, and teams that ship it as a universal fix are often surprised when the number barely shifts.
05Where to look first
A quick map from cited cause to the fix that actually addresses it, roughly in order of how often each one shows up in the Baymard breakdown.
| Cited cause | Share of abandonments | What actually fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Complicated/long checkout | ~22% | Step-level instrumentation, cut fields, fewer screens |
| Hidden costs revealed late | ~21% | Show total cost earlier, not a redesigned button |
| Website errors/crashes | ~15% | Fix the bug, not the UX around it |
06Getting started
Instrument the funnel step by step before changing anything. You can't fix what you haven't actually measured at the screen level.
Identify which cause dominates for your store specifically. National averages are a starting hypothesis, not your answer.
Fix the highest-cost step first, then re-measure before touching anything else. One change at a time is the only way to know what actually worked.
Frequently asked questions
It's close to the industry average, so on its own it isn't necessarily a red flag. What matters is whether you know which specific cause is driving your number and whether it's trending up or down after a change, not the raw figure by itself.
Usually not as the first move. Instrument the current flow first. Most stores find one or two specific steps causing the bulk of the drop-off, and fixing those is faster and cheaper than a full rebuild.
Once the right cause is identified, a targeted fix (removing a field, surfacing costs earlier, fixing a specific error) usually shows a measurable shift within a few weeks of traffic. A full redesign takes longer and makes it harder to isolate what actually worked.