From Abandoned Carts to Conversions: Optimize Your Checkout Flow with GemPages

Getting prospects to visit your store is simply not enough. Busy traffic means nothing when potential buyers decide to abandon their shopping carts at the last minute. The bad news is, this phenomenon is more common than you think, since it can happen to the best of us, including the industry’s frontrunners. The good news is that there are tried-and-true preventative measures to fend off this dreaded problem. Our blog post will tell you all about it.

What is Cart Abandonment?

Customers can abandon their carts for multiple reasons, and knowing why it happens enables merchants to troubleshoot this phenomenon.

In eCommerce, cart abandonment happens when customers add products to their shopping cart but leave the website without completing the purchase. This is often caused by a friction in their shopping journey, making them feel more inclined to discard the purchase and abandon the transaction. As business owners, you are more than aware of this setback, and statistics also prove that it is a universal problem.

With 70.19% being the average cart abandonment rate in eCommerce shopping, this means ~7 out of 10 shoppers exit the site without completing their purchases. This problem occurs across different devices, with mobile being the most common platform, followed by tablet and desktop. So, how does it actually impact your store’s revenue? For small businesses, even one or two abandoned carts can feel major, as it means a lost customer. For brands with a higher traffic volume, the effect is no less impactful. Merchants lose 10% of their revenue to cart abandonment, and on the grand scheme, build up to $18 billion of potential sales loss annually. 

Overall, cart abandonment is normal, but it does not have to become a frequent occurrence for you. There are time-tested methods to stop buyers from ditching their shopping carts, but first, let’s get down to the reasons why this issue tends to happen. Spoiler alert: your store might possess more than one reason without knowing, so keep reading to get all the nuts and bolts.

Why Cart Abandonment Happens: 7 Most Common Reasons

 Extra Fees

Nobody likes unexpected fees while online shopping, hence the need to eliminate this mistake to avoid cart abandonment.

Imagine this: a visitor lands on your store, checks out the products, adds them to their carts, clicks ‘Check Out,’ and… exits the site. Why did they get so close but bounce at the last minute? The answer could be this simple: the unexpected extra costs. This encompasses shipping fees, taxes, and other costs that deter buyers from proceeding further. That’s why transparent and upfront costs are more appreciated than hidden fees that aren’t revealed until the last step.

Account Creation

Mandatory account creation is another huge setback that directly correlates to cart abandonment. As your online store can receive visits from first-time buyers, they may not be more prone to sign up for an account yet. Thus, making account creation a must in order to complete an order is a major hassle that contributes to abandoned shopping carts.

Lack of Payment Options

An ample payment option is the key to encourage customers to complete their purchases, since they will be more likely to discard the transaction when a certain payment method is unavailable.

In the early days of online shopping, having credit and debit cards as the only payment methods could have been sufficient for a run-of-the-mill business. However, as the industry progressed, more and more payment gateways were introduced. This explains the reason for abandoned shopping carts being limited to payment options.

As an operating business owner in 2025, it is a good call to provide a multitude of payment gateways in your stores, namely credit and debit cards, PayPal, digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.), and other local methods depending on your location. Remember: to generate revenue, you ought to give buyers a legit choice to pay first.

Learn more: Shopify Payments vs. Paypal: What's Best for You in 2025?

Card Security Concerns

If buyers feel like their cards are at risk of fraud while shopping on your site, it is understandable that their carts will be abandoned before the last checkout step.

What if you offer all the most common payment methods, but your customers still drop out at the checkout page? Card security concerns could be another commonplace reason. Everything from an outdated page layout to the lack of trust signals (i.e., SSL) and the delay in processing the transaction is all contributors to security concerns. Ultimately, customers feel more prone to leave your website instead of going through with payment.

Slow Delivery Time

Your products might pique the customers’ interest, but the delivery time is the deciding factor for them to keep going with the order. A longer wait, no estimated delivery date, no express shipping, etc., are all valid reasons to abandon the transaction. To keep these issues at bay, consider expanding your shipping options by partnering up with reliable shipping carriers such as DHL or UPS, depending on where you are based.

Inadequate Return Policy

A clear-cut return policy might not be on the top of the list of cart abandonment reasons, but it’s certainly can’t be understated. The modern shoppers these days expect more out of a business, namely convenience and flexibility. If the return policy is knotty and demanding, customers will not be tempted to finish the purchase, especially with first-time orders.

Confusing and Drawn-out Checkout Process

Sellers are buyers as well, so you know all too well about the harm of a confusing and lengthy checkout process. No matter how many state-of-the-art elements there are on the page, they must flow together nicely to create a clear pathway for buyers to complete their purchases. An overly complex checkout process will result in their decisions to abandon carts.

How Does the Checkout Flow Affect the Conversion Rate?

A checkout process can either make or break your conversion rate. If the customers can navigate it with ease, they will be more in line to convert. The signs of a high-converting checkout flow can be spotted via user-friendly elements such as trust signals, guest checkout, progress indicators, total charge summaries, and so on. The more it caters to the average buyer’s intuitive shopping behavior, the better it is at getting them to convert.

On the other hand, a low-performing checkout flow starts with a messy checkout page layout, forced account creation, lack of delivery information, limited payment options, a lengthy form, and the like. When the customers bump into one of these obstacles, you run the risk of losing them right then and there.

Improve the Checkout Flow with a Better Page Structure: Key Strategies to Implement

There are multiple details to take notice of to build a better page structure, and the most efficient ones are incredibly easy to implement. If you have gone intel-hunting on the competitors’ eCommerce stores, the strategies below are no stranger to you.

Exit-intent Popups

Ever been on a website and, as you are about to click the ‘x’ button, a timely popup appears? That is an exit-intent pop-up. It is a clever strategy to pull back a visitor’s attention when they are about to leave the site, and it is our favorite element to incorporate into the checkout page. You can use it to offer an exclusive discount, a limited-time deal, or act as a reminder of what’s in one’s cart.

Learn more: The Best Website Popup Examples that Help You Drive Conversion (2025)

Trust Signals

Wanna prove that your website is trustworthy and secure? Trust signals are your best friends. Elements like payment icons, security badges, customer testimonials, social proof, and a quality guarantee (i.e., ‘money back if you don’t like it’) are amazing in exhibiting a professional presence.

Learn more: How to Add Trust Badges to Shopify in 2 Fastest Ways

Breadcrumbs

An intuitive navigation system is not complete without breadcrumbs - the unsung hero in showing users where they are on your website. For instance, this is what they look like:

Home > Products > Winter Collections > Jackets > [Product Name]

With this, the site hierarchy is reinforced, SEO is improved, and most importantly, conversion is boosted thanks to deeper browsing. For a multistep checkout page, breadcrumbs also help customers keep track of their progress as well.

Urgency Elements

Urgency elements refer to messages that invoke a sense of time pressure in buyers, which are most commonly used with details like a countdown timer, low-stock alert, limited-time offer, flash sale, high-demand badge, and so on. They are small but pack a punch, since buyers’ FOMO is often triggered when an item seems out of reach, especially when seeing these signs at the checkout page.

Learn more: Maximizing Sales with Top Urgency and Product Scarcity Tactics

3 Ways GemPages Helps You Avoid Cart Abandonment

GemPages’ versatile services are designed to reduce your cart abandonment rate via intuitive page layouts and features.

GemPages has been helping a multitude of Shopify merchants create the most ideal online stores for nearly a decade, so we are nothing short of well-versed in page building. We aim to reinvent ourselves by rolling out more and more proficient tools to help business owners perfect their websites, so GemPages definitely has what you are seeking when you are unsure what to do with abandoned shopping carts. Check the examples below.

Adding Persuasive Page Elements

Tutti Kids implemented a classic strategy: an exit-intent pop-up to grab visitors’ attention and keep them staying on the website longer.

Stores that convert are not cookie cutters, meaning they know where and when to sprinkle on persuasive elements that extend a visitor’s stay on their websites. Instead of building pages of just text and images like an old-school newspaper, why not use GemPages to churn out interactive elements that guide your customers towards the end of the checkout process? Our tools are easily configurable, so you can freely add components like exit-intent popups, countdown timers, low stock alerts, etc., to catch the buyers’ eyes. One of our most successful clients, Tutti Kids, has made excellent use of this tactic to their advantage.

Building a Customizable Checkout Page

ProHealth’s checkout slider blends seamlessly into its page design, granting the store a polished and professional look.

When we say customizable, we mean it. With our library of 200+ CRO templates and a handy drag-and-drop editor, you are more than welcome to tweak and change every detail to fit your needs. This means a matching-colored checkout slider, as pictured above by ProHealth, a sticky ‘Add to Cart’ button as one scrolls on the product page, cart recovery tools, trust signals and payment icons, and many more.

 Everything your heart desires, we’ve got it. By presenting a personalized checkout page, you showcase your brand’s identity and help customers complete their orders faster, thus reducing cart abandonment.

Creating a High-Converting Sales Funnel

A high-converting sales funnel is achieved through an impeccable UX, which Fringe Sport has managed to obtain in the mobile version of its store.

The sales funnel is a marketing tactic to lead buyers to the ultimate goal: repurchasing your products. That said, before reaching that stage, guiding them towards making a successful purchase first is what you should aim for. To do this, a top-tier user experience (UX) is the MVP.

For GemPages users, this objective is way within reach. Our templates are made to grant your store the most user-friendly UX, which is evident in mobile responsiveness as well as page speed. By using our service, brands like Fringe Sport managed to craft an A1 mobile site, where things run seamlessly from the home page to the checkout process. 

Best Practices to Reduce Cart Abandonment for Your Store

When in Doubt, Keep It Simple

We have given you several examples of how to streamline the checkout flow above, but it is not a good call to apply all strategies without evaluating your brand’s identity and goals. This will result in a cluttered and complicated checkout page - a no-no in reducing cart abandonment. So, it is best to keep things simple yet effective by focusing on one goal at a time, avoiding lengthy forms, minimizing scrolling, and using concise CTAs to lead buyers to the last step of the transaction.

Utilize Auto-Filled Forms

When customers hit the ‘Check Out’ button, they expect the transaction to be quick and easy. Thus, auto-filled forms are an excellent component to lead them to the last step. Make use of browser auto-filling name, address, email, and card number, as well as auto-detecting shipping information if possible. When things are moving smoothly, buyers will be less likely to bounce off your site at the last minute.

Final Words

The premise of our blog post is straightforward: to help you keep shopping cart abandonment to a minimum, once and for all. As this problem is extremely common, no need to sweat when it first happens to you. Simply follow our guide, enhance your website, optimize the checkout process, and see positive changes happen in real time. To accelerate this whole procedure, let GemPages give you a helping hand in building the most ideal online store with intuitive and high-converting features. The liberty is in your hands to utilize our tools and set yourself apart from the competitors in this multicolored world of eCommerce.

FAQ about Abandoned Shopping Carts