What is checkout abandonment?

When a shopper begins the checkout process but leaves before completing the purchase — a later, higher-intent stage than cart abandonment.

What causes checkout abandonment?

Most often surprise costs (shipping, taxes, fees revealed late), a long or complicated checkout, forced account creation, limited payment options, and slow or non-mobile flows.

How do you reduce checkout abandonment?

Show total costs early, offer guest checkout, minimize steps and fields, support expected payment methods, add trust signals, and run abandoned-checkout recovery emails.

Growth Marketing Glossary

Checkout Abandonment

check·out a·ban·don·ment/ˈtʃɛˌkaʊt əˈbændənmənt/noun

So close to the sale — a started checkout left unfinished, usually for fixable reasons of friction or surprise cost.

Schematic — shoppers quitting partway through checkout

Term: Checkout Abandonment
Is: Leaving during checkout before paying
Differs from: Cart abandonment (earlier stage)
Top causes: Surprise costs, friction, forced accounts

Forms & parts of speech

checkout abandonment · noun

Quitting during checkout.

"Checkout abandonment spiked when shipping cost appeared at the last step - the surprise killed the sale."

Definition in plain terms

Checkout abandonment is when a shopper begins the checkout process — having decided to buy and entered the checkout flow — but leaves before completing the purchase. It is a later, higher-intent stage than CART ABANDONMENT (leaving items in the cart without starting checkout): these shoppers were actively trying to pay, so abandonment here is especially costly and especially recoverable, because the problem is usually something fixable in the checkout itself rather than a lack of intent.

The mechanics

The causes of checkout abandonment are well documented and mostly about friction and trust at the worst possible moment. The biggest is unexpected costs — shipping, taxes, or fees revealed late — which feel like a bait-and-switch and break the deal. Others include a long or complicated checkout (too many steps or form fields), being forced to create an account before buying, limited or unfamiliar payment options, security or trust concerns, and a slow or buggy or non-mobile-friendly flow. Because intent was high, each of these is an avoidable leak rather than a lost cause. The fixes map directly to the causes: show total costs early and honestly, offer guest checkout, minimize steps and fields, support the payment methods customers expect (including wallets and BUY-NOW-PAY-LATER), display trust and security signals, and make the flow fast and mobile-first. And because not every abandonment can be prevented, recovery matters too — abandoned-checkout emails and retargeting bring a meaningful share of these high-intent shoppers back to finish, since they were a step away from buying.

When it matters

Checkout abandonment matters intensely for e-commerce because it is conversion lost at the very last step, among shoppers with the highest intent, which makes reducing it one of the highest-ROI improvements available. The discipline is to diagnose where in the checkout people drop (analytics by step), remove the specific friction and surprise-cost causes, and add recovery flows for those who still leave. A checkout optimized for transparency, speed, and minimal friction converts far more of the demand a store works hard to create; a checkout that surprises or obstructs buyers forfeits sales it had already nearly won.

Worked example. An online store drives strong traffic and gets shoppers all the way into checkout, yet loses many at the final step. Step-by-step analytics pinpoint the leak: shipping cost appears only on the last page, and the flow forces account creation before payment. The team fixes the specific causes — showing total costs upfront, adding guest checkout, trimming form fields, and offering the payment methods customers expect — and adds an abandoned-checkout email for those who still leave. Completion rates climb sharply, because the problems were friction and surprise at the highest-intent moment, all fixable, and the same traffic now converts far more of the shoppers who had already decided to buy.

Failure modes to watch. Revealing shipping, tax, or fees late so they feel like a bait-and-switch; forcing account creation before purchase; a long, multi-step, or non-mobile checkout; missing expected payment options; and failing to run recovery emails for high-intent abandoners.

Synonyms & antonyms

Synonyms

checkout abandonmentabandoned checkoutcheckout drop-off

Antonyms

completed checkoutfrictionless purchase

Origin & history

Checkout abandonment is a distinct, later stage of the broader shopping-cart-abandonment problem studied in e-commerce usability research (notably the Baymard Institute's ongoing work cataloging checkout drop-off causes). The term names abandonment within the checkout flow specifically, separating it from earlier cart abandonment.

Etymology: source.

Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

View interest-over-time on Google Trends →

Common questions

What is checkout abandonment?: When a shopper begins the checkout process but leaves before completing the purchase — a later, higher-intent stage than cart abandonment.
What causes checkout abandonment?: Most often surprise costs (shipping, taxes, fees revealed late), a long or complicated checkout, forced account creation, limited payment options, and slow or non-mobile flows.
How do you reduce checkout abandonment?: Show total costs early, offer guest checkout, minimize steps and fields, support expected payment methods, add trust signals, and run abandoned-checkout recovery emails.

Related tools & calculators

toolAOV calculator
toolROAS calculator

Resources & people to follow

referenceWikipedia — Shopping cart abandonment
referenceBaymard Institute — checkout usability and abandonment research
referenceRGM analysis — remove surprise costs and friction; recover high-intent abandoners

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

Related training

moduleGrowth marketing

Disciplines

Areas of marketing where checkout abandonment is a core concern:

Growth strategyPerformance marketing

Sources

trendsGoogle Trends — "checkout abandonment"