Why shoppers abandon checkout, and how to fix each cause

Every store loses carts. The Baymard Institute, which has studied checkout usability for more than a decade, calculates the average documented cart abandonment rate at about 70%, based on 50 studies (last updated September 2025). A store that loses most of its carts is normal. The useful question is how many of those losses you can prevent.

First, separate the carts you can’t win

In Baymard’s survey of US online shoppers, 42% said they had abandoned a cart because they were “just browsing / not ready to buy”. Window shopping, price comparison and saving items for later are part of how people shop. Reminder emails can bring some of them back (see abandoned cart recovery), but no checkout change will.

Focus on the rest.

The reasons you can fix

Excluding the “just browsing” group, Baymard’s survey of US shoppers found these reasons for abandoning an order:

Survey of US shoppers. Respondents could give more than one reason. UAE shoppers aren’t identical, but the same themes show up in the questions store owners here get every day.

The fixes, in order of impact

1. No surprises on cost

Surprise costs are the single biggest fixable cause.

• Show delivery fees, or “free delivery over AED X”, on product pages and in the cart, not only at the last step.
• Make sure prices shown already include VAT if you sell to consumers, so the total doesn’t jump at checkout. Confirm your setup with your accountant.
• If cash on delivery has a fee, say so before checkout.

2. Delivery promises customers can trust

• Show expected delivery time by emirate, such as “Dubai: next day. Other emirates: 2–3 days”, only if you can keep it.
• Send tracking automatically after dispatch.

3. Guest checkout first

Let people buy without creating an account. Baymard’s testing found that offering account creation at the confirmation step, once the details are already entered, works better than asking up front. Check your platform’s checkout and customer-account settings to make sure an account is never required to pay.

4. Fewer form fields

Baymard found the average checkout in 2024 had 11.3 form fields, while most sites need only about 8. Its five most effective cuts:

1. One “Full name” field instead of first and last name.
2. Hide “Address line 2” behind a link.
3. Hide the coupon field behind a link. A visible empty coupon box sends people off to search for codes.
4. Billing address = delivery address by default, with the billing fields hidden.
5. Delay account creation until after the order.

For UAE addresses, think about what the courier actually needs (area, building, flat or villa number, a landmark, a mobile number) and don’t ask for a postcode if your couriers don’t use one.

5. The payment methods your customers expect

• Cards and wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) through your platform’s payment provider.
• Cash on delivery. Still expected by many UAE shoppers. On Shopify it’s a built-in manual payment method, with no Shopify third-party transaction fee. Have a process for confirming COD orders before dispatch.
• Instalments (buy now, pay later), if your average order value is high enough to justify the fees.

See payment gateways for UAE online stores and Shopify vs WooCommerce for the UAE.

6. Trust at the moment of paying

• A checkout that looks like part of your site (or a well-known hosted checkout), on HTTPS, with no mixed-up branding.
• Your business name, contact details and a returns policy that’s easy to find.
• Real reviews on product pages, not on the payment page.

7. No errors

Test checkout end to end on an iPhone and an Android phone after every theme change, new app or plugin update:

• Pay by card.
• Pay with cash on delivery.
• Use a discount code.
• Enter a wrong card number and check the error message is clear.

Measure before and after

• Checkout completion rate: orders ÷ checkouts started. Your platform’s analytics shows this.
• Where people drop: cart → information → delivery → payment.
• Change one thing at a time and compare equal periods, allowing for sales seasons like Ramadan, White Friday and back-to-school.

When it’s worth getting help

The fixes above are mostly settings and theme changes. If your checkout is heavily customised, you’re unsure how VAT or COD is set up, or abandonment stays high after the basics, a proper audit is worth it. That’s part of our online store service.

Frequently asked questions

What’s a normal abandonment rate for a UAE store?

There’s no reliable public UAE benchmark. Baymard’s ~70% average comes from studies of other markets. Track your own rate and focus on improving it.

Should we add a pop-up discount to stop people leaving?

Fix the causes above first. Exit discounts can teach customers to abandon on purpose to get a code. If you use one, keep it modest and test it.

Do abandoned cart emails count as a fix?

They recover some of what’s lost, and they’re worth running. But they work best alongside a checkout that loses fewer people in the first place.