You spend money getting visitors to your store. They browse, they add a product to the basket, they reach the checkout — and then most of them vanish. Industry-wide, roughly seven in ten baskets are abandoned before payment. That's not a glitch; it's normal shopper behaviour. But a good slice of it is recoverable, and recovering it is some of the cheapest revenue you'll ever earn.
Why people abandon baskets
Abandonment isn't random. The same handful of frustrations come up again and again:
- Unexpected costs — shipping or fees revealed only at the final step.
- Forced account creation — being made to register before buying.
- A long or confusing checkout — too many steps and fields.
- Limited payment options — no Apple Pay, PayPal or pay-later.
- Trust worries — a checkout that looks unpolished or insecure.
- Slow pages — every extra second nudges shoppers away.
Fix the checkout first
Your checkout is where the money is won or lost, so start there. Show the full price — including shipping — as early as possible, ideally on the basket page, so there are no nasty surprises. Offer guest checkout and only invite account creation afterwards. Cut the form down to the fields you genuinely need, and use address lookup to speed up entry.
Add the payment methods UK shoppers expect: cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and a buy-now-pay-later option if it suits your basket sizes. If your checkout feels dated or fiddly, a web design agency can rebuild it around how people actually pay.
Build trust at the moment of payment
Doubt kills conversions. Reassure shoppers right where they hesitate: show a clear returns policy, display security and payment badges near the pay button, and make delivery times explicit. A visible phone number or live chat reassures cautious buyers that a real business stands behind the order.
Recover the baskets you still lose
Even a great checkout won't convert everyone, so set up recovery. An abandoned-cart email sequence — typically one within an hour, a reminder after a day, and a final nudge a couple of days later — recovers a meaningful share of lost baskets. Keep the tone helpful; don't reflexively lead with a discount, or you'll train shoppers to abandon on purpose.
On-site, a gentle exit-intent prompt or a saved basket for returning visitors can also help. Pair this with email automation and you've built a quiet recovery machine. For more on the wider funnel, our digital marketing resources cover email and remarketing in depth.
Speed matters more than you think
A slow store haemorrhages baskets, especially on mobile. Compress images, minimise heavy scripts, and make sure the checkout in particular loads instantly. We cover this fully in our guide to ecommerce site speed, but the headline is simple: faster pages convert more of the traffic you've already paid for.
Measure, then improve
Track your abandonment rate, watch where shoppers drop off in the funnel, and test one change at a time. Small, steady improvements compound into real revenue over a year.
If your checkout is leaking sales and you'd like an expert eye on it, browse vetted UK conversion specialists in our ecommerce developers directory and ask for a checkout audit before your next big marketing push.