Cart Abandonment: How Payments & Checkout Affect Ecommerce Conversion

Cart abandonment is often treated as an ecommerce marketing problem.

Sometimes it is.

A customer may add a product to their basket while comparing prices, checking delivery costs or simply saving something for later.

But abandonment can also happen much further down the customer journey — after the shopper has decided to buy and is attempting to pay.

At that point, the problem may sit within:

• checkout design;
• payment-method availability;
• card authentication;
• payment declines;
• mobile usability;
• gateway performance;
• fraud controls;
• customer trust;
• international payment support; or
• the connection between the payment and ecommerce platform.

This distinction matters.

You cannot fix every abandoned shopping basket with a different payment gateway. But if customers are reaching checkout and failing or leaving at payment, the payment setup deserves much closer attention.

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Cart abandonment occurs when a customer places one or more products into an online shopping basket but does not complete the order.

It should be distinguished from checkout abandonment.

A shopper can abandon before checkout even begins.

Checkout abandonment happens after the customer has moved into the buying process but leaves before the order is completed.

Payment abandonment is narrower again.

This happens when the shopper reaches or interacts with the payment stage but the transaction does not result in a completed purchase.

Businesses should measure these stages separately where possible.

If 1,000 people create a basket but only 300 begin checkout, that is a different problem from 900 customers beginning checkout and 200 failing at payment.

What Is the Average Cart Abandonment Rate?

Cart abandonment is extremely common in ecommerce.

Baymard Institute's current aggregation of ecommerce studies places the average documented cart abandonment rate at around 70%.

That does not mean every ecommerce business should expect exactly the same figure.

Abandonment varies according to:

• sector;
• average order value;
• device;
• customer intent;
• traffic source;
• delivery model;
• country;
• customer type;
• checkout design; and
• payment setup.

A customer casually browsing £20 clothing behaves differently from someone completing a £2,000 specialist purchase after speaking with a sales team.

The most useful benchmark is therefore your own abandonment rate over time and the stage at which customers leave.

How to Calculate Cart Abandonment Rate

A commonly used calculation is:

For example:

If 1,000 shopping baskets are created and 300 result in completed purchases:

300 ÷ 1,000 = 0.30

1 − 0.30 = 0.70

0.70 × 100 = 70% cart abandonment

However, this figure alone does not explain why customers left.

For payment optimisation, businesses should also consider measuring:

• cart-to-checkout rate;
• checkout completion rate;
• payment-attempt rate;
• payment authorisation rate;
• payment decline rate;
• 3D Secure completion rate;
• payment-method conversion rate;
• device-specific conversion; and
• country-specific conversion.

Why Do Customers Abandon Shopping Carts?

There is rarely one explanation.

Baymard's current checkout research distinguishes between customers who were simply browsing and those who abandoned because of issues within the purchase journey.

Among shoppers who identify a specific checkout problem, current research highlights issues including:

• unexpected additional costs;
• slow delivery;
• concerns about entering card information;
• forced account creation;
• long or complicated checkout;
• website errors;
• unclear return policies;
• inability to see the total cost early enough;
• card declines; and
• insufficient payment-method choice.

This is useful because it shows why cart abandonment cannot be solved by payments alone.

But several of those causes sit directly within, or very close to, the payment journey.

Where Payments Cause Checkout Abandonment

If customers are leaving after they begin checkout, businesses should examine several payment-specific areas.

1. The customer's preferred payment method is missing

A checkout that accepts Visa and Mastercard may technically support online payments.

That does not mean it supports the way every customer wants to pay.

Depending on the market and customer base, shoppers may expect options such as:

• Apple Pay;
• Google Pay;
• PayPal;
• local bank-payment methods;
• Buy Now, Pay Later;
• local card schemes;
• bank transfers; or
• other alternative payment methods.

Stripe's current payment-method guidance says that, in its own analysis, dynamically presenting one relevant additional payment method beyond cards increased conversion by an average of 7.4%.

That does not mean every merchant will experience the same uplift.

It does demonstrate why payment-method choice should reflect the customer base rather than simply what was easiest for the merchant to integrate.

See our Alternative Payment Method Gateways guide for more information.

Do Apple Pay and Google Pay Reduce Checkout Friction?

Digital wallets can shorten the checkout journey because a customer may already have payment and authentication information configured on their device.

Instead of manually entering:

• card number;
• expiry date;
• security code;
• billing information; and
• other payment details,

the customer may be able to complete the payment using a wallet-supported flow.

This can be particularly useful on mobile devices where manually entering card information is more cumbersome.

However, merely adding a wallet logo does not guarantee improved conversion.

Check:

• whether the gateway supports the wallet;
• whether it is enabled for the relevant countries;
• whether it works correctly on mobile;
• whether the merchant domain has been configured correctly;
• whether the acquiring setup supports the transactions; and
• whether customers actually use that payment method.

Businesses can also read our Google Pay guide for merchants.

Card Declines and Cart Abandonment

A shopper can want the product, complete the checkout correctly and still fail to convert because the payment is declined.

That is different from ordinary cart abandonment.

It is a payment-authorisation problem.

Declines can happen for many reasons, including:

• insufficient funds;
• issuer fraud controls;
• incorrect card information;
• expired cards;
• authentication failure;
• issuer restrictions;
• cross-border transaction concerns;
• gateway or routing configuration; or
• technical failure.

Merchants should therefore separate:

customer chose not to pay

from:

customer attempted to pay but the transaction failed.

Those require different solutions.

Soft Declines vs Hard Declines

Not every declined payment should be treated identically.

Hard decline

A hard decline generally indicates that the transaction should not simply be retried unchanged.

Examples can include invalid or permanently unusable payment credentials.

Soft decline

A soft decline may indicate a temporary or recoverable failure.

Depending on the reason, the customer may be able to:

• authenticate;
• try again;
• use another card;
• choose another payment method; or
• complete the transaction through a different permitted payment path.

The gateway and PSP should return useful response information so the merchant can decide what experience to present next.

A generic:

“Payment failed.”

with no sensible recovery journey can turn a temporary issue into permanent abandonment.

3D Secure, SCA and Checkout Friction

Online card payments can also require customer authentication.

In the UK, Strong Customer Authentication rules apply to relevant electronic payment transactions, subject to the applicable rules and exemptions.

For online card payments, 3D Secure is widely used to support authentication.

Older authentication experiences developed a reputation for:

• redirects;
• password friction;
• poor mobile experiences;
• failed authentication; and
• customer confusion.

Modern 3D Secure 2 flows are designed to allow substantially more transaction and risk information to be exchanged.

Depending on the transaction and issuer decision, some authentication can take place with relatively little visible customer interaction while higher-risk transactions may require an additional challenge.

The objective is not:

“remove authentication to increase conversion.”

It is:

apply the required security while avoiding unnecessary friction for genuine customers.

Adyen's current 3D Secure guidance similarly focuses on balancing payment authentication, fraud controls and conversion.

Can SCA Exemptions Reduce Checkout Friction?

UK Strong Customer Authentication rules contain exemptions that payment service providers can use where the relevant conditions are met.

Businesses should not attempt to bypass SCA themselves.

Instead, merchants with meaningful ecommerce volumes should ask their provider:

• how 3D Secure is configured;
• which transactions are sent for authentication;
• how exemptions are handled;
• how soft declines requiring authentication are recovered;
• how authentication performance is reported; and
• whether optimisation is dynamic or based on fixed rules.

The Financial Conduct Authority's Strong Customer Authentication guidance confirms that SCA is intended to increase payment security and limit fraud, while the detailed UK technical standards provide for exemptions in specified circumstances.

Forced Account Creation Can Lose Customers

A customer who is prepared to pay does not necessarily want to create a permanent account.

Baymard's checkout research continues to identify forced account creation as a significant source of checkout abandonment.

Businesses should therefore question whether registration is genuinely required before purchase.

A better flow may allow:

Guest Checkout → Payment → Optional Account Creation

rather than:

Create Account → Verify Account → Log In → Return to Basket → Pay

There are legitimate reasons for requiring accounts in some business models.

But it should be a deliberate requirement rather than an accidental barrier created by the ecommerce platform.

Unexpected Costs Can Destroy Checkout Conversion

One of the most consistent findings in checkout research is that shoppers dislike discovering additional costs late in the journey.

Those costs can include:

• delivery;
• taxes;
• service charges;
• booking fees;
• currency conversion;
• minimum-order charges; or
• other unexpected additions.

Baymard's current 2026 research identifies additional costs as the most commonly cited checkout-related reason for abandonment among the surveyed shoppers who gave a specific reason for leaving.

Where possible, show the customer the total cost before they invest significant effort in checkout.

This is particularly important for international ecommerce, where delivery, duties, taxes and currencies can make the final price substantially different from the initial product price.

Mobile Checkout and Cart Abandonment

A checkout that works comfortably on a desktop computer can still perform badly on a phone.

Mobile problems can include:

• small form fields;
• poor keyboard behaviour;
• too many fields;
• slow loading;
• buttons obscured by the screen;
• authentication redirects;
• payment pages not optimised for mobile;
• copy-and-paste problems;
• session expiry; and
• customers having to manually enter information already stored on their device.

Businesses should therefore analyse checkout conversion by device.

If desktop checkout converts strongly but mobile collapses at the payment stage, investigate the mobile payment journey rather than simply assuming mobile customers are less likely to buy.

How Many Checkout Fields Do You Really Need?

Every additional requirement can create friction.

Ask whether the payment journey genuinely needs to collect information such as:

• date of birth;
• telephone number;
• second address line;
• marketing preferences;
• account password;
• company information;
• gender;
• unnecessary delivery information; or
• data already collected elsewhere.

This does not mean removing information that is operationally, legally or commercially necessary.

It means separating:

information required to complete the transaction

from:

information the business would simply like to collect.

Baymard's current checkout research continues to identify overly long and complicated checkout processes as a material reason customers leave.

Hosted Checkout vs Embedded Checkout

How the payment page is delivered can also affect the customer experience.

Hosted checkout

The customer is sent to a payment page hosted by the payment provider.

This can reduce some of the technical and security burden on the merchant, but the transition should still feel trustworthy and work properly across devices.

Embedded checkout

Payment functionality is presented within the merchant's own website or application while the underlying payment technology is supplied by the provider.

This can create a more integrated customer journey, but implementation quality matters.

The right choice depends on:

• brand requirements;
• development resources;
• PCI implications;
• payment methods;
• ecommerce platform;
• international requirements;
• customisation; and
• the provider's available integration methods.

The objective should be a checkout that customers understand and can complete reliably.

Payment Gateway Speed and Reliability

A checkout can be beautifully designed and still lose customers if the payment technology fails.

Technical issues can include:

• slow payment-page loading;
• gateway timeouts;
• API errors;
• authentication problems;
• incorrect webhook handling;
• duplicate payment attempts;
• failed redirects;
• poor mobile integrations;
• payment-method configuration errors; and
• provider outages.

The merchant should be able to distinguish:

customer abandonment

from:

technical payment failure.

If analytics simply show both as an incomplete order, a serious payment problem can remain hidden.

Do More Payment Methods Always Increase Conversion?

No.

Adding payment methods indiscriminately can create a cluttered checkout and additional technical complexity.

The goal is not to display every payment method available globally.

It is to show relevant payment methods to the right customers.

Factors can include:

• customer country;
• currency;
• device;
• order value;
• customer preference;
• merchant sector;
• cost;
• risk; and
• provider support.

Adyen, for example, provides functionality allowing merchants to configure payment methods by country and dynamically order payment methods according to conversion or cost objectives.

This demonstrates a wider principle:

payment-method strategy should be contextual rather than simply creating the longest possible list at checkout.

International Ecommerce Needs Local Payment Thinking

A checkout designed around UK payment habits may perform poorly in another country.

Customers in different markets may prefer:

• different wallets;
• local bank payments;
• domestic card schemes;
• cash-based methods;
• Buy Now, Pay Later;
• local currencies; or
• other region-specific payment methods.

For an international merchant, therefore, cart abandonment can sometimes be a localisation problem disguised as a checkout problem.

If customers reach checkout in one country but consistently fail to complete, investigate:

• currency;
• payment methods;
• issuer decline rates;
• local acquiring;
• authentication;
• language;
• delivery;
• tax presentation; and
• customer trust.

Fraud Rules Can Also Block Genuine Customers

Fraud controls are essential.

But overly aggressive fraud rules can decline or delay genuine transactions.

This creates a difficult balance:

Merchants should therefore monitor:

• fraud rate;
• chargebacks;
• false-positive declines;
• authorisation rates;
• 3D Secure performance;
• manual-review rates;
• country performance;
• payment-method performance; and
• customer-support complaints around payment failures.

A fraud strategy should protect the business without treating every genuine customer as suspicious.

What Happens After a Payment Fails?

The recovery journey matters almost as much as the initial payment attempt.

A failed payment page should ideally help the customer understand what to do next without exposing inappropriate technical information.

Depending on the failure, the customer may be able to:

• check entered information;
• authenticate the transaction;
• use a different card;
• use a digital wallet;
• choose another payment method;
• contact their bank; or
• return safely to checkout.

Do not automatically empty the customer's basket because one payment attempt fails.

The customer has already demonstrated strong purchase intent.

Should You Retry Failed Card Payments?

Potentially, but retries should depend on the type of transaction and the reason for failure.

Blindly resubmitting a transaction repeatedly is not a payment optimisation strategy.

The business or payment provider should distinguish between circumstances where:

• authentication is required;
• another payment method should be requested;
• a temporary retry could be appropriate;
• the issuer has given a permanent decline; or
• the customer needs to take another action.

This is particularly important for recurring and subscription payments, where failed-payment recovery can involve a different process from a one-off ecommerce purchase.

Cart Abandonment vs Payment Failure: Measure the Difference

This is one of the most useful changes an established ecommerce business can make.

Instead of reporting:

“Our abandonment rate is 68%.”

break the funnel down.

If customers disappear between cart and checkout, investigate commercial and UX issues.

If customers disappear between payment attempt and authorisation, investigate the payment stack.

If payments are authorised but orders do not complete, investigate the integration.

Those are three very different problems.

Can Payment Orchestration Reduce Failed Payments?

For larger merchants, one payment provider may not always be the only route available.

Payment orchestration can allow businesses to manage several payment providers, acquirers or payment methods through a more centralised payment layer.

Depending on the implementation, this can support areas such as:

• transaction routing;
• provider resilience;
• local acquiring;
• payment-method management;
• international expansion;
• failover; and
• payment optimisation.

This does not mean every business with cart abandonment needs an orchestration platform.

It is usually relevant where payment volumes, countries or provider architecture justify the additional complexity.

For most merchants, fixing the existing checkout and payment configuration should come first.

Checkout Conversion Is Not Just About the Lowest Processing Fee

Consider two gateways.

Gateway A costs slightly less per transaction but has:

• limited wallet support;
• poor international payment coverage;
• weak mobile checkout;
• limited reporting; and
• lower payment authorisation performance for the merchant's customer mix.

Gateway B costs slightly more but provides:

• better payment-method coverage;
• a stronger mobile journey;
• better authentication tooling;
• international payment support;
• more useful decline information; and
• a better integration with the ecommerce platform.

A transaction fee viewed in isolation cannot tell the merchant which setup produces the better commercial outcome.

The relevant calculation is closer to:

payment cost + successful conversion + fraud + operational cost + customer experience.

Our Payment Gateway Fees UK guide explains why gateway costs should be compared alongside functionality rather than on price alone.

How to Audit Checkout Abandonment

Rather than making random checkout changes, work through the customer journey in order.

1. Identify where customers leave

Cart, delivery, account creation, payment selection, authentication or post-payment confirmation?

2. Split the data by device

Desktop and mobile performance can be very different.

3. Split by country

International problems can be hidden inside a healthy overall conversion figure.

4. Split by payment method

Do some payment methods convert substantially better than others?

5. Review declines

What proportion of customers attempt to pay but receive a decline?

6. Review authentication

Are customers failing during 3D Secure or another authentication process?

7. Test the journey yourself

Complete checkout on different phones, browsers and payment methods.

8. Review technical errors

Look for gateway, API, webhook and integration failures.

9. Review pricing and delivery information

Make sure customers understand the actual purchase cost before the final step.

10. Measure changes

Change one meaningful part of the journey and monitor the result rather than redesigning everything simultaneously.

The MAS Checkout & Payment Test

Intent

Was the customer genuinely ready to purchase?

Checkout

Is the journey understandable, mobile-friendly and proportionate?

Payment choice

Can customers use the payment methods relevant to them?

Authentication

Does the security journey work properly without unnecessary friction?

Authorisation

Are genuine payment attempts being approved?

Integration

Does the gateway correctly return the payment result to the ecommerce platform?

Order completion

Does a successful payment reliably become a confirmed order?

This makes it much easier to identify whether the problem belongs to marketing, UX, payments or technology.

How Merchant Advice Service Helps With Ecommerce Payment Conversion

Merchant Advice Service is not a conversion-rate optimisation agency.

Our role is to help businesses understand whether the payment setup is contributing to checkout problems and what a replacement or additional provider may need to support.

That can include:

• payment gateways;
• merchant accounts;
• digital wallets;
• alternative payment methods;
• international payments;
• local acquiring;
• 3D Secure;
• payment authentication;
• fraud tooling;
• payment routing;
• ecommerce integrations;
• mobile checkout;
• gateway migration;
• multiple acquirers; and
• more complex payment architecture.

The aim is to understand where the customer journey is failing before deciding that changing provider is the answer.

You can also browse payment gateway providers through The Payments Directory®.

Editorial Note

This guide is written and reviewed by Merchant Advice Service to help ecommerce businesses understand how checkout design, payment methods, authentication, payment declines and gateway technology can contribute to cart and checkout abandonment.

Merchant Advice Service is an independent payment advice and provider-matching service. We are not a conversion-rate optimisation agency, ecommerce platform or payment processor.

Conversion results depend on the individual website, products, customers, traffic, checkout and payment environment. References to third-party research or provider results should not be interpreted as a guarantee that the same outcome will apply to another business.

Our information, matching and introduction service is free to businesses. MAS may receive commission or a referral fee from some commercial partners where an introduction results in a completed product or account.

Related Merchant Advice Service Content

Payment Gateway Advice
Our main guide to choosing a payment gateway, including ecommerce checkout, integrations, alternative payment methods, recurring payments, international support and more complex payment requirements.

Alternative Payment Method Gateways
Explains how wallets, bank payments, local payment methods and other alternatives to conventional card entry can form part of an ecommerce checkout.

Google Pay for Merchants
Further information on accepting Google Pay for ecommerce and mobile payment journeys.

Payment Gateway Fees UK
Explains gateway, acquiring, transaction, alternative-payment-method, international and other costs businesses should compare alongside checkout capability.

Compare UK Payment Providers
A wider framework for comparing payment providers around functionality, integrations, settlement, support, risk appetite and total cost rather than one advertised rate.

Integrated Payments UK
For businesses where the payment gateway must connect with ecommerce, CRM, ERP or other software and return transaction results reliably.

Sources & References

Baymard Institute – Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
Baymard's current aggregation of ecommerce cart-abandonment research and quantitative data on why customers abandon shopping carts and checkouts.

Baymard Institute – How to Reduce Cart Abandonment
2026 checkout UX research covering avoidable abandonment caused by areas including additional costs, forced account creation, checkout friction and other usability problems.

Stripe – Adding Payment Methods to Checkout
Current Stripe research and guidance covering payment-method choice, customer preferences and the relationship between relevant payment methods and checkout conversion.

Adyen – 3D Secure and Checkout Conversion
Current guidance explaining 3D Secure 2, authentication, fraud protection and the balance between security requirements and checkout friction.

Adyen – Checkout Settings and Payment Method Optimisation
Technical documentation covering payment-method configuration by market and dynamic payment-method ordering based on conversion or cost objectives.

Financial Conduct Authority – Strong Customer Authentication
Official FCA guidance on Strong Customer Authentication requirements applying to electronic payments and the objective of improving payment security and limiting fraud.

FCA Handbook – Exemptions From Strong Customer Authentication
The current UK technical standards covering circumstances in which payment service providers may apply specified exemptions from Strong Customer Authentication.