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Checkout

Checkout is the sequence of steps after the cart in which a shopper gives contact, delivery and payment details and places the order.

How it works

Checkout begins at the order form and ends with a placed order, often after a final review. Shoppers who have already chosen still leave here. In Baymard Institute’s survey of US online shoppers, the reasons include extra costs, a required account and a long or complicated checkout.

Tracking each step separately shows where shoppers leave. How to measure before fixing: cart abandonment.

Where you see it

  • Google Analytics (GA4): the recommended events begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info and purchase, if the store sends them.
  • Google Ads: begin checkout is one of the conversion action categories (BEGIN_CHECKOUT in the Google Ads API).

Example

Example store, not client data.

In a month, the tableware shop has 1,000 sessions with a cart. Checkout starts in 500 of them, reaches delivery in 410 and payment in 340, and 300 end in an order. Checkout completion = 300 ÷ 500 = 60%. The largest loss comes before the delivery step: 500 − 410 = 90 sessions.

How GetProfit reads it

The portal’s conversion check judges product campaigns only on purchases. It flags a campaign with at least 10 conversions worth 0.8 to 1.2 each on average. Each is then worth about 1, so the campaign probably counts a step, such as a checkout start, rather than a paid order.

Not to be confused with

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “1,000 carts and 300 orders, so checkout loses 70% of shoppers.” Right: checkout starts in 500 sessions and loses 200 of them, or 40%; the other 500 carts were left before it began.

Benchmarks

Benchmark according to Baymard Institute (e-commerce UX benchmark, 2024; its checkout benchmark now covers 343 top-grossing US and EU sites): the average checkout for a new user had 5.1 steps, counted from the cart to the order review, and 11.3 form fields. In Baymard’s view, most sites need only 8 fields. Your niche may differ.

Sources