Glossary · Conversion
What is checkout abandonment?
Checkout abandonment is a shopper starting the checkout process and leaving before completing payment. It is a narrower and more serious measure than cart abandonment, because reaching checkout is a strong signal of intent: these shoppers had decided to buy, and something stopped them.
- Reviewed 6 October 2026
In more detail
The causes cluster tightly: a cost that appeared at this step, a required field that felt intrusive, a payment method the shopper wanted and did not find, or an error that gave no usable explanation.
On hosted checkouts, Shopify’s included, an app cannot record the checkout page itself, so a tool that claims checkout replay on Shopify is describing something else. What you can use is checkout events, plus diagnosis of everything that happens before checkout, which is where most of the addressable causes sit.
Key points
- A stronger intent signal than cart abandonment, so each loss is worth more.
- Hosted checkouts cannot be replayed: checkout events are the honest instrument.
- Most addressable causes start before checkout, not inside it.
How Liftable relates
Related terms
Guides that go deeper
- Checkout & cart · 3 minDiagnosing checkout drop-off when you can’t see the checkoutShopify’s hosted checkout can’t be recorded, so most checkout problems are diagnosed from the events and the pages before it. A method that works within that.Read
- Checkout & cart · 5 minWhy shoppers abandon carts, and which reasons you can fixCart abandonment averages about 70% in Baymard’s research. Which share is normal shopping behaviour, which you can remove, and the fixes in cost order.Read
Last reviewed against the product on 6 October 2026.
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