5 barriers to great cart conversion rates—and how to fix them

Consumers love browsing online stores even more than they do physical stores or even social media.

According to Klaviyo’s 2025 BFCM forecast, 56% of shoppers find browsing online stores most influential when looking for holiday gift ideas, vs. 53% for in-store browsing and 26% for social media.

But on-site shoppers are also quick to change their minds. They abandon product pages without putting items in their cart and, most importantly, they abandon their carts without making a purchase 70% of the time, according to the Baymard Institute.

Cart conversion rate—the percentage of customers who start a cart and ultimately complete their purchase—is the opposing metric to cart abandonment rate. And it’s one of the most important metrics for tracking the efficiency of your check-out process.

Your online store may generate tons of traffic, but visitors won’t convert if you neglect your check-out process. When you understand your own cart conversion baseline, you can spot areas for improvement.

So, how can you increase cart conversions? Here are 5 reasons your cart conversion rates may be low, with recommendations for how to solve the problems.

1. Unexpected friction during check-out

According to the Baymard Institute, nearly 1 in 5 consumers have bailed on their purchase because the check-out process was long or complicated. As customers move through the shopping journey, they may drop off due to unexpected friction or information that comes too late.

Shoppers should be able to complete their purchases in as few clicks as possible. If they’re forced to re-enter information multiple times or click through several pages to get to the final step, they may lose patience and ultimately abandon their cart. Lag time, broken autofill, and too many call-to-action buttons can all add friction to the check-out process.

And if slow shipping estimates come as a surprise after the customer has completed multiple steps to purchase, more problems arise. This is especially problematic for international customers who may be delighted that your products are available to them, only to be disappointed at the final step when they find out shipping is either expensive or slow.

The solution: optimized check-out design

The Baymard Institute reports that the average large-sized ecommerce site can improve conversion rates by 35% with better check-out design. It’s important to go through the check-out process yourself on a regular basis to make sure you would want to engage with it as a customer.

The more transparent you can be up front, the less likely a shopper is to drop off later. Here’s what you can do to improve your check-out process:

• Add smart progress indicators.
• Allow guest check-outs.
• Autofill known information.
• Create mobile-friendly check-out pages with bigger buttons or fewer fields.
• Offer multiple payment options.
• Show clear shipping and delivery timelines based on zip code or region, and make it clear when customers are eligible for free or discounted shipping.
• Make it easy to update (number, size, color) or remove items.
• Let customers save items for later—and send them automated reminders about those items via email, text message, mobile push, or WhatsApp.

Another option is to use an AI shopping assistant to answer common product, shipping, delivery, and returns policy questions as people browse. You may even find shoppers have questions beyond product delivery, which presents a great opportunity to gather customer data you can later use to personalize the shopping experience even further.

2. Marketing that doesn’t address the customer lifecycle

High traffic volume is only valuable if you can turn that traffic into conversions. If you have strong traffic but low conversion rates, your marketing messages may not be segmented enough to match buying intent.

Customers who are placing items in carts are either in the consideration or conversion stage of the customer lifecycle. But not every customer has the same intent.

Frequent purchasers, for example, expect personalized recommendations based on past purchases—and they may churn if they aren’t receiving them. Similarly, if a customer is new to your brand and they haven’t received a discount on a first purchase, they may move on to a competitor with a better introductory offer.

Brands that don’t personalize their marketing efforts to individual customers may see higher cart abandonment rates because they haven’t properly encouraged those shoppers to convert.

The solution: customer lifecycle segmentation and targeting

Personalization and timing play a big role in getting a customer from browsing to purchase completion. Segment and target audiences by behavior, purchase history, and intent to make sure messages feel relevant.

Here are some examples of well-timed, personalized offers:

• Replenishment reminders based on anticipated next order date
• Loyalty points offers after a certain number of purchases
• First-time buyer discounts in exchange for an self-service customer hub sign-up
• Abandoned cart reminders with reviews for abandoned products

Home fragrance brand Happy Wax, for example, uses personalized customer reviews in their abandoned cart reminders to highlight the exact product someone abandoned. This automated flow with reviews is driving more clicks and more revenue per recipient.

3. Clunky mobile experiences

According to Klaviyo’s 2025 future of consumer marketing report, mobile websites are the most popular purchasing channel across B2C retail, hotels, and wellness brands.

This is important because navigating a complicated check-out process on a mobile phone can be particularly frustrating, which can lead to more abandonment.

The Baymard Institute found that some of the biggest user experience (UX) mistakes in mobile check-out are:

• Bringing up the wrong keyboard layout for different check-out steps, such as numbers for credit cards and the @ symbol for email
• Using autocorrect for fields like email address
• Requiring buyers to use “Apply” buttons to save information

The solution: a mobile-friendly check-out process

Every second counts, literally. According to research from Portent, sites that load in 1 second have 3x higher conversion rates than sites that load in 5 seconds.

To improve your mobile shopping experience, ask yourself the following questions:

• Order review: How easily can customers update their cart, adjust quantities, or make changes on mobile?
• Autofill: How often do shoppers need to fill out their information? If they need to tap on several fields, are they large enough?
• Account log-in: How are customers able to log into their account or use guest check-out? Can they log in with Google or Apple?
• Payment flow and methods: Can customers use saved payment methods or mobile wallets?
• Shopper support: Can mobile visitors easily chat with an AI shopping assistant via text, WhatsApp, or mobile web chat to get help if they need it?

4. Limited payment options

According to Baymard, 1 in 10 consumers will not complete check-out if there aren’t enough payment options.

This tracks with recent research from Stripe, which found that showing at least one additional relevant payment option beyond credit cards led to a 12% rise in revenue and a 7.4% increase in conversions. Specifically, the biggest impact came from offering local payment options, digital wallets, and bank debits.

When shoppers reach check-out but don’t see their preferred payment method, many abandon their purchase altogether. Consumers might not have their credit cards handy, or they may want to use their loyalty points but don’t see any way to do so at check-out.

Shoppers are looking for a wide range of options, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay, interest-free installment plans, credit cards, and debit cards.

The solution: add more payment options

Tools like Stripe integrate directly with many CRMs and ecommerce storefronts. They allow businesses to accept payments via 125+ global options like Google Pay, Apple Pay, Afterpay, Klarna, PayPal, all major credit cards, and bank transfers.

And payment management tools like Chargebee and Recurly give you the option to manage subscription payments at check-out, which makes it easy for customers to claim discounts and re-order.

To make it even easier for customers, create a personalized account experience in your self-service customer hub where they can manage their orders, update their subscriptions, and redeem loyalty points.

5. Unanswered last-minute product questions

PowerReviews research found that nearly 1 in 4 consumers aren’t as likely to buy a product if there aren’t Q&As on the product page.

Consumers rely on Q&As, FAQs, customer reviews, and details from live chats with either AI or human agents while they shop. Without this information, they often aren’t confident enough to go through with a purchase.

Klaviyo’s 2025 AI shopping index even found that 6 in 10 consumers who have recently used AI shopping assistants have changed where they shop because another website or app had an AI shopping assistant.

Even when a customer is moments away from purchasing, last-minute doubts and questions can derail the sale. If product details like sizing, compatibility, returns, or warranty details aren’t immediately clear, shoppers may hesitate.

The solution: AI customer agents, FAQs, and reviews

Add as much detail as you can to product detail pages. Add FAQ sections and include searchable reviews or user-generated content (UGC).

“When UGC content is embedded in product description pages and woven into the brand story, it can help support a buying decision within that session—without the shopper leaving the website,” says Ben Zettler, founder of Zettler Digital.

UGC and customer reviews “provide answers to questions about your product that you didn’t even think of having an answer to yet,” says Kathryn Browning, former marketing director at Justuno.

And according to Klaviyo’s 2025 online shopping report, 53% of respondents said they would prefer to receive instant help from an AI agent than email a customer service representative.

An AI shopping assistant can instantly answer customer questions about sizing, return policies, and more. And when it’s easy for customers to add items directly to their cart while chatting with an AI agent, you eliminate steps to completing a purchase.

Increase cart conversion rates with K:AI Customer Agent

Klaviyo’s AI shopping index found that 77% of consumers have made a purchase because an AI shopping assistant made the experience easier, faster, or better.

K:AI Customer Agent is your brand’s 24/7 personalized AI shopping assistant, built to resolve issues, recommend products, and convert customers. It can:

• Provide real-time responses about sizing, shipping, order status, and more, all powered by your product catalog and help documentation.
• Help customers buy the products they need with personalized product recommendations.
• Handle post-purchase tasks automatically, like returns or subscription updates.
• Reach customers via web chat, SMS, RCS, and email, and WhatsApp.
• Create custom answers for brand-specific questions with PDFs, documents, or guides.
• Route any questions your AI can’t answer to Klaviyo Helpdesk, where human agents can respond.

Klaviyo is the AI-first B2C CRM that unifies data, marketing, service, and analytics in one platform.