# How to Reduce Cart Abandonment in WooCommerce: 10 Fixes That Work > Most carts never become orders. Here’s why shoppers leave, and ten fixes for a WooCommerce store, from the cart to the checkout to the email afterwards. Source: https://nanflows.com/blog/reduce-cart-abandonment-woocommerce Published: 2026-10-15 · Updated: 2026-10-15 By: Nanflows team About: Nanflows sliding cart (https://nanflows.com/products/nanflows-sliding-cart) **In short:** about 7 in 10 online carts are abandoned. The biggest causes are surprise costs, forced accounts and a long checkout. To reduce cart abandonment in WooCommerce, show the full cost early, keep the cart on the page with a side cart, allow guest checkout, add express payments, cut checkout fields and send a reminder email. Most of these are settings, not projects. ## How many carts are abandoned? The Baymard Institute averages dozens of studies of online cart abandonment, and the figure has sat around **70%** for years. So for every 10 shoppers who add something to the cart, about 3 buy. Some of that you can’t win back. Plenty of people use the cart as a wishlist, or to check a total. But a lot of it comes from things the store controls. ![A sample cart funnel: 1,000 carts, 480 checkouts, 300 orders, and the fixes for each step](https://nanflows.com/img/blog/abandon-funnel.svg) *Carts are lost in two places: before checkout and during it. Each has its own fixes.* ## Why shoppers leave In Baymard’s survey of shoppers who abandoned an order, the most common reason by far was **extra costs**: shipping, tax or fees that showed up late. Roughly half gave it. After that came: - Being made to **create an account**. - A checkout that was **too long or complicated**. - Not **trusting the site** with card details. - Not being able to **see the total** before checkout. - **Slow delivery**, or returns they didn’t like. Each of the fixes below goes after one of these. ## Fixes in the cart ### 1. Show the full cost early Surprise costs are the top reason, so don’t save them for the last step. Show shipping and tax in the cart, not only at checkout. If you offer free shipping above an amount, say so on product pages and in the cart. ### 2. Keep the cart on the page When the cart is a separate page, every add to cart is a trip away from what the shopper was browsing. A [side cart](https://nanflows.com/blog/how-to-add-a-side-cart-to-woocommerce) slides in over the page instead. It confirms the item went in, shows the total with shipping and tax, and puts checkout one tap away. The free [Nanflows Sliding Cart](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nanflows-sliding-cart/) does this in a few minutes. ![A side cart with quantities, a coupon link, subtotal, shipping and the total](https://nanflows.com/img/blog/cart-drawer.svg) *The total, shipping included, before the shopper reaches checkout.* ### 3. Let shoppers fix the cart where they are Changing a quantity, switching a size or removing an item shouldn’t mean another page. In a side cart all of that happens in place, and sale prices show what the shopper is saving. ### 4. Give them a reason to finish now A free shipping goal turns “shipping costs $5” into “add $12 more and shipping is free”. Set it a little above your average order, and show progress in the cart. See how to add a free shipping progress bar. ![A free shipping progress bar in the side cart with three milestones](https://nanflows.com/img/blog/cart-rewards.svg) *A goal the shopper can see, with the amount still to go.* ## Fixes at checkout ### 5. Allow guest checkout In **WooCommerce → Settings → Accounts & Privacy**, tick “Allow customers to place orders without an account”. You can still offer to create an account after the order, when it costs the shopper nothing. ### 6. Add express payments Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal skip most of the form. WooPayments, Stripe and PayPal’s own plugin offer them. If your payment plugin has mini-cart buttons, Nanflows Sliding Cart shows them in the side cart too, so a shopper can pay without seeing the checkout page at all. ### 7. Cut the fields Every field is a reason to stop. Drop the company name and the second address line unless you need them, and don’t ask for a phone number unless the courier does. The WooCommerce Checkout block makes this a setting on each field. ### 8. Show that the store is safe Payment logos, your returns policy and a contact email near the checkout button help first-time buyers. Keep SSL on, and make sure there are no mixed-content warnings. ## Fixes after they leave ### 9. Send a reminder email WooCommerce doesn’t send abandoned cart emails by itself. Your email tool or a recovery plugin can: one email an hour or so later, with the cart, is the one that matters most. Only email shoppers who gave consent, and don’t open with a discount, or people learn to wait for one. ### 10. Catch them before they go An exit intent popup with free shipping or a guide can catch some shoppers on the way out. [Nanflows Popup](https://nanflows.com/products/nanflows-popup) does exit intent in Pro. Keep it to one offer per visit, and never on top of the checkout. ## Measure before and after Change one thing at a time and give it a few weeks. In **WooCommerce → Analytics**, watch orders and conversion, not only revenue. If you add a free shipping goal, also watch the average order value. Done right, both go up. More on that in [how to increase average order value](https://nanflows.com/blog/how-to-increase-average-order-value). ## Get it - **Free side cart:** [Nanflows Sliding Cart on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nanflows-sliding-cart/). - **Pro:** free shipping goals, rewards, upsells and cart analytics on the [Nanflows Sliding Cart page](https://nanflows.com/products/nanflows-sliding-cart), $29 a year for one site. - **What it covers:** the [WooCommerce sliding cart](https://nanflows.com/woocommerce-sliding-cart), free and Pro, on one page. - **Compare:** [the best WooCommerce sliding cart plugins](https://nanflows.com/best-woocommerce-sliding-cart-plugins). ## FAQ ### What is a good cart abandonment rate? The average is around 70%, by the Baymard Institute’s count. Compare your store with itself, month to month, rather than with other stores. Mobile is usually higher than desktop. ### What is the main cause of cart abandonment? Extra costs shown late, such as shipping, tax and fees. Roughly half of shoppers who abandoned an order gave it as a reason in Baymard’s survey. Showing the total early is the single biggest fix. ### Does a side cart reduce cart abandonment? It removes one step, the cart page, and shows the total with shipping before checkout. That helps with two common reasons for leaving: a long process and not seeing the total. Measure your own checkout rate before and after. ### How do I recover abandoned carts in WooCommerce? WooCommerce doesn’t send recovery emails by itself. Use your email marketing tool or a cart recovery plugin to send a reminder about an hour after the cart is left, to shoppers who agreed to email.