Most people who put something in an online cart never pay for it. Baymard Institute, which has been collecting studies on this for years, puts the average cart abandonment rate at around 70 percent. Some of that is people browsing, saving items for later or comparing prices, and no store can fix it.
The rest has causes, and they're fairly predictable. In Baymard's own surveys the most common reason people give is extra costs that show up late in checkout. Close behind are being made to create an account, delivery that's too slow, not seeing the total up front, and not trusting the site with a card. A small store that has just opened gets hit hardest by the last one, because nobody has heard of it yet.
We built and run the online store for Velvéa, a gift basket shop in Mississauga that opened in September 2026 with no reviews and a new domain. This post goes through the checkout problems a small store faces, and what Velvéa does about each one. Most of it applies to any small shop, not only gifts.
Problem 1: the delivery fee arrives last
The pattern is familiar. The product page says $99.99. The buyer adds it to the cart, enters an address, and on the last screen the total is $25 higher. Some of that is tax, which buyers expect. The delivery fee is the part they didn't see coming, and it's the point where many of them close the tab.
Small stores often do this without meaning to. The shipping app only calculates a fee once it has an address, so the fee can't appear any earlier, and nobody writes the range down anywhere else.
What Velvéa does. Delivery is priced from the postal code, and the buyer can see the exact fee as soon as they enter it, before payment. Before that point the fee isn't hidden either. Every product page says how delivery is priced, and each of the eleven GTA cities Velvéa delivers to has its own page with the fee and the same-day cutoff written on it: Mississauga from $9.99, the rest of the nearby GTA from $14.99. Someone in Brampton knows the delivery cost before they've picked a basket.
Those city pages read their numbers from the same delivery zones checkout uses to charge. When the owner changes a fee in the admin panel, the city page changes with it. A shop that advertises one fee and charges another loses the sale, and possibly earns a complaint as well.
For your store: put the delivery cost, or at least its range, somewhere a buyer sees it before the cart. If it varies by area, a short table on a delivery page does more than a line in the footer saying "calculated at checkout."
Problem 2: nobody says when it will arrive
For a lot of purchases, the question isn't "how much is shipping" but "will it get there by Saturday." A gift is the extreme case: the buyer is working to a birthday, a funeral or a closing date, and a basket that arrives a day late is worth less than nothing. Baymard lists slow delivery as one of the top reasons for leaving, and an unknown delivery date is arguably worse, because the buyer can't plan around it.
What Velvéa does. The delivery promise is on the product itself: same-day in the GTA if ordered by the city's cutoff, next-day for the outer regions, tracked courier for the rest of Ontario. The store also refuses to make promises it can't keep, which matters as much as making them.
- The cutoff is checked on the server, not only in the browser. In the first weeks we found a buyer could open checkout before the 1 p.m. cutoff and still pick same-day at 1:30. That's now checked when the order is placed.
- Each delivery day has a capacity. Velvéa delivers GTA orders with its own team, so there's a real limit to how many stops fit in one evening. Once a day is full, same-day disappears from checkout and the next order moves to the next open day. The buyer sees the real date before paying, not an apology afterwards.
- Some products are marked local-only. Fresh flowers and chocolate-heavy baskets don't survive days in a courier truck, and checkout warns the buyer before payment if the address can't get one.
For your store: state a delivery window on the product page and make sure checkout enforces it. If your capacity is limited, build that limit into checkout rather than relying on the owner to catch it.
Problem 3: the buyer has never heard of you
A big retailer is trusted by default. A new shop has to earn it on one page, in the minute or two the buyer spends deciding. With no reviews yet, the only material available is the site itself, and vague copy works against you. "Premium quality" and "fast delivery" are on every site and tell the buyer nothing.
What Velvéa does. It answers the buyer's actual questions in plain text, next to the Add to bag button:
- What exactly is inside? A written list, item by item. The Rosé Radiance basket says it holds eleven things and names them.
- Will it arrive in time, and what will delivery cost? As above, on the page.
- Will the recipient see the price? No. The message card is included and the packing slip carries no prices.
- What if something is out of stock? Baskets are packed to order, so occasionally an item runs out. The terms say, before payment and again in the confirmation email, that any substitute will be of equal or greater value and keep the basket's look.
We also went through the whole site before launch and removed anything that wasn't true. The store template linked to Facebook, Pinterest and TikTok accounts that didn't exist, so those went. The FAQ mentioned a feature that was switched off, so the answer now follows the same switch as the feature. A buyer who clicks a dead social link on a shop they've never heard of has a good reason to wonder what else isn't real.
Reviews come later, from real customers, and Velvéa's admin panel holds each new one for the owner to approve. We don't recommend seeding a new store with reviews from friends or family. Google prohibits it on Business Profiles, as we covered in how to get Google reviews, and buyers are good at spotting it on product pages too.
Problem 4: the buyer wanted something slightly different
Some buyers leave because the product is almost right. For gifts this is common: the basket is perfect except the recipient doesn't eat chocolate, or the buyer wants something added for a colleague. The store has no way to say yes, so the buyer goes elsewhere.
What Velvéa does. Every product page has an "Ask about or change this basket" box that opens a custom basket request form with the product already attached. The owner replies with a quote. It was added in October, a few weeks after launch, and it brought in five custom orders in its first three weeks. Those were buyers who would otherwise have had no way to ask.
For your store: if you hear the same question by email or Instagram message more than twice, it belongs on the product page, either as an answer or as a way to ask.
Problem 5: the buyer got distracted
Some buyers mean to come back and don't. A phone call, a meeting, a child. These are the carts a reminder email can recover, because the buyer still wants the item.
What Velvéa does. One email per abandoned checkout, sent while the gift may still be needed, not a sequence of three. If you do add a discount to reminders, be aware that buyers learn quickly to leave a cart and wait for the code.
The email follows Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation. The CRTC's guidance is that a commercial electronic message needs consent, must identify the sender with working contact details, and must include an unsubscribe link that works. A cart reminder counts as commercial, so all three apply.
A checklist for your own checkout
Before spending money on ads to bring more people to a store, it's worth checking that the people already arriving aren't leaving for reasons you control:
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Delivery cost visible before the cart | Surprise costs are the most common reason buyers leave |
| A delivery date on the product page | Buyers working to a date won't guess |
| Cutoffs and capacity enforced at checkout | A promise the store can't keep turns a sale into a complaint |
| Contents, sizes and details written as text | Photos don't answer specific questions, and search can't read them |
| A clear policy for stock problems | Buyers want to know what happens before they pay |
| No dead links or claims that aren't true | A new shop has no reputation to absorb a broken promise |
| A way to ask about changes | "Almost right" buyers have nowhere else to go |
| One reminder email that follows CASL | Recovers distracted buyers without training them to wait |
The same written facts help with search too. Google's merchant listing guidance asks for price, availability, shipping and return details in product markup, and AI assistants can only recommend a product whose price and contents they can read. A checkout that answers the buyer's questions usually answers the search engine's as well.
If your store gets visits but not orders, see our e-commerce development service, read how we launched Velvéa, or book a call and we'll look at where your buyers are stopping.
Frequently asked
What is a normal cart abandonment rate for an online store?
Baymard Institute's average across dozens of studies is around 70 percent, so most carts are never paid for on any store. A small store shouldn't aim for zero. It should find out where its own buyers stop and remove the reasons it controls, such as surprise costs, missing delivery dates and an unclear returns or substitution policy.
Why do people abandon their cart at checkout?
In Baymard's surveys the most common reason, year after year, is extra costs that appear late: shipping, taxes and fees. Other common reasons are being made to create an account, delivery that's too slow, not being able to see the total up front, and not trusting the site with card details. A brand-new store is especially exposed to the last one.
Can a Canadian online store send abandoned cart emails?
Yes, but they're commercial electronic messages under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation. The CRTC's guidance is that a commercial message needs consent, must identify the sender with contact details, and must include a working unsubscribe link. Keep it to one reminder, sent while the buyer may still want the item.
How does a new online store with no reviews earn trust?
By being specific. Show the full price, the delivery fee and the delivery date before payment, list exactly what the buyer will receive, say what happens if something is out of stock, and make sure every claim on the site is something the business will honour. Then ask the first real customers for reviews.
Sources
- Cart abandonment rate statistics, Baymard Institute
- Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation: the Act, regulations and guidelines, CRTC
- Merchant listing structured data, Google Search Central
- Velvéa gift baskets and hampers, Velvéa
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