Why your Ontario online store is losing sales at checkout

Most people who add a product to their cart never buy it. That is not a sign your product is wrong. It is usually a sign your checkout is asking too much, too late, or in the wrong order.

If you run an online store in Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, or anywhere in the GTA, the fix is rarely a full redesign. It is usually a handful of specific, fixable problems between “add to cart” and “order confirmed.”

How many shoppers actually abandon their cart?

The Baymard Institute, which studies checkout usability, has tracked cart abandonment across dozens of studies for years. The average sits around 70 percent. That means roughly seven out of every ten shoppers who put something in a cart leave before paying.

Mobile abandonment runs higher than desktop, which matters more every year as more Ontario shoppers browse and buy on their phones. If your store has not been checked on a phone recently, on an actual mobile connection rather than Wi-Fi, that is worth doing this week.

Not every abandoned cart is a lost sale. Some shoppers are comparing prices, saving items for later, or checking shipping cost out of curiosity. But a meaningful share of that 70 percent is a customer who wanted to buy and hit a wall. That share is the one you can win back.

Why do people leave without paying?

Baymard’s research consistently points to a small set of repeat offenders. The most common one is surprise costs that show up at checkout: shipping, taxes, or fees the shopper did not see on the product page or in the cart. Other frequent reasons include being forced to create an account before checking out, a checkout process that takes too long or asks for too much information, not trusting the site with payment details, and a site that is too slow or glitchy to get through.

None of these are hard problems. They are checkout design problems, and they are the same problems whether you sell on Shopify or WooCommerce.

Are surprise shipping and tax costs killing your sales?

This is the single biggest lever. If a shopper adds a $60 product to their cart, gets to the final screen, and sees HST plus a $15 shipping charge added on top, a lot of them will simply close the tab. The price they agreed to in their head was $60, not $75 plus tax.

The fix is to show the real number earlier. A shipping estimate on the product page, a tax-inclusive price, or a clear note like “Free shipping over $75” before checkout all reduce the shock. Ontario stores selling to customers in other provinces have an extra reason to do this well, since HST, GST, and PST rates are not the same everywhere in Canada.

Should you require an account to check out?

No. Forced account creation is one of the most reliable ways to lose a sale from someone who was ready to pay. A shopper who has never bought from you before does not want to pick a password to spend $40.

Guest checkout should be the default path, with account creation offered afterward, ideally pre-filled from the order they just placed. If your platform makes account creation mandatory, check the settings. Both Shopify and WooCommerce support guest checkout, and it is usually one toggle away.

Does adding Interac e-Transfer as a payment option help?

For Canadian shoppers, trust in the payment method matters. Surveys from Interac have found that around half of Canadians say they are just as comfortable paying a small business by Interac e-Transfer as by other methods, and demand for debit-based online payment options has been growing.

E-Transfer will not replace a real-time checkout button for most stores, since it has to be confirmed and reconciled manually rather than processed instantly like a card. But for custom orders, deposits, or higher-ticket items, offering it as an option alongside standard card checkout can remove a real hesitation for shoppers who would rather not put a large amount on a credit card.

Standard card processing still carries a cost either way. Shopify Payments in Canada charges online rates from 2.8 percent plus 30 cents on the Basic plan down to 2.4 percent plus 30 cents on Advanced, and WooCommerce processors run in a similar range. Build that into your pricing rather than being surprised by it later.

Do abandoned cart emails bring shoppers back?

Used well, yes. A short, plain email sent within an hour or two of abandonment, showing the exact item left behind and a direct link back to checkout, recovers a portion of otherwise lost sales. Keep it to one or two follow-ups. A shopper who gets five reminder emails for a candle they almost bought is more likely to unsubscribe than buy.

Avoid fake urgency in these emails. “Only 2 left!” when that is not true is the kind of thing that erodes trust fast, and it is the opposite of what a small, local business should be doing to build a reputation.

What is a slow site costing you at checkout?

Every extra second of load time between “add to cart” and “order confirmed” is a chance for someone to give up, especially on mobile data. This connects directly to Core Web Vitals and site speed: a checkout flow with heavy scripts, slow image loading, or a laggy payment step is not just an SEO problem, it is a revenue problem happening in real time.

Test your own checkout on a phone with a few bars of signal, not office Wi-Fi. If it feels slow to you, it is costing you sales.

What should you actually fix this week?

Start with the changes that take the least work and remove the most friction:

• Show shipping cost or a free-shipping threshold before the final checkout step.
• Turn on guest checkout if it is not already the default.
• Add at least one trust signal near the payment button: a secure checkout badge, your business name and location, or a visible return policy.
• Test the full checkout flow yourself, on a phone, at least once a month.
• If you sell higher-ticket or custom items, consider adding Interac e-Transfer as a manual payment option alongside cards.
• Set up one simple abandoned cart email, sent within a couple of hours, with no fake urgency.

None of these require a new platform or a big budget. They require someone to actually walk through the buying process the way a stressed, distracted customer on their phone would.

If your checkout has not been reviewed in a while, or you are not sure where shoppers are actually dropping off, that is a fast, focused project. Skroll builds and audits ecommerce websites for businesses across Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, and the GTA, with published pricing on request. If you want a second set of eyes on your checkout, get in touch.

Sources: Baymard Institute cart abandonment research, Interac Canadian payment trends reporting, Shopify’s published Canadian pricing.