Issue: Sharp decline in the “add-to-cart → checkout” conversion rate (ratio of checkouts to add-to-cart events) from ~90% to ~40% over recent months in Shopify reports.
Site context: No major site changes; Google PageSpeed scores stable. Merchant tested checkout flow and saw no obvious issues. Shipping rates unchanged.
Analysis/benchmarks: A responder notes 90% post-cart checkout is unusually high per Tidio benchmarks, suggesting prior rate may have been atypically elevated. Potential causes flagged: unexpected shipping costs, checkout/app conflicts, visitors outside shipping zones, or audience broadening that lowers conversion.
New information: Marketing recently brought in different audiences. OP suspects this change; responder agrees the new audience is the most likely cause.
Outcome: Consensus that audience mix likely explains the drop (normalization toward typical rates). No concrete fix implemented.
Next steps (implied, not decided): Segment conversion by traffic source/geo/device, audit shipping visibility and fees, re-test checkout across devices/browsers, review apps, and refine ad targeting if lower-intent audiences are diluting performance. Status: open/ongoing.
has anyone noticed a big drop off from the add to cart step to the checkout step?
According to my shopify conversion report since a few months ago, the # checkout / # of add-to-cart has dropped from 90% to like 40%.
I’ve looked hard to see if my website has any performance issues. But my google site speed score hasn’t changed much. There haven’t been big changes made on my website.
Is anyone seeing a similar problem?
Good question. A drop-off between the cart and the checkout usually comes down to a shipping rate issue. Have you been through your checkout process yourself recently to see if anything is off?
If nothing is wrong, this might also just be your numbers averaging out as you reach a wider audience. According to Tidio, and based on my anecdotal experience, a checkout rate of 90% after the cart is unusually high.
It’s hard to diagnose without visiting the store or knowing what your traffic and shipping rates look like but this could come down to anything from reaching an audience that you don’t ship to, to an app breaking the checkout process, to audiences being surprised by your shipping rates.
As I mentioned above, it could also be that your audience is growing and the conversion rate is dropping to a more typical level as a result.
You said there haven’t been big changes made on the website but have there been any changes to your audience in terms of traffic or how you’re advertising?
There haven’t been any changes to the shipping rate.
I went through the checkout step and didn’t notice any problem.
The marketing team did try to bring in different audiences. I suspect that’s the main cause.
That makes sense to me. The new audience is the most likely cause.