Abandoned carts in 2026: why customers don't finish buying in your store

Seven out of ten people who add a product to the cart leave without buying. That's not bad luck in your store, it's the global average. But some of those people can be kept, usually without spending an extra złoty on ads. Below is the latest data, including from Poland, and what I fix first in the stores I work on.

The biggest losses happen between the cart and the "Pay" button. Photo: Ze Vieira / Unsplash.

How many carts get lost?

Baymard Institute collected 50 studies on cart abandonment and calculated an average of 70.22%. Some of it can't be saved. 42% of shoppers admit they abandoned a cart because they were just browsing or not ready to buy. But if you take that group out, the remaining reasons look like this:

• 40% left because extra costs were too high (shipping, fees),
• 20% because delivery was too slow,
• 19% didn't trust the site enough to enter card details,
• 18% dropped out because the store required an account,
• 17% found the checkout too long or complicated, and the same share ran into site errors.

Notice that most of these points are things you set up in the store, not in an ad campaign.

What about Poland?

Gemius has just published its "E-commerce in Poland 2026" report (survey from July 2026, 1,874 internet users). According to figures reported by Wirtualnemedia.pl, Polish shoppers switch stores or give up on a purchase for these reasons:

• high shipping costs or no free delivery: 47%,
• high product price: 44%,
• long delivery time and unclear product or delivery information: 30% each,
• unclear return rules and too many pop-ups and pushy promotions: 26% each,
• having to create an account: 25%, technical problems including slow page loading: 20%.

Then there are habits. According to MMP Online's summary of the report, 84% of online shoppers use parcel lockers, and for 72% it's the most common choice. 67% use BLIK, and 53% treat it as their main payment method. 42% worry about dishonest sellers.

That 26% for pop-ups is the most interesting number in the whole report for me. Stores pile on newsletter pop-ups, prize wheels and chat widgets themselves, and then wonder why customers leave.

What I would fix in your store first

I don't start by rebuilding the whole store. I start with the checkout, because that's where most of the money leaks out.

1. Show the shipping cost earlier. Ideally already on the product page or in the cart, with a free shipping threshold. A surprise at the last step is reason number one in both Baymard and Gemius data.
2. Put parcel lockers and BLIK at the very top. Polish customers look for these two options and shouldn't have to scroll for them.
3. Turn off mandatory accounts. Let people buy as guests, and offer an account after the order, with one click.
4. Shorten the form. According to Baymard, the average checkout shows 23.48 form elements, while a well-designed one needs 12 to 14. In WooCommerce you can usually drop the company field, the second address and the phone number if the courier doesn't need it.
5. Remove pop-ups from the checkout and speed up the site. At the payment step, the customer should see only the form and the button.

Baymard estimates in its checkout benchmark that large stores can increase conversion by 35% on average through better checkout design alone. In a small store the numbers will differ, but the direction is the same: fewer steps, fewer surprises, fewer distractions.

Before you add more ad budget

If 7 out of 10 carts are lost, then 70% of every złoty you spend on ads is lost too. The cheapest sales growth is usually not a new campaign, but a cart that doesn't get in the way of buying.

If you want me to review your checkout or build a store designed around this data from the start, see the online store offer. I work with WooCommerce, so the store, the code and the data stay yours.

All the best,
Sławek

If you want a store that doesn't lose customers at checkout, see the online store offer .