How many Shopify carts reach checkout

Store Decode counts how many of your Shopify carts reach checkout. On the Cart view of Explore, “From cart to order” shows three steps for the device and window you choose: Opened the cart, Reached checkout and Orders. Under them, a table compares carts that saw or used an upsell or the discount code field with carts that did not.

Type it in Find

• How many carts reached checkout?
• What share of carts go to checkout?
• Do carts with the upsell get to checkout more often?

Type it in Find on Home or Explore and Store Decode opens the view with your numbers.

Where to find it

1. Open Explore and pick Cart.
2. Choose Mobile, Desktop or All devices in the card header.
3. Read “From cart to order”. Opened the cart is the number of carts. Reached checkout is how many of them went on to checkout, as a share “of carts” once there are 300 carts, and as a count before that.
4. To see one traffic source, pick it in the filter bar: Direct, Search, Social, Email or Unknown. The steps then count that source’s carts alone.
5. Scroll to “What visitors do in the cart” for the comparison table.

The Store pulse card near the top of Home has a related number for the whole store, Reached checkout: the share of all sessions in which checkout started, not only those that opened the cart.

What the numbers mean

A cart, in this view, is a session that opened your cart page. A session counts once a day, however often it returns to the cart. If your theme uses a cart drawer and a visitor goes from the drawer straight to checkout, that visit never opens the cart page and is not one of these carts.

A cart reached checkout when Shopify’s checkout opened in the same session. Shopify’s own “reached checkout” waits for the visitor to type something in checkout, so Store Decode’s count can be a little higher. Why Shopify Analytics, GA4 and Store Decode numbers differ has the other reasons two tools disagree.

Orders is every order Store Decode captured in the window, store-wide and on all devices, because an order carries no device. Its bar is drawn only on All devices, where it can be set against the carts. A line under the steps says so. Once Shopify’s count is known, it adds both counts in the form “We counted N; Shopify reports M for the same days”.

The comparison table

The table lists Saw a cart upsell, Clicked a cart upsell and Focused the discount code field. For each it gives the Share of carts that did it, then Reached checkout: did it vs didn’t as two dots on one scale, then the Difference in points. Under the cart table the app prints its caveat for this comparison, unchanged:

“Went to checkout” compares cart sessions that did the behaviour with those that didn’t, same period and device. This describes who went on; it doesn’t show that the behaviour caused it.

A visitor who opens the discount field may be one who already has a code and means to buy, so the gap describes two groups of visitors. It does not say what the field did to them.

The table needs 300 carts for rates, and 30 carts on each side of a comparison, or the cell reads “Too few to compare”. A row can carry a signal. Working well means carts that did it reached checkout at least 5 points more often than carts that did not. Leak means at least 5 points less often. Rarely used means under 2% of carts did it although your cart has it.

In the sample store

Tidewell Home is an invented sample store, and every number here is made up. Its cart on phones, over one week:

Mobile · 7 days · n=1,131 carts	Carts	Share of carts
Opened the cart	1,131
Reached checkout	412	36%
Did not get to checkout	719	64%

So 412 of 1,131 mobile carts reached checkout in the week. The other 719 opened the cart page and left without opening checkout in the same session. The sample has no upsell or discount field numbers, so it shows no comparison table.

You could

Store Decode has no observation card for the cart, so any option starts from the table’s signals. If a row reads Leak, look at that part of the cart on a phone first. “Where do carts leak?” in Find opens the view.

You could: move or simplify the cart part that carries Leak, then compare Reached checkout on the same device for the same number of days after.

Write down the day you made the change. A comparison of the days before and after is a date split of your own data: a sale, a new ad or a shipping change in the same weeks moves the rate too.

Common questions

Is this my cart abandonment rate?

Close to it. The share of carts that did not get to checkout is what most tools call cart abandonment: in the sample store, 719 of 1,131 mobile carts. Typing “Abandoned carts” in Find opens this view. Store Decode does not know who the visitors are and does not contact them.

What is a good cart to checkout rate?

Store Decode does not set your store against other stores, because it holds no numbers from them. It shows your own rate by device, window and traffic source. Compare your store with its own earlier weeks, on the same device.

Do carts with an upsell get to checkout more often?

The table answers who did: the rate of carts that saw or clicked the upsell against those that did not, with the caveat printed under the table: it describes who went on, not why. Type “Do carts with the upsell get to checkout more often?” in Find for that row.

Why are mobile and desktop so different?

They are different visitors on different screens, and Store Decode keeps them apart for that reason. Read each device on its own and compare it with its own earlier weeks. “Do phones get to checkout less than computers?” in Find opens the Cart view on all devices; then switch the card header to each device in turn.

Related

• Do visitors see the reviews on your Shopify product pages is the same kind of comparison, one step earlier.
• How Store Decode measures a Shopify store explains sessions, devices and the 300-session minimum.

The sample store’s homepage numbers and observation cards are on the home page.