Shopify reached checkout but no sales

Checkout is a sequence, and each step asks for something new. The contact step asks for an email. The address step asks for personal details, and then the delivery step shows what shipping costs, so the total can jump after the shopper has already committed. The payment step lists the methods the store accepts, and a missing method looks like a broken store to the person who wanted it. A stop caused by a requirement, such as a login, looks the same in your analytics as a stop caused by price. The loss sits between two screens, so the numbers show the gap but not the reason.

• Compare the sessions that reached checkout with the completed orders over the same period.
• Walk the checkout as a new shopper on a phone, with a delivery address in another city, and note the total at each step.
• Look for the first screen where the total changes, since a late cost is a common reason to leave.
• Check which payment options appear for the shopper's country, and whether the option they expect is listed.

Checkout asks for things in a rough order: contact details, a delivery address, a delivery method, then payment. Depending on how the store is set up, these can sit on one page or several. Each step adds a demand, and each one can lose a shopper for a different reason. A shopper who stops at delivery has usually seen a price they did not expect. A shopper who stops at payment has usually met a method they cannot use. Find which of those two happened before you change anything else in the store.

A late cost and an account requirement both show up in analytics as sessions that reached checkout and never completed. The screen tells them apart. A late cost shows the total changing after the address or the delivery method is picked, so the shopper meets a higher number at the point of no return. An account requirement shows a sign-in or create-account request before the shopper can continue, and some shoppers will not finish that on a phone. Look at the screen where the number changes, then at the screen that asks for a login.

A missing payment method is the third cause. A store that offers a method only in some countries, or shows an option only on some devices, leaves a shopper who expects that method at the last step. The shopper sees no error, only a payment step without the option they wanted, so they go back to the cart. A complete checkout can still lose the sale this way.

A simulated visitor goes through checkout as a new shopper, fills in the contact and address fields, and goes up to the payment step. The run records the total at each step, the methods shown, any request or script error on that page, and a screenshot of each step. That shows whether the total changes and which methods appear for that address. The run stops at payment, because visitors cannot pay with a real card, so a bank decline or a verification step is outside what it can show.

A new shipping rule, a checkout app or a changed account setting can move the drop from one step to the next. Run a new-shopper checkout after each change, on a phone and on a laptop, to a new address. The step that lost shoppers last month can be fixed while a new one opens, so the same test catches both.