Ecommerce · 20 Oct 2026
How to price a product for profit
Start from your costs, pick a target margin and check the numbers before you spend on ads.
Key takeaways
- The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, according to Baymard Institute's running average of published studies.
- Unexpected extra costs at checkout, such as shipping, taxes and fees, are the most common reason shoppers give for leaving.
- Baymard estimates the average large ecommerce site could lift its conversion rate by 35.26% through better checkout design.
Getting a shopper to add a product to their cart is hard work. Losing them at checkout is expensive, and it happens far more often than most store owners expect.
What the research says
Baymard Institute, a UX research firm that studies ecommerce checkouts, keeps a running average of cart abandonment studies. Its latest figure is 70.22%. Many articles still quote the earlier 70.19%, and the message is the same: roughly 7 in 10 carts never become orders.
Not all of that is lost revenue. Baymard points out that a large share of abandonment is natural browsing: people compare prices, save items for later or check delivery costs before they are ready to buy. The goal is to remove the reasons that stop shoppers who were ready.
Why shoppers abandon their carts
In Baymard's survey of US online shoppers, the same reasons come up again and again. Each one has a practical fix.
- Extra costs too high. Shipping, taxes or fees appear late and change the price. Show delivery costs on the product page and consider a free-shipping threshold.
- Forced account creation. Let people check out as a guest and offer an account after the order.
- Trust in card payment. Offer well-known payment options and show security and returns information near the payment step.
- Slow delivery. Show estimated delivery dates before checkout so there are no surprises.
- A long or complicated checkout. Baymard found most checkouts could cut the number of form fields shown by 20 to 60%.
Fix the shipping surprise first
Because extra costs are the top reason, shipping is usually the first thing to fix. Bulky parcels are often charged by size rather than weight, so check your real cost per order with the volumetric weight calculator. Then use the profit margin calculator to see whether you can absorb shipping into the price or set a free-shipping threshold.
Win back carts with care
Most store platforms, including Shopify, can send abandoned-checkout emails automatically. Lead with a reminder and a photo of the product. If you add a discount code, check what it does to your price and profit before you send it.
Key terms
- Cart abandonment rate
- The share of shopping carts that are created but not turned into orders: 1 minus completed orders divided by carts created.
- Checkout abandonment
- Shoppers who start the checkout steps but leave before paying. It is a narrower measure than cart abandonment.
- Guest checkout
- Buying without creating an account. Forced account creation is one of the most common reasons shoppers leave.
- Free-shipping threshold
- An order value above which shipping is free. It helps cover delivery costs and can raise average order value.