# Checkout Leak Check

> A Checkout Leak Check finds where shoppers who already want to buy give up, step by step, by where they came from and where they live. We use your own checkout and order records, then rank every fix by the sales it is likely to bring back.

Canonical: https://thegrowthproject.com/growth/checkout-leak-check/

## Why the checkout comes first

Ads and search bring people to your store. Checkout is where you find out whether that money was well spent. A shopper who has filled a cart and started paying is the most valuable visitor you have, and the cheapest to keep, because you've already paid to get them there. It's the same connected-data approach behind everything on our [growth page](/growth/): your orders show who finished, and your checkout shows who nearly did.

It pairs well with the reviews that bring shoppers in: the [Google Ads Audit](/growth/google-ads-audit/) and the [Search & AI Visibility Audit](/growth/seo-audit/). The [Tracking Kit](/growth/conversion-tracking/) records where each order came from, so you can see which fixes worked.

## What we look at

### Where shoppers stop

Every checkout step, from cart to payment, with how many people reach it and how many leave. One step usually accounts for most of the loss.

### Who is leaving

Abandonment split by where shoppers came from and where they live. The biggest carts often come from free search, from areas your delivery rules quietly exclude.

### Delivery and pickup

Addresses with no delivery price, fees that appear late, and pickup options that are hidden or slow to choose. This is where we see most checkouts lost.

### Payment and phones

Declined cards, missing wallets, forms that fight a phone keyboard and steps that time out. Small fixes that add up.

## What one store found

An ecommerce store, from its own checkout and order records.

- **45%** of shoppers who started checkout did not finish
- **63%** of delivery shoppers left at the delivery step, against 18% choosing pickup
- **61%** of those who gave up were in areas the store could not price delivery for
- **3×** the average cart of checkout shoppers from free search, against those from ads
- **2–3×** the checkout finish rate after pickup and checkout fixes went live
- **61–75%** of orders chose pickup once it was there

The fix was not more traffic. It was a way to ask for a delivery quote instead of leaving, and pickup as an option.

## How it works

1. **Read-only access.** To your store, analytics and payment reports. Nothing changes on the site.
2. **Map the funnel.** Every step of checkout, by traffic source, region and device, from your own records.
3. **A ranked fix list.** Each item says where buyers are lost, what it's likely costing and the fix.
4. **Fix and measure.** We make the approved changes with you, then compare finish rates step by step.

## After the review

We build the fixes as part of [Systems Integration](https://thegrowthproject.com/services/systems-integration/) and [MarTech Infrastructure](https://thegrowthproject.com/services/martech-infrastructure/).

## Common questions

### What does a checkout leak check cover?

Every step from cart to payment, split by where shoppers came from, where they live and what device they use; delivery and pickup rules; payment declines and options; and the value of the carts left behind.

### How is this different from cart-abandonment emails?

Reminder emails chase people after they've gone. This finds why they left in the first place, so fewer leave. The two work well together, and fixing the cause usually matters more.

### Which platforms does it work with?

WooCommerce and Shopify most often, but any store where we can see checkout steps and orders.

### Do we need more traffic first?

Usually not. Shoppers who start checkout already want to buy. Bringing back even a small share of them is often worth more than a jump in visitors.

### How soon will we see results?

Fixes like a missing delivery option or a broken payment step show up within days. We compare finish rates at two and six weeks.