How to reduce cart abandonment on your e-commerce store in South Africa

Cart abandonment is one of the most persistent challenges in e-commerce, and South African merchants face it at a higher rate than most. In 2024, the cart abandonment rate for South African e-commerce sat between 83% and 83.5%, well above the global average. Across Africa as a whole, the rate reached 85.15%, pointing to challenges that go beyond individual checkout design.

The cost of this is significant. A customer who has added items to their cart is close to converting. Losing them at the final step is a revenue problem that compounds over time. The good news is that the causes are well understood, and most of them are fixable.

Why South African shoppers abandon at checkout

Understanding why customers leave before completing payment is the starting point for fixing it. Data from Stitch's 2025 Consumer Payments Report points to a clear set of drivers specific to the South African context.

Payment failure is the single biggest culprit. Approximately 71% of would-be customers in South Africa drop out of a purchase due to a payment failure. Of those, around 62% will not return to the platform at all. A failed transaction is not just a lost sale; it is often a lost customer. Research by Mastercard found that payment failures ranked as the number-one operational challenge for South African online retailers, with declined card transactions accounting for roughly 52% of lost online sales.

Beyond payment failure, our consumer research highlights additional friction points that drive abandonment: 

• Unexpected fees appearing at checkout
• Too many steps in the process
• Redirects that break the sense of a consistent experience
• Being forced to create an account before completing a purchase
• Slow or unclear refund processes. 

These are not abstract UX concerns: they translate directly into lost revenue.

Offer the payment methods your customers actually want to use

One of the most direct levers available to merchants is expanding the range of payment methods at checkout. According to Stitch's 2025 Consumer Payments Report, more than 90% of South Africans used a payment method outside of cash or card in the last year. Nearly half have used Pay by bank or Capitec Pay. Pay by bank has now become the second-most preferred method for online retail purchases, and Capitec Pay sits at third.

When merchants only offer card at checkout, they are turning away a substantial proportion of customers who would prefer to pay another way. The data is pointed on this: 56% of South African consumers say that their choice of e-commerce platform is influenced by the ability to pay quickly and easily.

Digital wallets are also accelerating. When Stitch Express merchants launched Apple Pay on Shopify and WooCommerce, more than 25% of eligible customers chose it immediately. On one of South Africa's largest retail platforms, Apple Pay captured over 33% of orders placed by Apple device users within a week of launch, rising above 40% within two weeks. The conversion rate for Apple Pay through Stitch has consistently exceeded 90%, compared to around 80% for card. 50% of Apple Pay transactions complete in under three seconds.

The lesson for merchants is straightforward: checkout is not the place to offer fewer choices. Adding Pay by bank, Capitec Pay and one-click digital wallet options reduces the gap between intent and completion.

Reduce friction in the checkout flow itself

Offering the right payment methods matters less if the checkout process itself creates unnecessary obstacles. Stitch's consumer research found that the most memorable positive checkout experiences shared a common thread: they were fast, smooth and required minimal input from the customer. The most memorable negative ones involved page crashes, repeated re-entry of information, excessive redirects and timeouts.

A few practical changes tend to have the most impact.

Enable guest checkout 

Shopify's own research indicates that nearly half of online consumers prefer to check out as a guest, citing speed and reduced data entry. Requiring account creation before purchase is a friction point that a meaningful proportion of customers will not push through.

Minimise redirects

 In Stitch's consumer research, redirects away from the merchant's site were the number-one security red flag for South African shoppers. They break the sense of a consistent, trustworthy experience. Hosted payment flows that keep the customer within the merchant's environment reduce drop-off and improve trust signals.

Display security indicators clearly 

Over 45% of South African consumers in the Stitch 2025 report said they would not feel safe making a payment if they did not recognise the payment provider. Visibility of security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA), biometric confirmation and recognisable provider branding all contribute to a customer's confidence at the point of payment. Over 90% of respondents said they would prefer to use biometrics or passkeys to authenticate a payment if given the option.

Use BNPL strategically to rescue high-value carts

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) can be deployed as a targeted intervention for carts that would otherwise be abandoned due to price. Stitch's data shows that BNPL adoption is particularly strong among mid-to-high income earners using it for larger purchases, with merchants seeing higher average cart values and lower drop-off rates when it is available.

One practical approach is to present BNPL specifically when a transaction fails due to insufficient funds, rather than positioning it as a primary method. This preserves the standard checkout experience for most customers while offering an alternative path for those who need it.

Ensure your payment infrastructure can handle failures gracefully

Even a well-designed checkout will encounter payment failures. What matters is what happens next. Merchants whose infrastructure supports automatic rerouting across payment providers or acquirers when one fails can recover transactions that would otherwise be lost entirely.

Dynamic 3D Secure (3DS) authentication is another tool worth deploying intelligently: applying step-up authentication only where risk is elevated, rather than across all transactions, maintains conversion rates while managing fraud exposure. Applying full 3DS friction universally adds steps that a proportion of customers will not complete.

On the refunds side, the speed with which a merchant processes a return has a disproportionate impact on repeat purchase behaviour. Fast, automated refunds are consistently cited in Stitch's consumer research as a key indicator of a trustworthy platform. Getting this right is an investment in customer retention, not just dispute management.

The bottom line

Cart abandonment in South Africa is high, but it is not intractable. The majority of losses at checkout trace back to a small set of causes: payment failures, limited payment method choice, checkout friction and insufficient trust signals. Addressing these systematically, rather than in isolation, is what moves the needle on conversion.

‍

FAQs

What is the cart abandonment rate in South Africa?

According to e-commerce benchmarking data from ECDB, South Africa's cart abandonment rate was between 83% and 83.5% in 2024, which is well above the global average of around 75%. This reflects a combination of payment infrastructure challenges, limited payment method choice at many checkouts and persistent trust gaps in the online shopping experience.

Why do South African shoppers abandon their carts?

The most common causes, according to Stitch's 2025 Consumer Payments Report, are payment failures, unexpected fees at checkout, too many steps in the checkout process, being redirected away from the merchant's site and being forced to create an account before purchasing. Payment failure alone accounts for a significant proportion of lost sales, with research suggesting around 71% of South African shoppers abandon a purchase entirely when a payment does not go through.

How can I reduce cart abandonment on my South African online store?

‍The most impactful steps are expanding the payment methods you offer (including Pay by bank, Capitec Pay and digital wallets such as Apple Pay), enabling guest checkout, minimising redirects, displaying visible security indicators and ensuring your payment infrastructure can reroute transactions automatically when a payment fails. Offering Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) as a fallback option for high-value carts can also help recover sales that would otherwise be lost.

Does offering more payment methods reduce cart abandonment?

Yes. Data from Stitch's 2025 Consumer Payments Report shows that over 56% of South African consumers say the ability to pay quickly and easily influences which online platform they choose to shop on. Merchants who offer only card payments are excluding a growing proportion of customers who prefer Pay by bank, Capitec Pay or digital wallets. Adding these methods at checkout has a direct impact on conversion.

How important is checkout speed for South African consumers?

Checkout speed is a primary driver of both conversion and platform loyalty. Stitch data shows that Apple Pay, which completes 50% of transactions in under three seconds and 95% within five seconds, saw immediate adoption when launched at checkout on major South African retail platforms. Consumers consistently describe fast, frictionless checkout as a key reason to return to a platform and a primary indicator of a trustworthy shopping experience.

‍