Journal
What a checkout step chart can and cannot tell you
A chart of checkout steps shows where people stop. It does not show the courier they distrusted or the code that failed at the bank.
18 May 2026
Checkout step charts are the most requested drawing we make, and they are easy to over-trust. If one hundred people enter checkout and forty leave at the shipping method, you know the place. You do not yet know whether the price shocked them, whether the method list was empty for their city, or whether the page simply sat spinning.
A Conversion Path Review treats the chart as a map of stops, then uses the live walk to guess at causes. The guess is labelled as a guess. When a payment provider’s own log shows failed 3-D Secure attempts, we can be firmer. When the only evidence is a quiet step, we say the files stop there.
Charts also hide work that happens after “paid.” Cash-on-delivery orders that later refuse the parcel never appear as checkout drop-off. If that is your leak, the briefing must say so, and the chart of checkout steps will look healthier than the warehouse.
Bring the step counts if you have them. Bring the live shop either way. The second is what keeps the first from becoming a decoration.