The Cart Abandonment Problem
The average online shopping cart abandonment rate is roughly 70%. Seven out of ten customers who add items to their cart leave without completing the purchase. For ecommerce businesses, that's an enormous amount of revenue walking out the door.
While there are many reasons shoppers abandon carts — account creation requirements, complicated checkout flows, trust concerns — shipping is consistently the #2 factor, right behind cost. Specifically, slow delivery estimates and surprise shipping fees at checkout drive customers away.
Why Shipping Speed Matters at Checkout
When a customer sees "delivery in 5-7 business days" at checkout, the excitement of the purchase fades. They start asking themselves: do I really need this? Can I get it faster somewhere else? Amazon has trained consumers to expect two-day — or even same-day — delivery. If your store can't compete on speed, you're losing sales.
Now imagine the opposite: "Same-day delivery — order before 11 AM." That's not just fast — it creates urgency. The customer isn't just buying a product; they're getting it today. That motivation pushes them through checkout.
Live Rates Eliminate Surprise Fees
The other shipping-related cart killer is unexpected costs. A customer adds a $40 item to their cart, proceeds to checkout, and discovers $15 in shipping fees they didn't anticipate. That sticker shock triggers abandonment.
The fix is live shipping rates at checkout — showing the exact delivery cost based on the customer's postal code before they're surprised by it. When customers know the shipping cost upfront, they're far less likely to bail.
Weels provides live rate calculation on Shopify (Advanced and Plus plans), WooCommerce, and Square. The customer enters their postal code, your store calls the Weels API, and the exact delivery price appears instantly.
The 11 AM Cutoff Creates Urgency
Same-day delivery with a clear cutoff time adds a built-in urgency mechanism to your store. When a customer sees "Order before 11:00 AM for same-day delivery", it functions like a limited-time offer — encouraging them to complete the purchase now rather than coming back later (and potentially never returning).
This is especially effective for:
- Gift purchases — "I forgot, but I can still get it there today"
- Consumable products — food, beverages, health products customers want immediately
- Impulse-friendly categories — fashion, accessories, home goods
- Regulated products — customers buying alcohol or cannabis who want it today, not in three days
How to Implement on Your Platform
Setting up same-day delivery with live checkout rates takes minutes, not days:
Shopify
Install the Weels Shopify app, connect your API key, and live rates appear at checkout automatically on Advanced and Plus plans. Standard plan stores can show flat-rate Weels shipping.
WooCommerce
Install the Weels WooCommerce plugin, add Weels as a shipping method in your shipping zones, and live rates are calculated at checkout based on postal code and package dimensions.
Square
Connect your Square store to Weels via our Square integration. Ideal for restaurants, cannabis retailers, and other businesses using Square as their primary POS.
The Bottom Line
You can't fix every reason customers abandon carts, but you can fix the shipping problem. Same-day delivery eliminates the speed objection, live rates eliminate the surprise-cost objection, and the 11 AM cutoff creates urgency that pushes customers to buy now.
Sign up for free and start converting more carts into deliveries.