Shopify Checkout Benchmarks
130 million sessions. 500+ merchants. Five verticals tracked against a consistent baseline, so you can see what's actually moving in your category, and what isn't.
E-commerce Checkout Performance Index: February 2026
An index of 1.15x means that metric is 15% above baseline. 0.92x means it's 8% below. We publish relative change rather than absolute numbers because absolute rates vary too much by merchant size and category to be meaningful as cross-merchant benchmarks.
Shopify checkout benchmarks by vertical
Checkout behavior varies more by category than most merchants expect. Pick your vertical.
Consumer Goods
Food & Beverage
Cosmetics
Apparel & Fashion
Health & Wellness
Methodology
What the PDQ Checkout Benchmarks tracks, and why it's indexed
Most ecommerce checkout benchmarks report absolute conversion rates. That number is meaningless without knowing merchant size, traffic mix, and product category. We don't publish that.
The PDQ Checkout Benchmarks indexes all metrics to a June 2024 baseline of 1.0x. An index of 1.15x means a metric is 15% above that baseline; 0.92x means it's 8% below. Every reading is relative change against a constant cohort of 500+ Shopify merchants. Movement is real signal, not sample drift..
Verticals tracked
Apparel & Fashion, Health & Wellness, Cosmetics, Food & Beverage, Consumer Goods, and All Industries. Merchants are categorized using Shopify's standard industry taxonomy.
Metrics per vertical
Conversion Rate: share of checkout sessions completing a purchase. AOV (Average Order Value): product revenue per completed order, excluding shipping. ARPC (Average Revenue Per Checkout): total revenue including shipping. Average Shipping Revenue: what merchants collect per order. Free Shipping Rate: share of orders shipped free.
Data draws from 130 million checkout sessions. All figures exclude bot traffic, draft orders, and point-of-sale transactions. Data refreshes monthly, typically in the first week, reflecting the prior month's activity.
Benchmark your Shopify checkout against your vertical
Enter your store URL. We'll scan 47+ checkout signals, score your checkout against your vertical's index, and show you exactly where you're leaving revenue.
Frequently asked questions about Shopify checkout benchmarks
What is a good Shopify checkout conversion rate?
It depends heavily on your vertical. Checkout conversion rates vary by category, AOV, traffic source, and device mix, which is why comparing absolute rates across merchants is rarely useful. Health & Wellness brands in this index consistently convert above the all-industry baseline (1.06x), while Consumer Goods shows the widest variance. To benchmark your store specifically, use Checkout Index for a vertical-matched comparison.
Why does PDQ index the data instead of reporting absolute rates?
A 3% checkout conversion rate means something different for a $200 supplement brand than for a $30 apparel item. Indexing to a fixed baseline (June 2024 = 1.0x) strips out scale and category noise, so every reading reflects relative change against a constant cohort. That makes cross-merchant and cross-vertical comparison meaningful, and ensures month-over-month movement reflects real behavior, not shifts in who's in the sample.
How do checkout benchmarks differ across Shopify verticals?
Significantly. Consumer Goods buyers are deal-sensitive and respond sharply to free shipping threshold framing, and this index shows it, with CVR swinging from 0.97x to 1.27x over the period, the widest range of any vertical tracked. Health & Wellness buyers are high-consideration purchasers where trust signals drive conversion more than price. Apparel buyers carry size anxiety that creates checkout friction not present in other categories. Food & Beverage buyers decide fast but abandon immediately when delivery timing is unclear. Each vertical has distinct leverage points, which is why the Checkout Benchmarks publishes vertical-specific data rather than all-industry averages.
How can I compare my Shopify store to these benchmarks?
PDQ Checkout Index is a free tool that scans 47+ checkout signals on your Shopify store, benchmarks them against your vertical's indexed performance, and generates a personalized Health Score with an estimated revenue recovery figure. No account or app install required. Results in under 90 seconds.
