A shopper finds a product. A friend mentioned it, or it surfaced in search, or a creator they follow used it. They do what most Canadian shoppers now do without thinking: they go looking for proof. Recent reviews, a second source, a third, customer photos, a balance of good and bad. They decide the product is real and the brand is honest. They add it to the cart.

Then the shipping cost appears, higher than they expected.

In our Q1 survey of more than 3,500 Canadian consumers, almost nobody just accepted it. Only about 5% finished the purchase without friction. Just under a third (31.2%) abandoned the cart outright. The rest, 63.8%, went hunting: a promo code, a free-shipping threshold, a cheaper seller, anything to make the deal feel fair again.

The easy read is that shipping was too expensive. And sometimes that's true. Shipping costs and free-shipping thresholds have a major impact on conversion. But our survey points to another issue brands often overlook: when shoppers discover those costs late in the process, the problem becomes more than price. It becomes trust.

The number mattered, but so did the timing.

The key word in the survey is expected. The cost wasn’t just high, it was higher than the shopper had planned for, and that gap is what does the damage. A fee factored in before checkout changes nothing. A fee revealed at the final step makes them reconsider a decision they thought was already made. The number mattered, but so did the timing.

That question is the whole problem, because trust runs through every stage of the journey that precedes it. Shoppers told us they’re put off by content that feels too polished: 63.6% of them. They cross-check two and three sources before committing (72.9%) on the assumption that any single source is just the brand managing what they see. The modern shopper spends the entire journey building confidence that the purchase is backed by their own research, not the brand’s word.

A surprise at checkout tells them that confidence was misplaced. And it reaches backward. If the brand stayed quiet about shipping until the last possible step, what about the reviews? The product claims? The shopper doesn’t audit this consciously. They’ve already done their reasoning, all the way to the cart, which is exactly why the surprise hurts. The decision they’d carefully made suddenly feels unsafe, so they back out of it.

“Everyone hates paying for shipping. They'll look for a promo code, add another item to reach a threshold, compare retailers, or abandon the purchase altogether. But if you're going to charge for shipping, don't make it a surprise. Hidden costs at checkout don't just hurt conversion, they undermine trust.”
- Ali de Bold, CEO, Butterly

Drip pricing is the textbook version of this. It’s why travel and ticketing platforms draw the most consumer anger and attention: a fare or a room rate that climbs with every screen trains people to distrust the total until the very last one. You don’t want your brand filed in that mental category.

The hunters are the cost you can’t see

The 31.2% who abandoned are the cost you can measure. The 63.8% who went hunting are the cost you can’t, and they’re the more expensive group.

Here’s what that majority represents. You had a committed buyer. At the final step, you converted them back into a comparison shopper, at the exact moment you’d won them. Some will find a code and complete the purchase. Others will buy the same product somewhere the total cost was clear from the start. The lost sale is costly enough. The larger long-term risk is what happens when shoppers learn they need to verify your pricing all the way through checkout.

Every shopper who reaches the cart is one you’d already won, then rattled. Unsettling a buyer you spent that much to acquire, at the one step where they have the least patience for it, is a strange thing to do on purpose.

What to do about it

This doesn't mean shipping costs don't matter. In fact, 89% of consumers in our research told us shipping costs influence whether they complete a purchase. The lesson isn't that brands should ignore shipping. It's that they need to make the total cost clear before shoppers reach the point of purchase.

The fix is unglamorous, and it usually lives with a different team than the one running your reviews and brand-trust program. That gap is part of the problem: the trust your brand team spends months building upstream gets spent in a single screen owned by people who may not know that trust was the asset on the line.

Show the real cost early. Put a number, or a clear estimate, on the product page before the shopper has talked themselves into the purchase, not after. If shipping is free over a threshold, say so where it helps instead of where it ambushes. If there’s a flat fee, name it. Nothing at checkout should be new information.

This isn’t about being the cheapest. It’s about being the brand that doesn’t blindside the shopper at the step where they’re least willing to forgive it.

By the time someone reaches your checkout, they’ve already chosen you. The reviews convinced them. The proof held up. The only thing left was to complete the transaction. Make sure that part is on brand too.