The exit-page hunt that found a dead-end killing checkout

The exit-page hunt that found a dead-end killing checkout

A furniture retailer had strong cart adds and weak orders. Cart abandonment dashboards just said "71%" and shrugged. They needed the where, not the what.

The exit-page playbook:
— In Engagement, Pages, sort by exits on the checkout path only
— Find the single step with the highest exit rate relative to its entrances
— Open that page on three devices and two browsers yourself
— Check the browser console on each for a silent script error
— Watch two recordings of users who exited there

The shipping-options step had a 58% exit rate. On Safari, a JavaScript error blanked the continue button. Desktop Chrome users never saw it, so QA missed it for months.

The fix shipped, and the shipping step's exit rate fell from 58% to 29%. Orders rose 14%.

Lesson: an abandonment percentage is a symptom. The exit-page report is the X-ray.