[GA4] Purchase journey report

The Purchase journey report shows how many users drop off between each step in your purchase funnel. The report can help you identify steps in the funnel that need improvement.

For example, if users often drop off between beginning checkout and purchasing, you might look into whether shipping costs are too high or certain buttons or links don't work.

You can't customize the Purchase journey report. However, if you would like to see a different funnel than the one in this report, you can create a custom funnel report. Learn more

Learn how your ecommerce business is performing in the monetization reports in Google Analytics 4

View the report

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. From the left menu, select Reports .
3. On the left, open the Purchase journey report.

Don't see the report? If you don't see the report on the left, the report may have been removed or the report isn't included in your default set of reports. If you're an editor or administrator, you can add the report to the left navigation. Learn how to add the report

Steps in the funnel

The report includes the following steps:

1. Session start (the number of users who triggered the session_start event)
2. View product (the number of users who triggered the view_item event)
3. Add to cart (the number of users who triggered the add_to_cart event)
4. Begin checkout (the number of users who triggered the begin_checkout event)
5. Purchase (the number of users who triggered the purchase or in_app_purchase event)

The report uses a closed funnel. A closed funnel is a funnel that provides data for only users who complete each step in the funnel. Users are only counted in the steps they complete in the specified sequence. If a user misses a step, the user falls out of the funnel and isn't counted in later steps.

View the funnel steps

To open a read-only view of the steps that make up the funnel, click View funnel steps. You can't change the steps or conditions in the funnel from this view.

Dimensions in the report

You can choose from the following dimensions, which update the dimension values in the table.

Dimension	What it is	How it's populated
Browser	The browser from which user activity originated. Typical browsers include 'Chrome', 'Edge', 'Firefox', 'Internet Explorer', 'Opera', and 'Safari'.	This dimension is populated automatically.
City	The city from which user activity originates. For example, if someone visits your website from New York City, the text 'New York' populates the dimension.	This dimension is populated automatically.
Country	The country from which user activity originated. For example, if someone visits your website from the United States, the text 'United States' populates the dimension.	This dimension is populated automatically.
Device category	The type of device from which user activity originated. Device categories include 'desktop', 'mobile', and 'tablet'. This is the default dimension in the report.	This dimension is populated automatically.
Language	The name of the language of a user's browser or device (e.g., 'French', 'English').	This dimension is populated automatically.
Region	The geographic region from which user activity originated. For example, if someone visits your website from New York City, the text 'New York' populates the dimension. If someone visits your website from England, the text 'England' populates the dimension.	This dimension is populated automatically.

Metrics in the report

The report includes the following metrics.

Metric	What it is	How it's populated
Abandonment rate	The percentage of users who you retained between the current step and then next step in a funnel. The abandonment rate appears below each bar that has a next step in the funnel. For example, if 200 users begin a session (the current step) and only 140 users view a product (the next step), then the abandonment rate below the current step would be 60 (or 30%).	This metric is populated automatically using data from the triggered events on each step in the funnel.
Retention rate	The percentage of users who came from the previous step. The retention rate appears in the header of the next step. For example, if 200 users begin a session (the current step) and only 140 users view a product (the next step), then the retention rate above the next step would be 140 (or 70%).	This metric is populated automatically using data from the triggered events on each step in the funnel.

Adjust the size of the chart

You can zoom in and out of the bar chart using the + and - in the bottom right of the chart. Zooming in increases the size of each bar so you see smaller bars in more detail.

Note: If you zoom in so the height of a bar is greater than the height of the graph, Analytics adds a curve to the bar. The curve indicates that the bar is not drawn to scale.

Troubleshooting

I don't see the Purchase journey report. How do I add it?

The Purchase journey report is found under "Monetization" in the Life cycle collection. If you're an administrator or editor of the Google Analytics property and don't see the report in your left navigation, you can add it from the report library.

To add the report to your left navigation:

1. In Google Analytics, click Reports on the left.
2. In the left navigation, click Library on the bottom left. If you do not see the option, you don't have permission to customize the left navigation.
3. In the 'Collections' section, click Edit collection where you want to add the report.
4. Search for the report under "Drag report to create collection".
5. Drag and drop the report in the report collection on the left.
6. Click Save.

How do I change the funnel steps in the report?

You cannot modify the steps in the Purchase journey report, but you can create a custom funnel report using those same steps. To do that, open the report as an exploration and then create a funnel report based on the exploration.

To open the report as an exploration:

1. Open the Purchase journey report.
2. When viewing the report, click Add comparison in the top right.
3. In the "Edit comparisons" dialog, click Explore at the bottom.

Google Analytics will open an exploration with the steps from the Purchase journey report in the Tab Settings. Next, you can create a new custom funnel report based on the funnel exploration. To learn more about custom funnel reports, see Create a custom funnel report.