Begin Checkout

In GA4, begin_checkout is a recommended e-commerce event that fires the moment a visitor starts the checkout process. It sits one step past add to cart and one step before the purchase event, marking the point where browsing becomes committed intent to buy.

Why it matters

Begin checkout is the most revealing point in the funnel because it isolates a specific failure: people who wanted to buy and didn't finish. A drop-off between cart and begin-checkout is hesitation; a drop-off between begin-checkout and purchase is friction in your checkout itself — a confusing form, a forced account creation, an unexpected fee. The two gaps point to entirely different fixes.

A concrete example

Say a small clothing shop sees 400 begin_checkout events but only 240 purchases in a week. That 40% drop happens after people have decided to buy and entered checkout. When you look, the checkout asks for a phone number as a required field. Removing it lifts completions the following week. The begin-checkout-to-purchase gap is what pointed you straight at the problem.

The common misreading

The mistake is lumping all cart abandonment together. A shopper who never reaches begin-checkout was never committed; a shopper who began checkout and bailed was. Treating those as the same problem leads to fixing the wrong thing — discounting products when the real issue is a broken checkout step. Read each stage of the funnel separately.