Cart Abandonment Rate

What is Cart Abandonment Rate?

Cart abandonment rate is a metric showing the percentage of shoppers who leave a website without completing a purchase. It measures the percentage of users who added items to their shopping cart but “for some reason” didn’t proceed to purchase. The global average is approximately 70%—extremely high—representing significant revenue loss. For example, if 1,000 people create carts in a month and 300 make purchases, the cart abandonment rate is 70%.

In a nutshell: Cart abandonment rate is “the percentage of customers who selected products and decided to ‘buy,’ but changed their minds on the way to checkout.”

Key points:

• What it measures: The percentage of users who created carts but didn’t make purchases
• Why it matters: To identify e-commerce weak points and recover lost sales through improvement
• Who uses it: Online stores, SaaS companies (trial abandonment), ticket sales sites

Calculation method and benchmarks

Formula: (1 - Completed purchases ÷ Carts created) × 100 = Cart abandonment rate

For example, if 2,000 people create carts and 600 make purchases: (1 - 600÷2,000) × 100 = 70%

Industry average is around 70%, but it varies by sector. Food and beverage is 30-40% (low), while beauty and fashion is 77-83% (high). Mobile shows 79.5%, desktop 67.9%—variation by device.

Main reasons for cart abandonment

1. Unexpected additional costs (39%) When shipping and taxes appear at the final checkout stage, shock causes abandonment
2. Forced account creation (19%) Resistance to registration requirements before purchase
3. Slow shipping (21%) Avoidance of deliveries taking 5+ days
4. Trust deficiency (17%) Weak security signals, unfamiliar payment methods
5. Just browsing (43%) Price comparison or research is the goal, not purchase intent

Strategies to reduce abandonment

Simplify checkout Reduce steps, minimize form fields. Progress bars show “how many steps left?”

Transparent pricing Display shipping and tax from the start, eliminating “surprise charges” at final checkout.

Provide guest checkout Make account creation unnecessary, allowing optional signup after purchase.

Expand payment methods Offer multiple options like credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay.

Remarketing Send abandoned cart emails to purchasers saying “that item is still in stock” and recover 5-11%.

Business impact

The average 70% abandonment rate represents a massive sales opportunity loss. Estimates suggest $260 billion in recoverable sales annually just in North America and EU. Improvements take time, but even 1-2% improvement yields millions in revenue for large sites.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Why is mobile abandonment rate higher? A: Mobile screens are small, making form input tedious. Tap errors and page load delays are more common, making users more likely to abandon.

Q: Can abandonment rate reach 0%? A: No. Users who think “I’ll buy later” but never do exist, making 0% impossible. Industry standards consider ~60% “good.”

Q: Can cart abandonment emails recover sales? A: Yes. Cart abandonment emails have relatively high success rates, recovering 5-11% of lost sales. Multiple emails may be sent.

References

• Baymard Institute: Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
• Stripe: Top Reasons for Cart Abandonment
• Optimizely: Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Shopify: Reduce Cart Abandonment
• GetResponse: Cart Recovery Strategies
• SaleCycle: Ecommerce Statistics
• Klaviyo: Email Marketing for Ecommerce
• Adobe Analytics: Commerce Insights