Raphael Thys
There are many reasons why users abandon the checkout process midway. Some aren’t quite ready to purchase while browsing, while others are window shopping or saving some things for later. And while there’s not much to do about those, shopping cart abandonment statistics show that ecommerce sites can do a lot to improve their checkout process and increase conversions. That’s why we prepared some essential stats and facts to keep you up to date with shopping cart abandonment rates and what you can do to bring them down.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics (Editor’s Choice)
- The average shopping flow abandonment rate for all industries is 69.57%. (Sleeknote)
- The mobile abandonment rates are much higher than the average, with 85.65%. (Barilliance)
- Approximately 55% of users abandon carts because they have to re-enter information. (Sleeknote)
- In 2021, cart abandonment emails had a 43.76% open rate. (Barilliance)
- In 2021, the automotive industry had the highest abandonment rate of 89.11%. (Statista)
- Optimizing the checkout process can increase conversions by 35.62%. (Sleeknote)
General Shopping Cart Abandonment Stats
1. In 2020, the average shopping flow abandonment rate was 69.57%.
This average cart abandonment rate means that nearly seven out of 10 shoppers will not complete their transactions. This number is based on data from 41 different studies looking at shopping cart abandonment in the ecommerce sector.
(Sleeknote)
2. At 85.65%, the mobile abandonment rates are higher than the average.
Generally, mobile traffic comprises more than half of total ecommerce traffic (50.48%), making these stats on shopping cart abandonment particularly worrisome. Among the reasons for this cart and checkout abandonment rate are slow loading times, lack of optimization for mobile, and pop-up ads which, while working well on desktop, are not fine on mobile.
(Barilliance)
3. Ecommerce brands lose $18 billion in sales yearly.
On top of this figure, provided by Forrester research, another $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be lost in 2022 due to ecommerce cart abandonment. Obviously, this has become an issue the ecommerce industry can ill afford to ignore.
(Dynamic Yield)
4. Approximately 30% of the users abandon carts because they have to re-enter information.
More precisely, 30% of shoppers will drop the purchase if they have to fill out their credit card information again, while 25% will do so on having to re-enter shipping info. Cart abandonment stats further show that 46% give up if a discount code doesn’t work.
(Sleeknote)
5. If the website fails to load in three seconds, 57% of consumers abandon it.
What’s scarier is that 80% of these consumers never return to the website in question. For ecommerce sites, in particular, 92.6% of people rate visuals as the most important factor for making a purchase, while products are assessed in 90 seconds.
(HubSpot)
6. In 2021, cart abandonment emails had a 43.76% open rate.
These rates have remained around 43% during the period 2016-2022. For instance, looking at the shopping cart abandonment stats and email open rates, between 2018 and 2020 these rates hovered around 43%, while the highest they were was in 2017 (45.56%). These email marketing statistics suggest that customers actually react to companies’ reminders for cart abandonment.
(Barilliance)
7. Click-through rates for cart abandonment emails ranged from 8.29% to 9.16% in the period 2016-2021.
Similar to cart abandonment email open rates, the CTRs for these emails also showed signs of consistency. For instance, the highest CTR for this period was in 2017 (9.16%), while the lowest one is 8.29% recorded in 2019.
(Barilliance)
8. In 40% of cases, people abandon their fashion purchase orders because of bad website functionalities.
For example, there is a strong correlation between slow websites and shopping cart abandonment, statistics confirm. Some features like the ability to see products up close, or benchmark them are quite important for someone buying fashion items. Other users said that too slow delivery also made them give up on an order (36%). Many also had concerns about the quality of the products (35%).
(SaleCycle)
Cart Abandonment Rate by Industry and Country
9. In 2019, Spain had the highest cart abandonment rate of 86.15%
For better reference, the general abandonment rate for the year was 77.13%. Shopping cart abandonment stats show that, unlike Spain, some other countries had lower-than-average rates, including the Netherlands with 65.49%, or the US with 71.86%. Other countries that have higher rates of digital shopping cart abandonment include France and the UK with 76.81% and 76.01% respectively.
(Barilliance)
10. The automotive industry has the highest abandonment rate of 89.11%.
Next on the list is the Airline sector, with a massive 88.87% abandonment rate, followed by fashion with 88.57%. Luxury and travel round up the top five with 87.79% and 85.22%, respectively. The sector for babies and children is rated in sixth place with 85.1%, shopping cart abandonment statistics show.
(Statista)
11. In the UK, 29% of shoppers abandoned carts with women’s clothing.
This makes it one of the most common items consumers abandon the cart with. Another 26% did the same with men’s clothes and entertainment products. Other often abandoned items, based on a Barclaycard survey, are leather goods, women’s lingerie, headphones, and watches.
(SaleCycle)
12. Groceries had the lowest abandonment rate out of all industries in 2021, around 61.13%.
According to the data from Statista, in 2021 the average cart abandonment rate across industries was 79.8%. This makes it quite below the average. Other industries that registered lower-than-average rates based on shopping cart abandonment statistics were consumer electronics (70.65%), pharmaceutical (71.51%), and cosmetics (75.35%).
(Statista)
Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategies for Optimization
13. About 79% of people named free shipping as one of the reasons they would shop online.
Therefore, by offering this benefit to the customers, brands could decrease the potential cart abandonment rates. Incentivizing the customers to complete the purchase online could be a great way to improve conversion rates. Free returns and exchange options are also one of the customer choices (54%), along with same-day shipping (42%).
(Walker Sands)
14. By optimizing the checkout process, conversions could be increased by 35.26%.
The good news is that this is something within the retailer’s control. This means improving things like the checkout flow, discount and coupon claims, etc., especially in the cases of known user complaints, could impact abandonment statistics favorably.
(Sleeknote, Baymard)
15. The optimized checkout process can have a maximum of seven form fields and 12 form elements.
Having a simple checkout flow means scrapping the number of form elements and fields. So, instead of using two fields to obtain a customer name and surname, you can use one. Address lines that usually take up several fields can be reduced to one. For reference, the unoptimized average checkout process currently has about 24 form elements and 15 fields.
(Sleeknote)
Wrapping Up
With the average shopping cart abandonment rate at an all-time high, businesses should look for ways to make customers go through with their online orders. These shopping cart abandonment statistics show that there’s a lot to be done, most notably in the checkout design and general user-friendliness which, believe it or not, can do wonders for conversion rates.
Shopping Cart Abandonment FAQ
What is the average cart abandonment rate?
Depending on the source, it ranges between 55% and 80%. One particularly comprehensive study by the Baymard Institute places the rate at 69.82% for all industries.
(Baymard Institute, Barilliance)
How many people abandon shopping carts?
Approximately seven out of 10 online shoppers don’t finish the checkout process. One study from SeeWhy further shows that 99% of all visitors of an average ecommerce store won’t purchase anything when visiting it for the first time.
(CXL, Sleeknote)
Why do customers abandon online shopping carts?
Statistics on cart abandonment point to the following most common reasons why online consumers abandon their shopping carts:
- High shipping costs that the user typically sees after choosing a product and going on with the flow;
- Security concerns, most notably related to online payments;
- A complex checkout process can divert users from completing the purchase;
- Technical issues;
- Not enough payment options;
- Some users are simply browsing without the desire to buy.
(Optimizely)
How do I find out my cart abandonment rate?
To calculate the number of users that abandon your website store, you should divide the number of completed purchases by the number of shopping cart sessions users created. Afterward, subtract the value from one and multiply by 100. There you have the percentage of those who left the shopping process. This is quite a simple shopping cart abandonment rate formula.
(Yieldify)
What is a good abandoned cart recovery rate?
Typically, the shopping cart abandonment stats indicate that those firms with an average order value of $100-500 manage to recover 4-5% of cart abandonment. However, this is not true for all companies. It’s hard to find a single answer to this question. For instance, companies with smaller AOV, like $50 sometimes recover 3% of cart abandonments. On the other hand, big ecommerce stores or the top 10% of them recover a minimum of three times the average performance.
(Klaviyo)
What are the negative effects of shopping cart abandonment?
Most notably, cart abandonment leads to revenue loss. It also points to an issue with the sales funnel or poor user experience. All this affects the sales process as a whole and leads to a loss of revenue.
(Namogoo)
When should I send an abandoned cart email?
Once the shopper leaves the sales flow and your tracking tool registers an abandoned cart, the chance of salvaging things lies in the next few hours, shopping cart abandonment email statistics show. One hour from the abandonment is the ideal time. This email shouldn’t try to sell the product directly and irritate the customer, but rather, the firm should try to address the reason why the customer left in the first place and offer a solution, if possible. The second email should follow no less than 24 hours after that and needs to notify the customer of the urgency before the cart expires.
(Marketo)
How do you reduce shopping cart abandonment?
There are multiple ways that help companies address this issue. Shopping cart abandonment statistics outline several common ones:
- Having verified payment security certificates in a visible place during the sales flow
- Creating a progress bar that to show customers where they are in a flow
- Introducing smooth navigation between the store and the cart so that customers don’t lose the order if they go back
- Supporting multiple payment options
- Putting a strong call to action at the end of the process
- Offering guest checkout without forcing customers to register
- Providing transparent information about the costs (including shipping).
(WordStream)