Despite it being nearly 2020, eCommerce shops continue to battle cart abandonment at alarming rates.
Think about it. It’s highly likely you’ve been on a website, added an item to your shopping cart, and then later decided you didn’t want it.
But why did you do that?
There are many reasons why people abandon online shopping carts. And unfortunately for online shop owners, pinpointing those exact reasons is difficult. But if you run an online store and want to recover lost sales (and continue to make more money online), you’re going to have to try to understand why customers leave your site at the last moment, and more importantly, what you can do about it.
That’s why today we’ve rounded up the most pressing cart abandonment statistics in an effort to help you succeed as an eCommerce shop owner.
So, let’s get started!
What is Cart Abandonment and Why Should You Care?
Shopping cart abandonment is when shoppers add items to an online shopping cart but leave the site before finalizing their purchase.
Those that run online stores should care about shopping cart abandonment for two very important reasons:
- Lost Sales: every time someone adds something to their shopping cart and abandons your online store before finishing the purchase, you lose money. This makes it difficult for you to reach your goals, maximize your profit, and grow your business.
- Lost Customers: there’s a reason why people abandon a shopping cart before finishing a purchase. Depending on those reasons, you could not only end up losing a sale, but a customer as well. And remember, it costs 5x as much to acquire new customers than retain existing ones.
There’s a lot more that goes into having a successful online shop than just selling high-quality products to satisfied customers. It’s those that are on the verge of leaving, or those that actually do, that are wreaking havoc on your success and ability to make money online.
So, let’s take a look at the most compelling shopping cart abandonment statistics.
1. Across All Industries, Cart Abandonment Rates Average 69.57%
According to Baymard Institute, cart abandonment plays no favorites. In fact, after combining an impressive 41 studies on eCommerce shopping cart abandonment rates, it was discovered that the average cart abandonment rate is just under 70%.
In other words, 7 out of 10 people that think they want to buy something from your online shop will change their minds at the last second – never completing their purchase.
It’s important to know where you stack up when it comes to the average cart abandonment rate statistics. So, take note of your own shop’s average abandoned cart rate and start to formulate ways to combat it.
2. Over Half of All Online Shoppers Claim Extra Costs Are to Blame for Abandonment
It’s true that a lot of shopping cart abandonment comes from those that are just doing price comparisons, saving items for later, creating wish lists, or are simply browsing your online store.
But beyond the natural and mostly unavoidable reasons for abandoning a shopping cart, 53% of people claim that extra costs like shipping, taxes, and other unexpected fees are the reason they don’t complete a purchase.
Adding to that, here are some other reasons people abandon their shopping carts:
- Required account creation (31%)
- Checkout process too long and complicated (23%)
- No upfront cost calculations (20%)
- Don’t trust site with credit card information (17%)
- Slow delivery options (16%)
- Website errors/crashes (15%)
- Unsatisfactory return policy (10%)
- Not enough payment options (6%)
- Credit card decline (4%)
These may seem like insurmountable issues, but they’re not. In fact, sometimes just making small changes to the design of your website is enough.
For example, the average online checkout flow has 14.88 form fields, which can easily be reduced 20-60% in most cases and increase purchase finalizations.
Not to mention, reducing the number of checkout steps to approximately 5.1, like the top grossing US and EU online retailers do, can help improve sales.
3. Cart Abandonment Varies Based on Device Type
48% of all mobile web views are performed on mobile devices, making mobile-friendliness a key factor in running a successful online store.
And yet, shopping cart abandonment rates vary across device types:
- Desktop: 73.07%
- Tablet: 80.74%
- Mobile: 85.65%
Of course, there are many reasons why mobile devices fail to convert more online visitors into customers. To start, the size of the screen and the usability of the site play a role in how easy it is to get from product page to checkout page without a hitch.
In addition, many eCommerce shops aren’t optimized for mobile yet (it remains a mystery why this continues to be a problem), popups make it difficult or annoying to navigate the site, and mandatory account creation turns a simple process into a tedious one.
And let’s not forget things like slow loading times for image heavy online stores and the need for excessive zooming, pinching, and resizing of screens to view a webpage properly.
One of the best online retail shops offering customers an exceptional mobile shopping experience is Target.
Not only does the site load fast, despite all the images, it has everything you need right above the fold, including an easy to see search bar and an intuitive navigation menu.
So, take it from well-established online retailers like Target and optimize your mobile site to decrease your chances of becoming part of the cart abandonment statistics.
4. And the Most Commonly Abandoned Items Are…
In one study performed by Barclaycard, it was found that 29% of people left women’s clothing in their shopping carts and 26% of people left men’s clothing. When it came to items related to entertainment, 26% of people left items in their carts.
Adding to that, here are the most commonly abandoned items left in people’s shopping carts:
- Women’s knitwear
- Leather goods like wallets
- Women’s lingerie and hosiery
- Headphones
- Watches
- Women’s sportswear
- Women’s skirts
- Books
- Women’s tops and shirts
If you’re wondering about online travel bookings, 39% of people leave without finalizing their purchase because they are just looking.
That said, 87% of people would consider returning to the booking they initially abandoned to finalize it. In fact, 33% of people say they would return that same day, 13% the next day, 43% within 1 week, and 11% after 1 week.
5. Billions Are Lost Each Year Thanks to Cart Abandonment
If you think shopping cart abandonment statistics aren’t a big deal, think again. A staggering $18 billion are lost each year because of shopping cart abandonment.
One reason experts think this is an increasingly challenging problem is because most online shop owners don’t have an effective shopping cart abandonment strategy in place to thwart the loss in sales and customers. So, people continue to abandon their carts and online businesses continue to lose money.
6. Cart Abandonment Emails Help
When someone abandons a shopping cart in your eCommerce shop, it’s crucial you ‘chase’ after them with a cart abandonment email. This reminds them about the items they left in their shopping cart and encourages them to complete their transaction.
Though all industries have the potential to capture lost sales with cart abandonment emails, the truth is, the top three industries benefiting from this marketing strategy include travel, fashion, and all sectors that aren’t non-profit, finance, or retail.
Though the average eCommerce email open rate hovers around 15%, triggered emails like cart abandonment emails usually perform much better.
In fact, according to Barilliance, you can expect approximately 45% of your abandoned cart emails to be opened by subscribers. From there, about 21% of them click through and about 10% of those purchase items from their abandoned carts.
7. Free Shipping Is Usually All It Takes
People don’t like to be surprised when it comes to the final price of their online items. After all, unexpected shipping, tax, and other costs are the number one reasons people abandon their shopping carts.
So, it makes sense that 79% of people are more willing to shop online when there is an option for free shipping.
Offering free shipping to customers:
- Makes it clear what the final price will be (minus taxes if applicable)
- Lowers the overall cost of the item
- Gives the impression you care about your customers and their business
Even if you can’t calculate taxes for your customers until the very last checkout page, you can ensure people know upfront how much to expect in shipping fees. And it should always be zero if possible.
8. Shoppers Will Abandon If Your Site Takes Too Long to Load
Site speed and performance has always been important.
But what you may not know is that slow site speeds can affect your cart abandonment rate.
Check out what Vouchercloud has to say about it:
- 57% of people will abandon your site, no matter where they are, if it takes longer than three seconds to load
- 7.57% of shoppers will abandon at checkout if they have to wait for three seconds or more for the page to load
The worst part is, of those people that abandon your site, whether they’re on your homepage or checkout page, 80% will never return, meaning you’ve lost a customer for life.
9. Understand Your Target Audience to Influence Your Cart Abandonment Strategies
Shopping cart abandonment is inevitable. However, knowing what types of people are more likely to leave before finalizing a purchase can help thwart cart abandonment and land your more sales.
For example, here are some compelling statistics about online shoppers:
- Men are more likely to abandon than women
- Those ages 25-44 are the most likely to give up finishing a purchase
- 16% of all people can be considered ‘window shoppers’ or those that will never buy no matter what they put into their carts
- 57% of people are self-proclaimed coupon users and will not make a purchase without a coupon code
Of course, these cart abandonment statistics don’t always apply to every customer than lands on your eCommerce site’s checkout page. That said, any time you can create buyer personas, get to know your target audience, and cater to their needs, you’re going to see a dip in cart abandonment.
10. 59% of People Will Abandon a Transaction if Their Preferred Payment Method is Not Available
It takes a lot of trust for people to hand over their credit card information online. After all, with so many security breaches involving major online retailers (think Target), shoppers are scared to finalize purchases with online businesses. This is especially true when it comes to brands they don’t know yet.
One of the best ways to ease the fears of new customers in your eCommerce shop is to offer multiple payment methods like The House does:
Keep in mind, PayPal processes 60% of all online transactions, making it the most popular payment gateway around. The next two most popular: Authorize.net and USA ePay.
11. Reducing Redundancy Lowers Cart Abandonment Rates
55% of shoppers will abandon your eCommerce site if they have to re-enter credit card or shipping information. Not only is entering the same information twice annoying, it can signal a security issue that online consumers don’t want to deal with.
To prove to customers that you have their best interest at heart, never require them to enter information twice. In addition, display a trust seal on your site.
Conversions Fanatics found that displaying a trust seal has the potential to boost sales (and thus lower cart abandonment) by as much as 28.2%.
Not sure which type of seal to include? Check out some of these ideas:
- Safe Checkout Badge: this one involves your SSL certificate and tells online shoppers that your site is safe, information shared is encrypted, and that personal and financial information will not be stolen. Examples include VeriSign, Norton, and LifeLock.
- Accepted Payment Badges: shoppers are aware that some payment methods are more secure than others. According to ConversionXL, Visa-Mastercard is the most recognized brand and PayPal is the most trusted.
- Third-Party Endorsements: show customers how credible you are by displaying a third-party endorsement such as the Better Business Bureau Accredited Business badge or Google Trusted Store badge.
- Money-Back Guarantee Badges: according to an experiment performed by Visual Website Optimizer, a 30-day money back guarantee badge can boost sales by over 32%.
- Free Shipping and Returns: another great way to earn the trust of customers is to show a free shipping and returns badge. A badge like this takes away some of the perceived fear people have when it comes to buying items online they can’t physically touch. It also shows your dedication to stellar customer service.
12. Personalized Retargeting Ads Can Boost ROIs by 1300 Percent
These days customers want everything to cater to their individualized needs. That’s why personalizing retargeting ads to bring people back to your eCommerce site is so effective.
If you take the time to segment your retargeting ads you can see an ROI boost as big as 1300 percent.
What does this mean exactly?
It means rather than showing a generic ad that people might be interested in, you should show the exact product a customer added to their cart and abandoned. And if you do, you’ll see big gains.
Take for example the time I checked out this planner in the Day Designer shop, and even added it to my shopping cart (which I abandoned):
Later on that day, I saw this ad in my Facebook feed reminding me that I had looked at that specific planner earlier:
The more personalized your retargeting ads are, the better your chances are of having shoppers return to complete their purchases.
And if you really want to capture more lost sales, you should reach out to your target audience via Facebook. 3% of those that abandon your eCommerce shop and see an ad for your shop in their Facebook feed will come back and convert.
13. The Customer Journey Should be Quick and Easy
You should only require online shoppers to click three times in order to make a purchase:
- Choose a product
- Add to cart
- Click the ‘Checkout’ button
Anything beyond that may cause 24% of your customers to abandon their carts. After all, complicated navigation is frustrating and makes people want to leave. To ensure people stay engaged and finish what they start, make navigating to the checkout page a cinch.
14. Shopping Cart Abandonment Happens During Specific Times
It may seem silly to think about, but the time of day and even month of the year plays a role in how much cart abandonment your online shop sees.
CreditDonkey has this to say about when shopping cart abandonment is happening:
- Customers are most likely to abandon their shopping carts between 1-2pm
- During the hours of 6-9pm many eCommerce shops see a lot of abandoned carts
- The weekend is where a lot of people abandon their carts, and some studies show that Thursdays don’t convert well either
In addition, most abandoned cart marketing emails are sent out during November (thanks to the holidays). That said, Omnisend claims that customers are more responsive to abandoned cart email campaigns during February and June.
15. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates Worldwide
Online shopping cart abandonment rates across the globe vary:
- APAC (Asia and Pacific Islands): 76.3% (includes Japan and China)
- Middle East: 76.1%
- Latin America: 75.3% (includes South and Central American countries)
- North America: 74% (includes US and Canada)
- Europe: 70.9%
16. Your Customers Need Your Help
83% of people surveyed need some sort of support during the customer journey. In other words, if you don’t have a lot of customer service support throughout the sales funnel (think live chat, email, contact forms, or phone assistance), your dependent shoppers may abandon your site before finishing their purchase – because they can’t figure out how to.
That said, you need to be proactive when it comes to helping customers in need. That’s because 51% of shoppers will try once or give up immediately when seeking help for an online purchase. Not to mention, 71% of consumers expect some form of support within 5 minutes. If they don’t get it within that 5 minute time frame, 48% of them will leave the site.
And while 60% of consumers like email support, it’s no secret that online retailers often take too long to respond. That’s why you should cater to the 71% of online consumers that love live chat support.
Wrapping Up
And there you have it! 15+ surprising shopping cart abandonment statistics that you can use to help boost conversions, land more sales, and retain more lifelong customers.
Understanding why your customers are abandoning their shopping carts is just half the battle. If you’re in need of more ways to boost customer engagement and secure more sales in your eCommerce, check out this roundup of the best WordPress giveaway plugins. Not only is running a giveaway or contest a unique way to drive traffic to your site and spark interest in your brand, it’s a great way to convince people to buy from your online store the first time they visit.
What have you found works for reducing your eCommerce shop’s cart abandonment rates? We’d love to hear your best tips and tricks in the comments below!