Shopping cart abandonment statistics show that approximately 68.7% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the purchase stage due to extra costs, complicated checkouts, and account creation requirements. This is a big deal—ecommerce stores lose $18 billion in sales revenue each year because of cart abandonment.
We’ve gathered a list of 30 shopping cart abandonment statistics to help you better understand your online customers’ turn-offs and increase sales.
General Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics
1. Nearly half of customers say unexpected costs are the reason for shopping cart abandonment
According to Baymard Institute, 49% of customers cite extra costs as their primary reason for abandoning shopping carts, with shipping a primary driver of those costs.
Free shipping, in fact, is the expected norm in modern-day shopping because of marketplaces like Amazon; almost 75% of consumers deem free shipping essential to making a purchase, according to an NRF study in 2019.
However, it can be challenging for small businesses to absorb this cost even if offering free shipping is undoubtedly doable. Retail experts advise ecommerce retailers to bundle the shipping cost into the retail product price. And if stores can’t lower costs, they suggest disclosing them on the product page fully to disclose them on the product page.
2. Three of the top five reasons for cart abandonment center around convenience
Customers are looking for convenience when shopping online. In Baymard’s 2021 list of reasons customers abandon their carts, three convenience-related issues made the top five—slow delivery, a complicated checkout process, and the need to create an account.
One way to make sure your customers have a hassle-free shopping experience is to ask why they are abandoning their carts. Kaumudi Tiwari, product marketer at Zonka Feedback, recommends setting up a way for customers to provide feedback via your website: “Display a pop-up where visitors navigate away from the checkout screen, including a simple question asking something like, ‘Did you face any issues while making a purchase?’ Survey reports will help you analyze and plan the changes you should make to reduce cart abandonment.”
For tips on collecting customer feedback, we offer several templates in our guide to customer satisfaction surveys.
3. The average checkout flow has about 15 form fields—twice as many fields as recommended
About 18% of shoppers have abandoned a cart because the checkout process is too long or convoluted. The average checkout flow has 14.88 form elements—that’s a whole lot of data input. According to Baymard, the ideal checkout has seven to eight form fields—about half what the average shopper has to go through.
When building your checkout flow, include only what’s needed to complete the transaction. It’s also a good idea to use an ecommerce platform like Shopify that allows for customer profiles with saved payment information to make future checkouts faster and easier.
4. Americans purchase 58% of what they put in their cart
Cart abandonment rate benchmarks might make you think online shoppers are casual browsers rather than “shoppers,” but Americans do end up actually purchasing 58% of what they put in their carts.
5. Nine out of 10 shoppers will abandon a site if it is too slow
Website speed is a significant factor in shopping cart abandonment. A YOTTAA study in 2020 reported that 90% of shoppers would leave a site if it takes too long to load, with 57% likely to buy from a similar retailer instead and 14% never coming back.
6. You could lose half of customers if checkout is longer than 30 seconds
Consumers have limited patience for other parts of the checkout process, too, with half of surveyed US consumers saying they are less likely to purchase if checkout exceeds 30 seconds. They’ll wait nine seconds for the next page in the checkout to load, 10 seconds for a text code, 10 seconds for credit card verification, 11 seconds for live chat responses, and 12 seconds for an email confirmation.
7. 76% of shoppers won’t return to your site after a poor experience
More than three-quarters of online shoppers won’t even return to your website if they have a negative first experience. Negative experiences could include long load times, poor usability, and low-quality product images.
8. American consumers ditch 11 carts per year
The average American shopper will abandon 11 online shopping carts over a year—that is almost one shopping cart every month.
It’s essential to reduce friction for customers to avoid abandonment. “This can be reducing steps and clicks, but friction also comes in the form of questions and uncertainties that potential customers may have,” said Chris Henderson, product growth at Easyship. “It’s critical that shipping information is complete and clear. This not only includes price, but also expected delivery lead times, courier, and import taxes and duties if selling internationally.”
9. The 2020 holidays had a stable abandonment rate
In 2020, cart abandonment rates were 79.83% on Black Friday and 78.46% on Cyber Monday. These figures are standard for the holiday shopping season.
During the holidays, it’s important to add extra incentives to get shoppers to buy, such as guaranteed shipping or free gift wrapping. Extra touches can be the difference between an abandoned cart and a closed deal. See our Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategies for more tips.
Industry-Specific Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates
10. Consumer goods has the lowest average shopping cart abandonment rate at just under 50%
Of the eight industry categories evaluated by Dynamic Yield, consumer goods, with a 48.94% cat abandonment rate, performed the best. On Dynamic Yield’s list, home and furniture had the highest rate—75.45%.
11. Travel companies have the most abandoned carts according to SaleCycle
The travel industry has the highest cart abandonment rate of all, according to SaleCycle data, at 87.08%. This high rate is typical, as abandonment rates on travel booking sites are always higher than retail websites.
Flights and holiday bookings are significant purchases and often expensive, so many consumers spend time researching the best deals. They tend to mock-book several times, often across different sites, before finally nailing a final booking date. The complexity of the booking process can be another reason for abandonment. Booking for travel requires plenty of steps and time, so many shoppers bail out before completing the process.
Interestingly, 87% of those who abandon their cart the first time are likely to consider returning to their booking, with 33% of them likely to return the same day. This is a huge advantage if travel websites make it easier for customers to check out. Enable saving cookies on browsers so customers can check out the same deal they first browsed or send a cart recovery email a few hours after the cart is abandoned.
12. The automotive industry also suffers from high abandonment rates
According to SaleCycle, cart abandonment rates are also high for automotive and car rentals (a combined 85%). This is likely similar to the challenges travel companies face, where consumers use pricing as part of their research and planning process and don’t always have a high intent to convert.
Consider integrating third-party booking tools onto your website to make it easier for users to check out. You might also consider some sort of email capture so that you can build and nurture relationships and stay top of mind when they are ready to commit.
13. Fashion, consumer, and luxury have the highest retail abandonment rates
Luxury websites experience the highest potential loss of sales from cart abandonment in the retail sector with a rate of nearly 88%, ahead of adjacent categories like consumer clothing stores (82%) and fashion sites (85%), reports SaleCycle.
Mobile Cart Abandonment Statistics
14. Most shopping carts are abandoned on mobile phones
An analysis from Kibo Commerce found that mobile’s average cart abandonment rate came in at 80.6% in the second quarter of 2021—down slightly from the first quarter. Desktops performed the best in terms of cart abandonment, with 66.1% of transactions abandoned.
15. Mobile sales now make up a majority of ecommerce
Mobile devices have seen a giant leap in sales in recent years. In 2019, mobile sales grew to 32% of total ecommerce revenue. In 2020, they jumped to 54% of all ecommerce revenue (and 70% of traffic).
Though mobile sales have overtaken desktop as the leader in ecommerce revenue, mobile still lags behind desktop in conversion rates and average order value.
16. Online shoppers make larger purchases on desktop
While mobile traffic dominates overall at 70%, desktop has a stronger positive correlation (0.65) with average order value than mobile. Online shoppers may prefer to use their mobile devices to browse products but complete purchases on their desktops, especially for bigger ticket purchases.
Employ checkout technology that allows users to log in and save their carts. This way, they can move seamlessly between devices to perform the tasks they want.
17. The m-commerce gap has shrunk from 49% to 16%
The difference between mobile’s large share of ecommerce traffic and lower share of ecommerce sales is known as the m-commerce gap. In 2017, comScore’s Mobile Hierarchy report showed a 49% m-commerce gap. According to Wolfgang Digital’s 2020 data, the m-commerce gap is now 16%.
Although the number is heading in the right direction, the existence of a gap means there is still work for ecommerce companies to improve their mobile buying experience. Top reasons for this gap include confusing navigation, unclear product details, inability to open several tabs to compare item details and prices, and difficulty checking out.
18. More than half of retailers aren’t prepared to support mobile sales
Retailers are still struggling to keep up with mobile technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, and augmented or virtual reality And, 54% of retailers admit they’re still ill-prepared to support consumer demands for mobile sales.
Only 37% of retailers have integrated mobile into their buyer experience journey (buying, communicating, and in-store interactions), and about 25% admitted they are still in the early stages or have no mobile strategy at all.
19. Mobile users won’t download retail apps due to data security concerns
Mobile retail apps were created to provide convenience to consumers who prefer shopping on their smartphones. However, 59.5% of online shoppers are still wary of using these apps to purchase due to data security concerns. Another 37.6% of the respondents said they do not want to download current or future merchant apps because they already have too many apps on their phones.
20. The PayPal Verified seal is the most trustworthy security seal
Research shows that the more familiar a trust symbol is, the higher its perceived security. While 42% of the respondents say they are most familiar with the Visa-Mastercard seal, more consumers trust a PayPal seal. One in four survey respondents said that PayPal gave them the best sense of security, and PayPal was the most chosen seal in every age bracket.
Consider adding a trusted merchant account or payment processor to your online store or app and incorporating their security symbols on your site and checkout pages. Here are some resources to get you started:
- Best Payment Gateways
- Best Ways to Accept Recurring Payments
- Best Merchant Services for Small Businesses
Abandoned Cart Email Statistics
21. Cart abandonment emails have a 45% open rate
Of all cart abandonment emails sent, about 45% are opened. Half of the users who open a cart abandonment email will engage, and 21% will click through. Half of the click-throughs result in a purchase.
Keep these statistics in mind when building your automated emails and sequences. Make the copy crystal-clear, and always include an easy-to-see call to action (CTA) so users know exactly how and where to click to get one step closer to making a purchase.
22. Sending three abandoned cart emails drives 63% more orders
You can send a single abandoned cart email, but retailers that send sequences with multiple emails see more success. Abandoned cart email campaigns result in 63% more orders compared to just one email.
This insight is valuable when planning an effective email marketing strategy and building out your abandoned cart campaigns. Rather than sending a single email, send a few. Space them apart and include different messaging in each. You might even consider upping the ante and having incentives toward the end of your abandoned cart sequence to encourage the sale.
23. More than a third of product abandonment emails get opened
According to a 2020 Omnisend Research, product abandonment emails have a 37.8% open rate, with browse abandonment and post-purchase emails coming in second and third with a 34% open rate each. These numbers indicate that consumers are more likely to open (and read) relevant messages.
Cart Abandonment & Retargeting Ads
24. 25% of consumers appreciate being reminded of products they browsed
Retargeting, which is sending ads based on a consumer’s previous actions, can lift ad engagement rates significantly (several sources say up to 400%), so be bold. A quarter of consumers say they actually like seeing retargeted ads because they are reminded of what they had previously been looking for.
25. Personalized retargeted ads can generate 1,300% ROI
Brands that personalize their retargeted ads based on consumer behavior can see very strong return on investment (ROI) in their campaigns (one oft-cited case study of luxury watch retailer Watchfinder showed a 1,300% ROI).
This means you should consider sending retargeted ads that showcase the same products that customers previously added to their shopping carts but failed to buy. Statistics show it is more likely to turn into sales compared to displaying a generic retargeted ad that just promotes your company.
26. 70% of website visitors are likely to convert when retargeted with display ads
According to ReadyCloud, consumers are 70% more likely to convert because of retargeting. Facebook and the Google Display Network are recommended retargeting platforms because of their massive reach. Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users, and the Google Display Network reaches a huge 90% of all internet users.
27. Facebook ads can provide at least a 3% conversion rate
Facebook is one of the most effective retargeting platforms. Shoppers who spend more time engaging with your business on Facebook will be more likely to purchase. According to Wolfgang Digital, 3% of users who “like” your post will convert into paid customers, followed by 4% who share, 4.67% who leave a reaction, and 4.91% who comment. By the time your audience contacts you via Messenger, the conversion rate increases to 9.95%.
This illustrates why ecommerce businesses should make an effort to become more active on social media. Posting pictures of new products and providing updates that keep prospects and customers interested are great ways to start.
COVID-19 Cart Abandonment Statistics
28. COVID-19 decreased cart abandonment rates
Cart abandonment rates dropped across industries (except, unsurprisingly, travel) when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Lower abandonment rates can reflect increased demand for specific products or services and a stronger intent to buy. In general, cart abandonment rates fell about nine points.
29. Cart abandonment rates plummeted for grocery products during the pandemic
SaleCycle’s research showed that the groceries category was the biggest beneficiary of this abandonment rate trend. By the first few months of 2021, the rate had dropped to 61.13%—from 83.97% in 2020. As people settled into their “new normal” in a COVID economy, their shopping habits adjusted accordingly.
30. 60% of Gen Z online shoppers had less patience in buying online, leading to cart abandonment
In 2021, just under 60% of Gen Z online shoppers in the US reported they became less loyal to brands since the COVID-19 crisis began. Moreover, over 60% of them said they had less patience for poorly functioning websites when buying online, leading many to abandon their purchase or leave a negative review.
Ways to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment continues to pose significant challenges for online businesses.
While we’ve introduced you to the data that affects this consumer behavior, giving actionable tips on preventing cart abandonment is better. Here are some ways you can prevent cart abandonment from happening in your online store.
Bottom Line
Simply put, ecommerce websites that fail to convert visitors into customers will not earn any money. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what discourages your prospects from completing a sale. Consider the shopping cart abandonment statistics we discussed in the article when coming up with your online sales strategy.
Want to learn more about shoppers’ online buying habits? Read our guide on online shopping statistics and payment industry trends for small businesses.
