Cart abandonment refers to consumers exiting the checkout process without completing their purchase. This is a significant challenge for e-commerce, with an average cart abandonment rate of 69.57%. Understanding and addressing this issue is crucial for increasing sales.
The formula for calculating the cart abandonment rate is as follows:
1 - (completed purchases / total initiated carts) x 100 = cart abandonment rate
Example: yesterday, your store saw 200 completed purchases, but 1000 total initiated carts:
1 - (200 / 1000) x 100 = 80% cart abandonment rate
Of course, you won’t need to calculate this manually. If you’ve set up Google Analytics for your e-commerce site, you can automatically generate cart abandonment reports to track your performance. By analyzing historical data, we can better understand the underlying issues and develop targeted solutions.
The latest statistics we can find (Global online shopping cart abandonment rate 2006-2024) show that the average cart abandonment rate across all industries is 88.05%. Wow! This number can still vary greatly depending on your industry.
Here are some examples from different sectors:
Shopping cart abandonment is a pervasive issue in e-commerce, with rates often exceeding 70%. Understanding the reasons behind this phenomenon and implementing targeted strategies can help businesses recover lost sales. Here are several effective strategies to reduce cart abandonment rates:
Online stores differ from physical stores. Shoppers can't physically hold the products, try them on, or look you in the eye when handing over their hard-earned money.
With the surge in e-commerce in 2024, fraudulent activities have also increased. This means: if you can't make online store visitors trust your business, they are likely to abandon their carts before making a purchase.
How to address lack of trust:Assuming you're not a shady, fraudulent online business, make sure you don't give that impression.
Start with high-quality images, good copy (meaning no spelling/grammar errors), and plenty of social proof.
Unexpected shipping fees are one of the most common reasons for cart abandonment. This is related to what is known as price shock: discovering unexpected costs such as shipping fees, taxes, and additional charges.
A good way to reduce price shock is to display shipping fees on the product page. When people see unexpected fees at checkout, they often abandon their carts due to these costs.
What is the best way to acquire new customers? Try offering free shipping for new customers on their first order. Remember, the cost of acquiring a new customer is 5-25 times higher than retaining an existing one.
Offering free shipping on the first order can convince customers to buy from your store. If the customer has a good experience, you can turn this first-time buyer into a loyal repeat customer and brand advocate.
And customers won't see free shipping as a price shock
Online shoppers, especially those using mobile devices, have very short attention spans. You need to make the entire shopping process, from product discovery to checkout, as smooth and seamless as possible.
If your checkout process is complex or time-consuming, people will abandon their carts. A good customer experience should be quick and smooth. If it's not, your store will lose sales opportunities.
Start by addressing overly complex or time-consuming customer experiences or checkout processes with the following steps:
