Shopping Cart Abandonment: Top Reasons Why and Reduction Strategies for Businesses

What is digital shopping cart abandonment? 

Digital shopping cart abandonment or simply shopping cart abandonment refers to customers adding products to their online shopping cart but leaving the website or app without completing the purchase. According to a 2023 study by Bayard Institute, the average Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR) across e-commerce is 70.19%. That means for every 100 customers who add items to their cart, only 30 complete the purchase. According to Statista, the digital shopping cart abandonment rate has increased from 60% in 2006 to 70% in 2023.

Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR) is the metric used to estimate the magnitude of this issue, calculated by dividing abandoned carts (total add-to carts – total purchases) by a total add-to-cart. The cart abandonment rate can vary significantly based on the region, industry, and device type. Please refer to the data below from Statista for a better understanding of variations across industries. 

Sometimes, marketers like to differentiate between checkout abandonment and cart abandonment. Checkout abandonment considers the number of shoppers who did not complete the purchase after initiating the checkout and is a subset of cart abandonment. Below we illustrate cart abandonment and checkout abandonment with the help of an example: 

                  ———————————————————————————————————
                  | Add to Cart         |    100     |
                  | Checkout Initiated  |     50     |
                  | Purchases completed |     30     |
                  ____________________________________

Cart Abandonment Rate = Cart Abandoners/Total Add to Cart
Cart Abandoners = Total Add to Cart – Purchases Completed = 100-30 = 70
Cart Abandonment Rate = 70/100 = 70%. 

Checkout Abandonment Rate = Checkout Abandoners/ Checkouts Initiated
Checkout Abandoners = Checkouts Initiated – Purchases Completed = 50-30 = 20
Checkout Abandonment Rate = 20/50 = 40%. 

The shoppers who initiate checkout can be considered to have more serious buying intent as compared to shoppers who added items to the cart but abandoned before initiating the checkout therefore, converting checkout abandoners should be the top priority of brands and should be relatively easy compared to converting cart abandoners who did not even initiate checkout. 

Why should you focus on reducing the shopping cart abandonment rate? 

Forrester Research has estimated that cart abandonment leads to an annual loss of $18 trillion to brands. Add-to-cart and checkout represent the bottom of the customer acquisition funnel and brands incur significant marketing spend to get the potential or existing customers to this stage. The inability to convert add to cart to purchases will lead to waste of that spend. Also, add-to-cart customers are the lowest hanging fruits for brands in terms of potential customers as they have already shown serious intent to purchase from the brand. Converting these potential customers to actual customers should be relatively easy compared to someone who is not even aware of the brand (top of the funnel). Because of these 2 reasons converting cart abandoners to customers must be on top of the priority list of brands. Improving the CAR can lead to an immediate jump in revenue and ROI for brands. 

What are the most common reasons for shopping cart abandonment?   

Window shopping/ browsing

These shoppers are just browsing your online store without serious intent to purchase. They would usually drop off before initiating checkout. 48% of online shoppers in the US have abandoned carts because of this in the 90 days immediately preceding the study. 

Unexpected extra costs like shipping, fees, and taxes

As customers become more price-sensitive, any additional costs, such as high shipping fees, can deter them from completing their purchase. Customers have also highlighted that if the shipping cost is displayed too far into the checkout process it discourages them from completing their purchase. According to Baymard Research, 47% of respondents highlighted shipping as the reason for checkout abandonment. 

No guest checkout option

After shipping costs, the unavailability of guest checkout is the second biggest reason for checkout abandonment. Requiring customers to create an account before they can complete their purchase can be a barrier for those making a one-time purchase, leading to cart abandonment. 

Missing shipping or delivery time or slow delivery

If customers need their purchases by a certain date and cannot find information about the delivery time, they may abandon their cart and look for faster options. Limited shipping options, unavailability of express shipping, or slow delivery can also deter customers from completing a purchase. In the Baymard study, 24% of the respondents highlighted slow shipping as a reason for cart abandonment. This is probably why Amazon, the biggest e-commerce retailer in the USA, focuses so much on same-day deliveries. 

Lack of trust or dissatisfaction with payment security

Customers need assurance that their personal and payment information is secure when making online purchases. If they doubt a website's security measures, they would fear their payment or personal details being compromised. Consequently, they would leave the site altogether.

Long or complicated checkout process

A long and complicated checkout process can cause customers to abandon their cart and leave the site.  

Lack of transparency on total cost upfront

If the pricing information is not communicated to the customer in the initial stages of the purchase journey (product detail page) in an easy-to-understand manner that can also increase abandonment. Displaying prices in a currency different from the customer's local currency is one practice that leads to frequent cart abandonment. Costs of any nature (convenience fee, taxes, shipping, packing charges etc.) not communicated at the beginning of the purchase journey lead to a lack of transparency and loss of shoppers' trust ultimately leading to cart abandonment.  

Unsatisfactory or no return policy

If the return policy is not articulated or is too restrictive that can also lead to erosion of customer trust and the customer may choose to discontinue the purchase process. 

Better Pricing is available elsewhere

With the rise of online shopping, customers have access to a plethora of options and can easily compare prices. If they find a better deal elsewhere, they may abandon their cart on your website. Sometimes the unavailability of discount coupons or if available discount coupons are not working can also lead to abandonment. 

Poor performance of the website

If there are errors and crashes on the website, it's too slow to load or has any other major performance issues, that can also hurt the customer’s decision to buy. This increases cart abandonment. According to one study slow site speed can lead to a 50% drop in loyalty and push the cart abandonment rate by 75%. 

Lack of payment options

Each customer has their preferred payment method, and the one-size-fits-all approach does not work. If a customer doesn’t find their preferred payment method during checkout that increases the chances of cart abandonment. 

Poor Customer Support

No customer support or poor customer support in the form of low response to customer queries, no response to customer emails etc. can increase the cart abandonment rate. 

Websites not optimized for mobile

Most customers browse the web using their mobile and if the website does not perform well on their phone that leads to cart abandonment.  

Credit card declined

Decline of credit cards can often dissuade shoppers from completing the purchase. 

Besides these, other reasons such as items being out-of-stock, excessive upselling, cross-selling (poor customer experience), and simply a change of mind about their purchase decision that can contribute to cart abandonment. 

How do you figure out what is driving shoppers to abandon their carts?  

You need to turn to your shopper data on your digital store to figure this out. There are multiple analytical tools and data points that you should consider. Below is a brief description of a few important ones: 

1. Purchase Journey and Checkout Journey Data

   Purchase journey data allows you to see exactly where your shoppers are dropping out in their purchase journey, and you can compare this data with competitors/ industry averages to figure out areas of improvement. You can also evaluate differences in performance basis device category, and certain demographic attributes. Tools such as Google analytics (GA4), Attryb and many more can offer you this data. 
   
   

   

   
   

   Figure 3. Device Level Purchase Journey Data from GA4 
   
   

2. Checkout Abandoners Data – Shopify, WooCommerce and Bigcommerce

   While Shopify doesn’t give the data for cart abandoners, it does share the data for shoppers who initiated checkout but then bounced (checkout abandoners). If you are using a tool like Shopflo for checkouts, you can get more granular data and figure out exactly at which stage users are dropping out to figure out the reasons for abandonment.

   

   
   

3. Heatmap Data

   Heatmap data can help understand how users navigate to the checkout page, what elements are drawing their attention, and which are frustrating. With tools like Microsoft Clarity (Completely free to use), you can generate AI-driven insights to improve the page experience.

   

How to reduce shopping cart abandonment Rate on your digital storefront? 

What are the business strategies to reduce digital cart abandonment? 

1. Offer Free Shipping

   According to a survey by SaleCycle, free shipping is the top motivator for customers to complete their purchase, with 61% of respondents stating they would abandon their cart if shipping costs were too high. Any kind of shipping, convenience and packaging fees should be incorporated in the price of the product itself. Also implementing tools like tiered progress bar can be helpful to create transparency and increase AOV.

   

2. Transparently share the necessary information with the shoppers

   Providing information related to stock availability, shipping, delivery, return policy, and updates on out-of-stock items can build customer confidence and loyalty and potentially prevent them from abandoning their cart to look for alternatives.  

What are the marketing strategies to reduce digital cart abandonment? 

1. Personalized shopping experience

   Personalized product recommendations and offers can be a great way to increase customer engagement and affinity towards the brand. This can bring down incidents of cart abandonment. 85% of shoppers are more likely to buy from brands that offer personalized product recommendations and offers. It can also convert window shoppers (“just browsing” shoppers and “doing research” shoppers) into actual customers. 

   

   
   

2. Implement Personalized in-session Cart Recovery programs

   Going beyond the traditional outbound cart recovery campaigns implementing on site cart recovery with tools such as exit intent pop-up, flash deals on cart items, items in the cart section on home and collection pages can be very successful in driving conversions not only from existing customers but anonymous visitors also (traditional outbound cart recovery campaigns cannot target these users). Exit intent popups are triggered when a shopper’s cursor moves out of active browser area and the messaging can be customized according to the individual shopper and/or the segment in which the shopper falls. The unique advantages of this strategy are: 

   1. Most cost effective to implement. Can offer the highest ROI. 

   2. Both customers and anonymous shoppers (shoppers who have not registered on the website or have not shared any contact information such as email id or contact number) can be targeted using this.

      

      
      

3. Abandoned Cart Email Campaign

   Running an email campaign to incentivize the cart abandoners to complete the purchase is found to be very effective. You can also create multistep campaigns with 

   1. First email serving as a reminder cum product recommendation tool. For example, if the shopper was looking at mixer-grinder you can recommend products from kitchen appliances. 

   2. After a few such emails, the shopper can be incentivized with exclusive discounts and offers. 

   There are multiple tools like Klaviyo and Twilio that offer email marketing solutions for cart abandoners. According to studies on average the open rate for cart abandonment emails is 39% and click through rate is 23.33%. It is more cost effective than retargeting, and WhatsApp cart reminders but cannot target anonymous visitors. 

4. Use Retargeting for cart abandoners

   Retargeting ads on Facebook (Meta) and Google are a great way to persuade cart abandoners to come back to the platform and complete their purchases. These ads can be easily personalized by showing in the cart products, personalized offers, and personalized landing pages. It can be used to target both customers and anonymous shoppers but can be expensive. Also, with the imminent demise of third-party cookies, it will be difficult to implement.  

   
   

5. Use social proof to build trust

   Social proof elements such as reviews, ratings and testimonials can be a great way to inspire trust in the shopper and reduce cart abandonment. Special social proof widgets such as “n customer bought this product in x days in your location”, and “this product is added to x carts”, can be a great way to build trust and increase purchases. These elements should be integrated in all marketing communications including the digital store, email and add campaigns. 

What are the UX (customer experience) strategies to reduce digital cart abandonment? 

1. Simplify Checkout Process

   Streamlining the checkout process can help reduce frustration and increase the chances of customers completing their purchase. This could include offering a guest checkout option or implementing a one-click checkout system. According to a study by Baymard Research, average ecommerce sites can improve their conversions by more than 35% by implementing a better checkout experience. One step checkouts and guest checkouts are some of the options that brands, looking to improve checkout experience and conversion rates, must consider. 

2. Provide Multiple Payment Options

   By offering a variety of payment options, customers can choose their preferred method, increasing the likelihood of purchase. 

3. Optimize Website Performance

   Ensuring that your website is user-friendly, loads quickly, and is free from technical issues can improve the overall customer experience and reduce cart abandonment. Enhancing the speed of the ecommerce platform will lead to lower cart abandonments. AliExpress witnessed a 27% jump in conversions for new customers by lowering their page load speed by 36%. 

4. Optimize the website for usage on Mobile

   According to a study done by Barilliance in 2015, the cart abandonment rate on mobiles is highest at 85.65% followed by tablets (80.74%) and lowest on desktop (73.03%). Also, over half (50.48%) of the web traffic is through mobiles. Given these statistics it is highly critical for ecommerce platforms to be optimized for mobile experience. A mobile-friendly shopping experience can greatly reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate. 

5. Enhance Security Measures

   Implementing security features such as SSL certificates, password encryption, and displaying trust badges can help alleviate any concerns customers may have about sharing their personal and payment information. Some of the trusted security badges as highlighted by Baymard are Norton, McAfee, and TRUSTe. Placing customer reviews on the checkout page can also be a great way to instill confidence in customers and decrease the chances of abandonment. 

Deploying cart recovery strategies across various stages of abandonment 

There are 3 distinct stages in cart abandonment and brands must deploy right strategies for cart abandonment across the 3 stages: 

1. Pre add to cart stage

   This is the stage when the user has just started his shopping journey on the ecommerce platform and is probably browsing collection and product pages on your digital platform. The tactics that brands should use to reduce digital cart abandonment during this stage: 

   1. Offer a personalized shopping experience to shoppers/ users. 

   2. Use social proof to build trust. 

2. Exhibit exit intent

   This is the stage where customers have added products to her cart but exiting the browser window. Intervention at this stage can help to reengage the user, move them deeper into the purchase journey, get better understanding of user and increase chances of conversion. The tactics that brands should use to reduce digital cart abandonment during this stage: 

   Implement Personalized in-session Cart Recovery programs. 

   
   

3. Post-cart abandonment

   This is the stage when customer has left the ecommerce platform before completing the purchase. Following tactics should be used by brands during this stage:  

   1. Abandoned Cart Email Campaign. 

   2. Use Retargeting for cart abandoners. 

   By Implementing this stage specific strategies along with broad strategies discussed above the brands can significantly reduce their cart abandonment rates. Ashba, a hair care brand dedicated to the needs to curly hairs, has partnered with Attryb to reduce cart abandonment, and improve conversion rate on its Shopify store. Attryb devised a comprehensive cart abandonment reduction strategy, catering to all three stages of abandonment. Within 3 months of implementation, Ashba has seen a 30% decrease in their cart abandonment rate, and 10% increase in conversion rate. Read More about it here.

Conclusion

Cart abandonment remains a prevalent issue for ecommerce businesses, but by understanding the reasons behind it and implementing effective strategies, it can be reduced. By offering convenience, transparency, and incentives, businesses can improve their bottom line and provide a better shopping experience for their customers. It is crucial to continuously monitor and optimize these strategies to ensure success and keep up with evolving customer demands. 

Please book a free demo to understand how Attryb can help reduce your cart abandonment rate and improve conversions. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

1. What is Shopping Cart Abandonment? 
   Cart abandonment refers to the act of customers adding products to their online shopping cart but leaving the website without completing the purchase. This is a common phenomenon in the ecommerce industry, and it can have a significant impact on businesses' bottom line. 

2. How to reduce shopping cart abandonment? 
   Offering an incentive in the form of a discount or free shipping is the most common way to induce abandoners to complete the purchase. Some of the other measures to reduce abandoned cart can be: 

   1. Implement abandoned cart popup on your digital store. Implement exit intent pop up targeting cart abandoners. 

   2. Run an email campaign to get the cart abandoners to complete the purchase. 

   3. Run a WhatsApp/ SMS campaign to incentivize abandoners to complete the purchase. 

   4. Provide multiple payments options. 

   5. Provide personalized offers and promotions. 

3. How to reduce shopping cart abandonment by anonymous visitors (visitors not signed up on the digital storefront)? 
   Following strategies can be implemented to recover carts abandoned by anonymous vistors:

   1. In-session cart recovery: 

   2. Email collection plus cart recovery pop-up: Leverage personalized offers, FOMO, compelling CTAs and visitor journey optimization to nudge anonymous visitors towards sharing zero party data and completing the purchase. 

   3. Product Recommendation pop-up to first time anonymous visitors on exit intent: 60% -70% of the website visitors only do 1 session in their lifetime and that is the only opportunity that brands have to showcase their products to such users. By improving product discovery and engagement, exit-intent product recommendation pop-up improves user sign-ups, add to cart rates and conversion. 

   4. Location based social proof widget: Leverages data to build trust with anonymous visitors. When combined with attractive offers and user journey optimization, can significantly reduce cart abandonment by anonymous visitors. 

   5. Tiered Progress Bar: Offer milestone-based offers to anonymous visitors to build trust. Can be combined with user journey optimization and compelling CTAs to decrease abandonment.  

   6. Sticky Bar with personalized offer: Leverage sticky bar to continuously remind the users of offer exclusively available to them.  

   7. Off Sessions Cart Recovery: Reach out to anonymous cart abandoners using retargeting ad campaigns on Google and FB.  Cart Abandonment varies across regions, categories, and stage of the company Reduce Cart Abandonment Lack of trust – social proof Cart abandonment for Anonymous Visitors