As of 2024, 70.19% of all online retail orders—e.g., shopping carts—had been abandoned instead of purchased. That’s according to data accumulated by independent research firm Baymard Institute.
The pain of shopping cart abandonment affects both small and large ecommerce businesses alike. But it’s only at scale that the pain truly intensifies.
Let’s say your ecommerce site brings in 125,000 visitors per month, your average order value is $100, and your visitor-to-sale conversion rate is 0.92%.
If you increased your conversion rate by a mere 0.5%, you’d add an extra $62,500 of revenue every month. Cumulatively, that’s an extra $690,000 every year.
Numbers like that are exactly why conversion-rate optimization is big business. The question is: Where should you start?
Table of contents
Cart abandonment is when a customer adds items to their online shopping cart in an ecommerce store, but then fails to complete the purchase. Shopping cart abandonment is common due to things like difficult checkout processes and high shipping costs.
Why do people abandon carts in the first place? Baymard Institute’s research found the following common reasons:
The average cart abandonment rate is just over 70%. Baymard Institute estimates that $260 billion in lost orders is recoverable in the US and EU solely through better checkout flow and design. If you’re running a Shopify store, let’s look at ways to reduce cart abandonment and recover lost sales.
Platforms like Shopify analytics will automatically show you cart abandonment rates. But if you want to calculate on your own, here is the formula.
Cart Abandonment Rate = (Number of Abandoned Carts / Number of Carts Created) × 100
For example, if 100 visitors add items to their carts, but only 40 go through with the purchase, the number of abandoned carts is 60. Plugging this into the formula:
Cart Abandonment Rate = (60 / 100) x 100 = 60%
The decline of third-party cookies has made it harder for retailers to track visitors and run marketing campaigns.
In response, they are turning to first-party data, or information collected directly from shoppers, to power personalized marketing campaigns. Using insights from first-party data, you can highlight the most relevant deals, streamline the checkout process, and provide VIP treatment that persuades customers to stay until the transaction is complete.
Shopify’s platform brings together interactions across all devices, channels, and sessions into a single, coherent profile for each shopper. Thanks to this unified view, your store can:
Ultimately, this level of personalization addresses the core reasons people abandon carts: too many steps, lack of relevance, or surprise fees. The more you tailor the buying journey to their needs, the more likely they’ll finalize their purchase.
Most ecommerce marketers dread cart abandonment. But here’s the fun part: cart recovery actually makes you money. Data from Klaviyo found that customers in their dataset generated more than $60 million in sales from cart abandonment email campaigns over a three-month window.
Cart recovery emails also have the best performance across any email marketing strategy. Overall performance metrics for abandoned cart emails in Klaviyo’s dataset included:
If you want to leverage email and SMS abandoned cart recovery, add the Klaviyo app to your store. Klaviyo is an official Shopify strategic partner. Brands like Glossier, Osea, and Loeffler Randal use Klaviyo’s powerful automation features to create profitable email marketing campaigns.
You can also sync Klaviyo to all your Shopify data, such as website activity, tags, catalog, and coupons, and benchmark your business performance against other brands like yours.
Rewards programs turn regular customers into high spenders. They can lead to customers buying more products from you versus a competitor’s store.
Fortunately, you can start a rewards program easily today with two Shopify apps:
These apps assist you in encouraging repeat purchases by letting online shoppers earn and redeem points. You can customize your program to match your brand identity and integrate with other partners, like Klaviyo.
Live chat is another way to reduce Shopify cart abandonment. You can use live chat to help customers with orders and provide customer support. For example, an agent answers questions customers have about a product, so they’re less likely to abandon it.
Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool that lets you chat with customers while they shop. You can manage conversations from online store chat, Shop app, Instagram, and Messenger. Significantly, 70% of all Shopify Inbox conversations are with shoppers making a purchase.
While you chat, you can use real-time customer data like products viewed, what’s in their cart, and past orders to tailor each message. You can even recommend products and give discounts without leaving the chat.
One of the top reasons shoppers abandon carts is because there aren’t enough payment methods. By providing multiple payment options, you can increase the chances of customers completing their purchase.
Notice how Culture Kings offers various express checkout options in its cart. Shoppers can choose between Shop Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, or Meta Pay, or pay with a credit or debit card.
When choosing a payment provider, consider the countries where your business is located and where your customers live. Shopify’s list of payment gateways by country will help you learn which ones are available in your target country and the types of currencies they support.
With Shopify Payments, you can skip lengthy third-party activations and set up payment methods in one click. You can offer a number of express checkout options, and even additional methods of payment like cryptocurrency.
Quick and easy checkout experiences will lower your cart abandonment rate and recover lost sales. In fact, two in three consumers expect to check out in four minutes or less, according to the latest data.
Set up a side cart to make accessing the shopping cart easy. You can see how Kylie Cosmetics uses a side cart that lets browsers see its products, choose free samples, and browse bestsellers. With Shop app, customers can “favorite” or offer a “save for later” option to purchase later.
After clicking through to the checkout page, shoppers can choose the Shop Pay option and quickly pay for their purchase. All their information is saved, so checkout takes seconds.
To activate Shop Pay:
Exit popups entice website visitors and potential customers to take action before leaving your site. Using these popups, you can offer a discount code or free shipping to customers who are about to abandon their cart.
According to data from OptiMonk, cart abandonment popups have an average conversion rate of 17.12%.
Beauty brand Truly uses Privy to prompt a “spin to win” popup for customers leaving their site. You can win a free item or discount just by spinning the wheel, which increases the likelihood of conversion. It’s also a fun and easy user experience that rewards potential customers.
With a Shopify app like Privy, you can track a site visitor’s movements on a page and prompt an event (like a popup or spin to win) when it detects the visitor is about to leave. It also offers templates to create popups quickly, automated A/B testing to see which popups perform best, and tools to grow your email list.
You can also pull products directly into your Privy account, sync your coupon offerings to your campaigns, and more.
Most people won’t buy the first time they visit your store. In fact, online retailers generally convert only around 3% of their traffic. This leaves a massive pool of potential customers who need an extra nudge to complete their purchase.
Retargeting displays ads to people who’ve shown genuine interest, like those who visited your site and added items to their cart, but didn’t check out. Because these potential buyers are already familiar with your brand and further along in the conversion funnel, a well-timed reminder or incentive—like a discount code or free shipping—can often seal the deal.
With retargeting ads, you can:
Looking at this, you have no idea how long it will take to receive the order. “Standard shipping” doesn’t estimate how long it could take, and the copy above practically prompts you to abandon the checkout to see how long it will take to receive the product.
However, if the retailer alters the copy to add just a little more clarity in this section, the visitor has all of the information necessary at the point of decision and therefore trusts they’ll be able to make the right choice given their circumstances.
In addition, most third-party logistics (3PL) providers—particularly those that integrate directly with Shopify—can automate estimated delivery dates.
Another way to build trust is through social proof on your product pages. You can use customer testimonials to show your products are high-quality and worth the shopper’s money.
Partake Foods, for example, highlights specific testimonials from customers and a feed of reviews for shoppers to browse.
There are many Shopify apps you can use to collect and display reviews, including:
The National Retail Federation reports that the average rate of return was 16.5% in 2022. Returns are often complex and introduce friction to the buyer’s journey, which causes people to leave items behind in their carts.
Having a proper system in place for handling returns is key. “When customers know that they can get their money back just as easily as they can spend it, they’ll shop more confidently and spend more,” says Sanaz Hajizadeh, former director of product management at Happy Returns.
Shopify’s self-serve returns solution makes it easy to handle all returns and refunds in your store.
It’s a free built-in tool you can use to centralize returns, automate notifications, generate shipping labels, and restock inventory. Shopify’s self-serve also lets you give customers full visibility of a return’s status, from beginning to end.
With push notifications, you can turn anonymous web visitors into subscribers, requiring no personal details like email or phone number. If they abandon their cart, you can send a follow-up push notification encouraging them to return and buy.
The Shop app offers push notifications and in-app messaging. You can notify customers about product launches, special releases, or limited collections the moment they go live, increasing the sense of urgency and excitement around your brand. Notifications can be tailored using behavior-based data such as browsing history or past purchases, making them more personalized and appealing to each individual shopper.
For example, if a shopper viewed a product multiple times but never added it to their cart, you could send a push notification with a small discount or bundle deal to entice them to complete the purchase. In this way, the Shop app’s targeted messaging rekindles interest in abandoned carts and strengthens ongoing relationships with your customers.
Shopify offers tools to turn your data into action and reduce abandoned carts:
When you have a clear picture of your customers, including what they’ve browsed, purchased, and saved for later, you can create hyper-relevant campaigns. Whether it’s a timely push notification, a limited-edition offer, or a personalized product recommendation, leveraging first-party data helps convert would-be abandoners into satisfied buyers.
Cart abandonment in ecommerce is a term used to describe when a customer adds items to their shopping cart on an online store but fails to complete the checkout process. It is a common issue in ecommerce. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including website usability issues, lack of payment options, pricing, shipping costs, and more.
The average cart abandonment rate for ecommerce is around 70%. However, this rate can vary depending on the type of products being sold, the checkout process, and overall customer experience.
