Key Takeaways

• Optimize your checkout process to gain a competitive edge by simplifying it and reducing distractions, which can significantly lower cart abandonment rates.
• Implement a methodical approach to understanding cart abandonment by analyzing customer behavior, identifying pain points, and using tools like Google Analytics to track shopper journeys.
• Enhance the human experience of your customers by offering transparency in costs, multiple payment options, and personalized interactions, fostering trust and loyalty.
• Explore the potential of engaging strategies like retargeting emails, WhatsApp reminders, and interactive push notifications to capture customers’ attention and encourage them to complete their purchases.

But why? People browse products, compare prices, check reviews, and even add products to their cart, and leave without making a purchase. What could be a nightmare for a business owner, right?However, all cases are not related to the decision-making of the buyers. Sometimes buyers do not feel the urge to buy or proceed with the payment, like unexpected prices, delivery charges, complicated checkout process, and others. To make the most of the sales possible, businesses must understand the reasons behind cart abandonment, and analyze buyers’ behavior to reduce it.

We will highlight key reasons for cart abandonment and the best strategies to recover lost sales in 2025.   

Cart Abandonment- Definition 

When a buyer visits a website, browse items, add them to their cart, and leave the cart without making the payment. It is known as cart abandonment. Today, ecommerce and retail businesses face such challenges. 

Thus businesses must calculate the cart abandonment rate to measure their success and profit. However, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%, which varies from industry to industry. Here is how you can calculate your metrics. 

Businesses must take precautionary action and follow proven strategies to reduce the cart abandonment rate significantly. But, before that, they must understand the key reasons for cart abandonment.

Why Do Buyers Abandon Carts? Top Reasons

The best way to reduce the cart abandonment rate is to understand the reason behind it. Here are some key reasons that businesses must not overlook in 2025.

• Complex checkout process.
• Poor and non-engaging UX/UI
• Lack of personalization
• Lack of transparency
• Extra costs, such as delivery cost, dynamic pricing, etc.
• Slow delivery, inappropriate return policies, poor website performance
• Limited payment options

Working on these reasons will help businesses mitigate the pain points of potential buyers and reduce the cart abandonment rate. But, how to do that?

How to Recover an Abandoned Cart- Key Strategies 

Reducing the cart abandonment rate will help your business to maximize sales and improve customer retention. To stay ahead in the ecommerce race in 2025, we recommend enterprises follow these proven strategies and expected ROI.

1. Analyze Shopper’s Behavior

Understanding your customers is one of the best ways to unlock the reasons for cart abandonment. You must know their journey, needs, pain points, and what is stopping them from making the payment during checkout. To trace their footprints throughout the website, you can use advanced tools like Google Analytics and others. 

You can check-

• On which page are shoppers dropping the website?
• Which device has the highest cart abandonment rate?
• How many times do the shoppers visit their cart before buying the product?

And much more. By analyzing these behaviors, you can improve your customer’s experience and reduce the cart abandonment rate. 

2. Transparency about Costs

48% of users abandon their cart due to unexpectedly high costs during payment, such as delivery charges, tax, or additional charges. Transparency in costs and pricing will help businesses to reduce cart abandonment rates. It is important to offer a clear breakdown of the additional expenses right at the start of the browsing products. 

This strategy not only helps users save their shopping time but also helps them make buying decisions at the start, whether they are willing to pay additional charges or not. 

3. Optimize the Checkout Process

28% of shoppers abandon their carts due to the complex checkout process. Businesses must focus on creating a simple checkout process, without distractions. Here are some key strategies to optimize the checkout process-

• Do not up-sell or cross-sell during checkout, as it might lead to confusion.
• Show progress bar
• Allow autofill OTPs, codes, and important information like name, address, and passwords
• Use a Clear & Concise Form Layout
• Allow guest check-in and checkout for payments
• Apply relevant coupons automatically
• Allow one-tap payments

These features help users to go with the flow and make the checkout process successful, reducing cart abandonment rate. For example, Zara has a simple and engaging checkout process with limited fields, a predictive search option for location, and a display of the total amount at the end. 

4. Offer Multiple Payment Options

Image, your customers are leaving the cart just because they did not find their preferred payment option at checkout. Well, that’s the story of many cart abandonment cases. Today, ecommerce businesses or any online store offers multiple payment options that reduce the chance of cart abandonment. Offering multiple payment options not only helps businesses build trust but also ensures safe and secure checkout. 

5. Retargeting Via Emails

This is the common approach to target shoppers who have left their products in the cart and abandoned them. Retargeting via emails helps them remind them about the payment and complete the checkout process. 

Nearly, 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened, and more than 27% of those emails lead to a purchase. Sending a series of reminder emails can encourage people to complete the process. To make these emails more effective, 

• Include images of abandoned products 
• Use clear calls-to-action (CTAs)
• Interactive GIFs
• Display discounts and offers

Amazon sends personalized cart abandonment emails to remind customers of the items they left behind. This approach has helped them reduce abandoned carts and boost revenue.

6. WhatsApp Marketing and Reminders

With the growing importance of instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, businesses find it a powerful tool to communicate with potential customers. Also, you can use another Interactive Video Marketing Platform to communicate with customers in real-time.

Businesses can use WhatsApp to:

• Send friendly personalized messages to remind them about the items in their cart. 
• Address them by name and offer help to complete the purchase. 
• Offer a discount or a limited-time deal to encourage them to buy now, creating urgency and motivating them to act.

Several brands have leveraged this strategy to reach their customers and help them with their checkout process.

7. Exit Intent Popups

This strategy involves showing popups offering discounts or incentives to lure shoppers when they intend to exit the online store. 

Such popups help businesses engage customers and let them explore more with exciting offers on their next purchase. Myntra is a great example of this approach that tempts users to explore more and reduce the cart abandonment rate. 

8. Push Notifications and Gentle Reminders

Push notifications have become one of the most crucial features of every ecommerce business. These amazing pop-ups remind users to visit their abandoned carts, new updates, new arrivals, and others. You can include images, videos, GIFs, emojis, or sounds to grab attention and make these notifications more effective.

Today, businesses use technologies like AI and ML to make push notifications interactive and relevant for more engagement. 

Wrapping Up

Abandoned carts are missed opportunities for ecommerce or online stores. Businesses must address key reasons why customers abandon their carts and implement industry-best strategies to boost sales and conversion rates.

Recovering abandoned carts is an ongoing effort and takes time. Thus, businesses must analyze data, test new strategies, and improve their approach to get the best results.