15 Important Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics for 2023: A Marketer’s Point of View

Isn’t it frustrating to have moved a shopper through the sales funnel, engaging them by creating special offers, only to lose them later at some point in their buying journey?

This is why we chose to cover the latest shopping cart abandonment statistics to explain to you why your shopping cart abandonment rates could be increasing, and what statistics will help you make data-driven decisions to reduce them.

Here are 15 important shopping cart abandonment statistics you need to know.

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1. Almost half of all customers say unexpected costs are the main reason for abandoning shopping carts

For 49% of customers, the extra, often unanticipated shipping cost is the main reason they abandon shopping carts.

Customers Don’t Want to Pay More than the Product Price

This is because 75% of customers prefer free shipping while shopping online, and they abandon the cart when the cost is too high. The reason is, customers don’t want to pay more than what the product costs them, especially when the product is already expensive. They don’t want to pay extra, as 97.3 million (33%) of people living in the United States are low-income.

We had a different site design that was not as clear about shipping expectations at the time. After some A/B testing with different templates, we assessed that the missing information was causing some shoppers to drop off before even hitting our checkout page.

– Zach Goldstein, CEO of Public Rec

Bundle Shipping Cost with Product Price

It is entirely up to you if you want to offer free shipping to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate. However, it is not always possible for small ecommerce store owners to absorb this cost. A solution could be to bundle shipping costs with the retail product price. Disclosing such unexpected costs on the product page is another way of reducing the shopping cart abandonment rate.

Here is an example of Nike. Before becoming a Nike member, and creating an account on the Nike website, a shipping cost of $7 was added to the actual product price when I added $110 worth of products to the shopping cart. A screenshot is attached below for comparison. Nike incentivizes its customers to create an account on the website and become a Nike member to avail free shipping and free returns.

So, when I became a Nike member, this was the difference in the total checkout price that I benefited from. I saved $7 after becoming a member for free. This is a win-win situation. Nike gets to reduce its cart abandonment rate, and customer information for their marketing campaigns,  and customers get to benefit from free shipping.

Calculating Shipping Costs – How to Make Accurate Estimates

2. Lack of convenience is one of the top three reasons for shopping cart abandonment

When shopping online, customers prioritize convenience. The requirement to create an online account, a complicated checkout process, and slow delivery are the top 3 reasons that cause inconvenience for most customers according to Baymard’s 2021 list of reasons for shopping cart abandonment.

Customers Have Become Demanding 

The reason this happens is that in the age of smartphones and social media, customers have a short attention span, and thus they have become more demanding and impatient than before.

Creating an online account on big stores like Amazon, AliExpress, and Nike makes sense. However, in general, customers would not want to create an account and may seek to opt for guest checkout. The unnecessary requirement for account creation might ruin the customer experience (CX).

Similarly, a complicated checkout process means customers will have to spend time filling in all the fields, which is contradictory to their short attention span.

Some ecommerce sites also take a lot of time to deliver products, and often they either mention the product delivery time for each item in the shopping cart or the delivery time for all items. Customers don’t want to wait for long delivery times and hence they end up abandoning the cart.

In fact, according to a study from Fetch, Dentsu Aegis Network’s mobile agency, consumers are less willing to wait for things and have become more impatient. Overall, 38% of 2,489 survey respondents said that technology had made them less patient than they were 5 years ago. This number was even higher for millennials (45%). This is because technology, devices, and social media have caused a great level of attention erosion in humans. Customers want their products right away.

Provide Fast Online Account Creation, Make Checkout Simpler and Mention Delivery Time 

If you look at the Nike example, you will see how simple it has made its online account creation process.

So, if you really want your customers to create an account online on your ecommerce store, make sure you make it extremely easy and simple by only asking for their name, email, date of birth, gender, and geographical location.

Similarly, Nike’s checkout process is quite simple too with only a limited number of fields and information that the customer needs to fill out to complete the purchase. You can optimize your checkout page to give your customers a great user experience while shopping online.

Moreover, it is a good practice to mention the product delivery time on the product page as well as on the view shopping cart page. Nike only shows the estimated product delivery time for each product in the shopping cart. Go one step ahead and mention the product delivery time on the product page to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate. The screenshot below shows how Nike currently displays its estimated product delivery time in its cart.

10 Ecommerce Experts Insights On Slashing Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

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3. Most Americans only buy 58% of whatever they add to their carts

If we look at statistics from 2018, we would find that 65% of Americans preferred shopping at physical stores than online. This figure has drastically changed post-covid-19, as people had no choice but to stay home and order everything from online stores. As a result, around 263 million, or 80% of Americans have become digital shoppers.

However, despite this, Americans only buy 58% of the items in the shopping cart.

Low Buying Intent Makes Customers Leave Items Unpurchased In the Cart 

Many visitors who add items to their cart, but don’t purchase them, are often just browsing. They like a product, they add it to their cart. But, in general, they have a low buying intent for these products.

Another reason is purchasing power parity. Since 1983, the purchasing power of a dollar has reduced by 63%. For this reason, what happens is, when customers add items to their cart and view the cart for the total cost, the total cost of items in the cart is too high. In order to reduce the total amount, they delete or uncheck items from their cart that they think they don’t need.

Convince Customers Why Your Products Are Worth Their Money

You can incentivize these visitors to purchase immediately by creating a sense of urgency. This can be done by offering limited-time promos, by prompting them that there are only a few items of the products left, or even by mentioning how popular the product is. Look at the screenshots below to understand how you can do this.

The highly-rated tag on the product image and even the product image thumbnail on the shopping cart page would urge the customers to purchase the product.

A reminder that only a few items are left of a product in the shopping cart will have a similar psychological impact.

Convincing Customers to Purchase Items in Their Cart for Travel Industry

For example, Booking.com, a hotel booking app, creates a sense of urgency for its customers in the best manner by offering limited-time deals.

Moreover, when a customer browses through their website to book a hotel, they instantly get a notification. Within seconds of the page loading, the visitor gets a notification about the most recent booking and when it happened.

They also get a notification about the number of people looking at the hotel simultaneously. This creates competition. Customers would want to book before the bookings run out.

Then, there is another notification that suggests that the prices will increase for specified dates, hence creating an urgency to benefit from the best offers! This makes customers want to book faster so that they don’t have to pay the anticipated higher price.

Last but not the least, there is a notification that urges the customer to book now and pay later when they stay with free cancellation on most rooms. This makes the customers worry less about making the wrong choice for their stay. The option to cancel a booking for free gives customers a sense of ease and peace of mind.

Moreover, as soon as you deviate from the page after adding a booking to your cart, you get a notification to finish your booking before you depart the website.

4. 90% of shoppers abandon carts if the website loads slow

We obtained a statistic from a YOTTAA study carried out in 2020. The main finding of the study was that 9 out of 10 (or 90%) of shoppers would abandon a site if it takes too long to load, with 57% likely to purchase from a competitor instead, and 14% never return to your ecommerce site.

Customers Have Limited Time in an Accelerated World

According to a page speed report from Unbounce, nearly 70% of consumers say a website’s loading time affects their decision to make a purchase. This is because we are living in an accelerated world. There is an ever-decreasing tolerance even for basic tasks such as waiting in queues. Hence, it becomes even more frustrating when a website loads slowly when we really need or want something quick.

Moreover, according to the same study, 81% of marketers are informed about the impact a slow website can have on conversions, and realize the urgency of improving page speed.

Optimize Your Website for Core Web Vitals to Increase Site Speed and Performance

Here are the results of a case study on Agrofy Market. It is an online marketplace for Latin America’s agribusiness market. In the case study published in 2020, it covered metrics like abandonment rates, site exits, and user engagement.

Agrofy identified its slow page load speed when there was a significant amount of time until its visitors saw the main page on their ecommerce site. In order to tackle this issue, they optimized their website’s Core Web Vitals – it focused on FCP, LCP, and CLS. This reaped them great results as they were able to reduce their product page abandonment rate from 3.8% to 0.9% – an impact of 76% was observed.

“Passing all core web vitals ensures that users will have an agile and organic navigation experience, especially in a Marketplace.

A low CLS avoids frustration, resolving the LCP fastly reduces the abandonment, a good level of FID improves trust and that increases the conversion chances. Finally, these improvements are reflected with an increase of the organic traffic and with customer transactions.” – Luciano Mollar, Web Performance Architect at Agrofy.

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5. If checkout is longer than 30 seconds, more than 50% of your customers may abandon your carts

According to Forter, 50% of Americans say they are less likely to purchase something online if the checkout process takes longer than half a minute i.e. 30 seconds.

An average customer will wait just 10 seconds for their credit card to be verified, and 1 in 3 customers on average clicked out of purchasing items when asked to re-enter their credit card info.

Time is a Precious Commodity For Today’s Customers

Mark Mathews, NRF Vice President, says “Time is a precious commodity for today’s consumers. Shoppers are busier with commuting to work, dealing with family obligations, or catching up on schoolwork, among other things. Naturally, convenience factors are playing a larger role in their shopping experience”

Today’s customers expect online retailers to offer them innovative ways to save both time and effort. A report from the National Retail Federation says 97 percent of respondents back out of a purchase because it was inconvenient for them.

Using PCI Compliant Payment Gateways

Customers prioritize convenience, specifically when it comes to certain types of purchases. Everyday items such as groceries, personal care items, and pet supplies are some examples.

Online retailers are now offering a variety of innovative solutions to reduce the checkout process time for their customers. In this case, being PCI compliant and using PCI compliant payment gateways like Square and Stripe can save their customers from having to re-enter their credit card info. These options can contribute to brand loyalty, as 93% say they are more likely to choose to shop at a specific online store based on convenience.

6. The global cart abandonment rate is around 76%

Low-quality product images/videos that don’t give a convincing representation of the product, poor site usability, and long load times, are often the reason more than 3 quarters of online shoppers won’t even return to your website.

Customers Can Have Second Thoughts If They Are Not Fully Convinced

When shopping online, customers want to develop a feel for the product. This happens when the ecommerce store has high-quality, clear pictures and videos of the product that answers their objections and queries about the product.

Oftentimes, they add these products to the cart out of impulse.  However, they will soon start having second thoughts about it and might abandon the cart since they were not fully convinced earlier.

Similarly, when the site is loading too slow and is not user-friendly, they might just lose interest in buying the product because today’s customer cares a lot about their experience while shopping online.

Clear Representation of Products, Choosing the Right Ecommerce Platform and Improving Customer Site Navigation

Make sure to use high-quality product images and videos on your product pages, as well as high-quality product image thumbnails on your checkout page. This creates a sense of trust in customers, assuring them that they will receive what they ordered and not something else.

Migrate to one of the best ecommerce platforms to experience higher speeds and reduced page load times. This will also improve your customers’ user experience on your ecommerce site.

To guide your customers on your ecommerce site, you can also display personalized messages in real-time.

A study about Laura Ashley, a luxury home brand, showed that it improved its average basket value and reduced cart abandonment by displaying personalized messages in real-time. These messages contained counter-arguments to the drop-off reasons. Directing customers back to the checkout page with a simple button also helps get them to complete their purchase.

Here are some ecommerce best practices with 15 simple ways to guide you on how to boost your sales by working on the most critical aspects of the online buyer journey.

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7. If you optimize the checkout process, your abandonment rate will be 20%

As an ecommerce store owner, you cannot completely avoid cart abandonment. It doesn’t matter how much you optimize your checkout page and process, cart abandonment is inevitable.

Customers Want an Overall Fast Checkout Experience

The reason is instant gratification. Humans want their wants and needs to be fulfilled right away. They have become impulsive and impatient. This is supported by the same study by Forter. An average American says that if they have to click four different buttons when checking out, they’ll start to second-guess their purchase.

Improve the Overall Experience By Optimizing the Checkout Page as a Whole

According to Forter, customers will wait 9 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.

In order to work around the above statistics, you will have to look at all elements on the checkout page carefully and optimize each one. You should have a 360-degree approach when working towards optimizing your checkout page.

“Shoppers expect instant gratification. That’s why being able to confirm the trustworthiness of a customer automatically without making them jump through hoops, is essential for e-commerce merchants looking to beat out the competition during the holiday season,” says Michael Reitblat, CEO of Forter.

How to Migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce

8. The checkout abandonment rate increases to the max in December

December is the time with the highest level of shopping cart abandonment rate. This is followed by November and January.

Customers Shop More During the Holiday Season

These 3 months, shoppers browse Christmas present ideas as a result of Black Friday and January sales. This means more people are shopping, hence the increase in cart abandonment rate. Why? Because as many people would be buying, many people would also be leaving their cart.

Highlight Your Return Policies

Customers shop excessively during the festive holiday season, mainly to purchase gifts, Thanksgiving essentials, Christmas festivities, and more.

One way of reducing cart abandonment here is to highlight your return policy. Around one in ten cases of cart abandonment are due to unclear or no return policies. This is because when customers know that an item is unexchangeable or there is a zero return policy in place, they begin to doubt their purchase and abandon their cart as a result. But if they feel that it is a risk-free or low-risk buy, they will surely be more motivated to complete their purchase.

8 Checkout Page Best Practices to Reduce Cart Abandonment (with Examples)

9. Checkout abandonment rates are higher on mobile than desktop computers

A study from Baymard Institute shows that the abandonment cart rate is different for different devices: for mobile, it is 85.65%, for tablets, it is 80.74%, and for desktop, it is only 69.75%.

Mobile Devices are the Most Accessible and Convenient

More than half of the people worldwide access the internet using mobile devices, while only 49% do so via desktops. This is because customers are on their phones all the time, be it on their commute to work, lunch hour, or even before bedtime. This means, when they think of buying something, the most conveniently accessible device they have in front of them is their mobile phone.

In fact, when they click on a well-positioned ad on social media, for e.g., Facebook, and go to an ecommerce website, they make the resulting purchase decisions through their mobile phones. This is another reason why the shopping cart abandonment ratio for mobile users.

Have Your Ecommerce Site Optimized for Mobile

Trusting the best ecommerce platform is one way to ensure you are preparing for mobile responsiveness in order to deliver an excellent mobile experience. Your website pages may need pinching and squeezing to make sense to your mobile target audience.

You should dedicate your efforts to optimize your ecommerce website. This will ensure your customers have a smooth shopping experience online, which will ultimately lower your cart abandonment rate.

10. According to SaleCycle, travel companies have the highest abandoned carts

Travel companies have the highest cart abandonment rate according to SaleCycle data; at around 87.08%.

Customers Mock-Book Flights Several Times To Find the Best Deals

Holiday and flight bookings are expensive, hence people take their time to find the best deals. They look through different sites and mock-books several times before choosing their final deal or booking date. This mock-booking makes them add their favorite options to their online shopping carts on different websites to compare. But when they finally make their decision, they abandon their shopping carts on all other websites to finally book on the site where they find the best deal.

The complexity of the booking process is also often the reason behind shopping cart abandonment because booking for travel means customers have to go through several steps and take up more time.

Enable a Wishlist Feature, and  Enable Saving Cookies

You can enable a wishlist feature on your website. This will help the customers save their favorite deals in a wishlist instead of adding them to their online shopping cart. When they have the option to add their favorite deals to the wishlist, your shopping cart abandonment rate will significantly drop.

If you have a travel website, you can also make it convenient for customers to finish their bookings by coming back to their saved shopping carts. Interestingly, 87% of people who abandon their cart return to their booking, and 33% of them return the same day.  You can enable saving cookies on browsers to keep customers’ online shopping carts saved. This is important to facilitate your customers when they want to check out the same deal they first browsed.

You can also send a shopping cart abandonment email a few hours after the cart is abandoned. This way you can remind your target audience about the deal they liked but forgot to book.

11. The m-commerce gap has decreased from 49% to 16%

The m-commerce gap is the difference between customers’ mobile browsing time spent and their mobile buying habits – or the gap between mobile ecommerce traffic and mobile ecommerce sales. Earlier on in 2017, this difference was 49% based on comScore’s Mobile Hierarchy report. But if you look at Wolfgang Digital’s 2020 data, this m-commerce gap has largely reduced to 16%.

Earlier on, Customers Didn’t Experience Mobile Friendliness

The m-commerce gap in 2017 was larger because of legitimate reasons. There were security concerns, customers could not see the product detail, and navigation was difficult since customers could not compare products using multiple screens.

Over time, the UX has gotten much better, and the security concerns have been resolved post-covid since customers had no choice but to make purchases online. Moreover, people have started to focus more on optimizing for ecommerce SEO. This ensures that they have begun to understand the importance of optimizing their ecommerce website for mobile search results.

Create an Ecommerce Mobile App, Engage Mobile Users, and Enable One-Tap Buy

Revenue from mobile commerce sales in 2021 has grown 3.5 times what it was in 2016. This means that today’s customers are using mobile devices more frequently to make purchases online. However, they have shorter session times on mobile than they do on desktop.

You must direct your efforts in improving your customer engagement on their mobile devices. This can be done by creating a fully optimized ecommerce website, or an interactive and engaging ecommerce mobile app. Just resizing content to fit the smaller screen isn’t enough. There is a need to rethink how to execute commerce on mobile altogether.

Moreover, you must think about enabling one-tap buy. Registering and logging in as a customer on the ecommerce website, and then entering your credit card details to check out is a hassle. Besides, today’s customer is always on the go. They might abandon the cart thinking they can carry out these actions later on the desktop. This enhances the m-commerce gap instead of reducing it.

According to recent insights from Domani, it takes them 3 seconds to process a headline, and 13 milliseconds to process a photo. This means humans are visual, so it is important to display products effectively and optimize your ecommerce product pages for mobile users to further reduce the m-commerce gap.

Ecommerce Optimization 101: Quick Ways to Optimize Your Ecommerce Store For More Conversions

12. The PayPal Verified seal definitely increases trust

Research suggests that customers trust an ecommerce website more when they see a PayPal Verified seal.

Trust Badges Make Your Ecommerce Site Appear Legitimate

Trust badges boost conversion rates because they let your visitors know that your website is legitimate. There is a new trend of placing them on the home page rather than the checkout page. This is so that the customers know that the credit card information they share will be collected through a secure and trusted 3rd party service provider. When PayPal agrees to place their badge on your website, customers will be more trustful of their purchases from your ecommerce website.

Add the Paypal Trust Badge to Your Ecommerce Site

Having PayPal checkout on your ecommerce site would earn you PayPal trust badges. PayPal trust badges are free of cost and they are a perfect way to increase your conversions. You get source code and downloadable PNGs with them too. There are about three types of trust badges available: Backed by PayPal, Return Shipping is On Us, and Support Small Businesses.

Econsultancy conducted a survey to ask consumers what influenced their trust when they shop from an online retailer they come across. Different elements were found to help in building trust, and trust badges on the website were observed to be the most important. 48% of respondents said that trust seals are crucial in building trust on eCommerce sites.

Also, 61% of respondents said that they didn’t make a purchase because there were no visible trust badges or logos when they went on to an ecommerce website. You can learn more on ecommerce growth hacks and strategies to boost your ecommerce business in 2023.

13. Cart abandonment emails are opened 45% of the time

According to Moosend 2021 stats, cart abandonment emails have a 45% open rate. Research also tells that around 11% of these people who open the email actually complete a purchase.

Email Sending Time and Subject Line Both Play a Huge Role 

When it comes to sending out abandoned cart emails, timing is key, alongside how you tailor the email copy for your target audience. More importantly, your subject line should be convincing enough for customers to open your cart abandonment email. According to Klaviyo, subject lines that merely reminded the cart abandoner that they left something behind are likely to perform the best with an open rate of 47.67%, almost 4% higher than the average.

Write a Good Copy and Find the Most Effective Time to Send Cart Abandonment Emails

You must also spend time on your cart abandonment email layout and copy to make sure you convey the right message across to your audience. Your cart abandonment email design should be on-brand, and your email copy should directly address your target audience, be relatable, and resonate with them.

According to Dynamic Yield, cart abandonment emails that are sent within the first hour of cart abandonment perform best! Both in terms of the open rate as well as the click-through rate. So make sure you send out your cart abandonment emails at the most effective time to increase their open rate.

You can use abandoned cart recovery plugins if only a few customers are converting after opening your cart abandonment email. These will help you send automatic email notifications to your customers to help you recover lost sales.

7 Powerful Practices and 10 Examples to Write Impactful Abandoned Cart Emails in 2023

14. You can generate 1300% ROI by personalizing retargeted ads

An often-cited case study of Watchfinder, a luxury watch retailer, showed 1300% ROI when it retargeted its customers with personalized ads. Retargeted ads show customers the same products that they liked on an ecommerce store, added them to their cart, but then abandoned the cart before checking out.

Customers Need Reminders

This is because the statistics show that customers are more likely to complete purchases when retargeted with personalized ads as compared to when they are displayed generic retargeted ads that just promote the ecommerce store. Personalized retargeted ads lift the ad engagement rate to up to 400% according to several sources.

Personalized Retargeting on Facebook and Google Display Network

According to ReadyCloud, customers have 70% more chances of converting as a result of retargeting done the right way.

Google Display Network and Facebook are the ideal platforms where you can retarget your cart abandoners. Why? Because these two platforms have a massive reach. The Google Display Network reaches around 90% of all internet users while Facebook has around 3 billion monthly active users.

Moreover, according to Wolfgang Digital, 3% of users who “like” your post will convert into paid customers, followed by 4.67% who leave a reaction, 4.91% who comment, and 4% who share. When the users contact you via Messenger, the conversion rate increases to around 9.95%. Moreover, Facebook Messenger has an 80% open rate, so be sure to integrate it to your ecommerce site via API or plugins.

This means you should realize the importance of using social media and retargeting your customers with personalized ads. You should also keep posting about new products and display product images through sponsored and unsponsored posts that instantly capture the interest of your target audience so they convert.

15. COVID-19 abandoned cart statistics

During the peak times of the pandemic, between 2020-2021, the shopping cart abandonment rate dropped drastically as reported by SalesCycle. This trend was seen across all industries, except travel, since borders for many countries were closed.

Demand For Certain Items Increased

There could be many reasons for the overall drop in the shopping cart abandonment rate. The demand for certain items and products increased (especially for items of grocery). This means more and more people want to buy these products and hence complete their purchases. Overall, the general intent to buy was much stronger than ever before because of people having to buy everything online as a result of the lockdown.

Use Emotional, Personalized Messages That Instill a Sense of Social Responsibility During Covid

In order to further reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate during Covid, you can take part in certain social activities and send out personalized messages like, “Hi XX, for every $X spent on a purchase, we will donate $X to Covid relief centers.”

This will instill a sense of social responsibility in your customers, and urge them to convert in order to contribute to society. They will also trust your brand more when they see how you are contributing positively to the welfare of others.

Conclusion

These shopping cart abandonment statistics will help you fine-tune the elements of your ecommerce website that matter. Only after knowing these stats can you devise a strategy to effectively reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate and recover sales.

Here is a 9-point ecommerce website checklist that can further help you improve your sales.