Raphael Thys
As an ecommerce retailer, you rely on analytics to optimize and improve your store, shopping cart, and checkout experience. Despite tracking the proper metrics, measuring accurately, and implementing a review process, comparing this information against your own performance doesn’t give you the full picture.
It’s important to compare your analytics against average cart abandonment statistics as a whole, across industries, for product types, and more. By comparing these benchmarks, you can dissect information in multiple ways and draw more meaningful insights.
Average shopping cart abandonment rate
According to a collection of 41 studies between 2006 and 2018, Baymard Institute found that the average cart abandonment rate is 69.57%. Relying on this average as your benchmark can be misleading, as there is a lot of variation across different industries. To properly address cart abandonment on your ecommerce store, you need to know the average abandonment rate for your industry and product type.
Cart abandonment stats by device type
Always account for how your users navigate your store. Monitor abandonment rates across device types to fully understand engagement with your site, the quality of your user experience, and the performance on each device. Below are the abandonment rates by device type for you to compare to your own data:
- Desktop: 73.07%
- Tablet: 80.74%
- Mobile: 85.65%
In general, the smaller the device type, the higher the abandonment rate. This could be due to the fact that customers want to see the product and its details on a larger screen to be able to get all the information they require. Regardless of the reason, you want to focus on mobile cart abandonment because it accounts for a significant amount of your visitors.
Shopping cart abandonment statistics by industry
Cart abandonment differs significantly across industries and products. Understand your niche market and industry well, and use the average abandonment rates for your industry as a benchmark. Below are the most recent cart abandonment rates by industry:
As you can see, there is variation in abandonment rates by product more than by industry. Clothes, tech, and home products are more likely to be abandoned than fitness, food, and jewelry items. This is based on the type of need the product serves the customer. For example, food and fitness services are less likely to be abandoned as they are essential. Many people also have an idea of their food preferences and fitness habits before adding an item to their cart.
Fashion and clothing abandonment (68.3%)
When it comes to clothing, there is a wide range of styles, designs, colors, and more to choose from. Sizing can also vary greatly across brands and designers. Because these choices are subjective and there are more options for customers, they are more likely to abandon an item. Clothing has one of the highest abandonment rates of any product type, with around 40% of clothing in shopping carts being abandoned.
As fashion abandonment is more common than other industries, there is more data on reasons people abandon clothing items.
Compare this to traditional reasons for cart abandonment to see which affect clothing more.
Travel bookings abandonment (81.7%)
Making travel plans and booking all the necessary components takes research, planning, organization, and execution. This means comparing between different airlines, hotels, resorts, transportation once there, places to visit, and things to do. In general, industries that have a longer research and planning phase and a complex checkout process naturally lead to higher cart abandonment rates.
Finance abandonment (83.6%)
Financial products are often more complicated than other products, requiring a deeper understanding of the product being purchased and more personal details in order to complete the purchase. In fact, the main reasons customers abandon financial products is because of the amount of prerequisite information required and the length of time to complete the forms. On top of that, these contracts are often phrased very specifically, and use confusing and difficult to understand phrasing.
Gaming abandonment (64.2%)
Gaming is a more forgiving industry for shopping cart abandonment. With online reviews, streaming, and significant advertising, there are multiple ways to preview the product before buying it yourself. Games are also often one-size-fits-all, as you don’t face sizing and comfort issues like you would in the clothing industry. Many games are purchased digitally, so customers avoid shipping, and can download the product right away.
Retail abandonment (72.8%)
Retail products are often low-cost and require little research or planning. They are easier purchases to make, but they are also often browsed with little intention of completing a purchase. Making return policies clear and outlining the warranty can help you capture more sales and reduce abandonment.
Non-profit abandonment (83.1%)
By their nature, non-profit customers are insightful and require meaning behind the actions of the company they buy from. Customers seeking these sales are more likely to research more deeply before purchasing. Show value to the customer instantly, and make it clear what the donation will do for the non-profit and who they serve.
Abandoned cart email statistics to recover lost revenue
All is not lost when customers abandon their shopping cart. If you’ve collected an email, you can reconnect with customers that have abandoned checkout and attempt to recover the sale.
The most common way to recover abandoned shopping carts is through email recovery efforts. Recovery emails can be triggered based on business logic. Measure how many recovery emails are opened, how many are clicked on, and how many result in a purchase. Here are average email recover rates for each stage of the process:
- 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened
- 21% of the cart abandonment emails that are opened are clicked on
- 50% of the users that click-through complete a sale
This also varies across industries, and you should consistently develop strategies that improve your abandoned cart recovery rate. Know the difference between remarketing and retargeting to make the most of your email recovery efforts. You can even break abandoned cart recovery statistics down by the performance of a series of emails, and how each email in the series does. Understand the impact of your subject lines, A/B test them, and effectively offer coupons on subsequent recovery emails in the series.
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