Learn how to calculate your cart abandonment rate, assess relevant benchmarks, find checkout friction, and choose practical fixes.
The cart abandonment rate measures the share of customers who start a cart but leave without completing a purchase. It helps you assess how much purchase intent is lost before an order and whether changes to pricing, delivery information, trust signals, or the checkout flow deserve attention.
Cart abandonment includes anyone who adds an item but does not buy, including visitors comparing prices or saving products for later. Checkout abandonment is narrower: it counts customers who begin checkout but leave before payment. Separating the metrics shows whether the main issue occurs before checkout or within it.
Use this formula: (1 − completed purchases ÷ carts started) × 100. For example, if customers start 1,000 carts and complete 300 purchases, the calculation is (1 − 300 ÷ 1,000) × 100, resulting in a 70% abandonment rate. Apply one consistent definition and time period.
ecommerce references often place cart abandonment between 60% and 80%, but a useful benchmark depends on device, traffic source, product type, price, market, and tracking method. Compare like-for-like segments and your own trend over time instead of treating one industry average as a universal target.
Common causes include unexpected shipping or tax costs, mandatory account creation, limited payment methods, slow pages, technical errors, unclear delivery dates, weak return information, and forms that ask for too much. Some visitors also use the cart to compare products, so not every abandonment indicates a checkout defect.
Track each step from add-to-cart through order confirmation, then segment results by device, browser, channel, payment method, and country. Smart Funnels can locate major drop-off steps, while Session Replays, Heatmaps, Events, and Rage Clicks can reveal errors or confusing interactions. Configure tracking in line with GDPR requirements.
Start checkout optimization with the highest-impact friction: show total costs early, offer guest checkout, reduce nonessential fields, support relevant payment methods, clarify delivery and returns, and fix mobile or payment errors. Test one meaningful change at a time and compare completed purchases, not only clicks or step progression.