Complete List of Cart Abandonment Statistics: 2006-2021

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current cart abandonment statistics in 2021.

There have been hundreds of studies surrounding cart abandonment statistics.

Some studies place abandonment as high as 80%, while other studies place cart abandonment as low as 55%.

In our study, we found the average cart abandonment rate for 2016 was
77.24%. This number rose slightly in 2017 to 78.65%. 

In other words, over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave the site without completing a purchase.

However - as we show below - there is much more to the story of cart abandonment than the average. We segment these aggregate stat across three primary dimensions:

In 2019, the average cart abandonment rate was 77.13%.

In addition to looking at the global average, we segmented the database by the most represented countries in our database and found significant differences. 

Spain had the highest cart abandonment rate at 86.15%. Meanwhile the Netherlands had the lowest cart abandonment rate at 65.49%. The United States was the second lowest with an average cart abandonment rate of 71.86%.

We also segmented the cart abandonment rate data by device. 

Again, while the global average is 77.73%, breaking out the segments tells a much richer story. On phone devices cart abandonment rate shot up to 80.79%. Meanwhile sessions on desktops only had a cart abandonment rate of 73.93%, a 6.86% improvement!

Cart abandonment email open rates are incredibly high. Since 2016, open rates have hovered around 43.3%, with a  slight drop off in 2021.

It shows that when you reach out to client with a relevant messages, you get results. 

Looking at the average click through rate for cart abandonment emails, we again see consistent, excellent results.  

We define a conversion here as a recovered transaction, and calculate the conversion rate by taking the number of recovered transactions divided by the number of opened cart abandonment emails. 

This again points to the efficacy of using in-session data for marketing. Being able to recognize when a customer is interested in a product, and reaching back to draw them in produces results. And there is no better way to do this than with cart abandonment emails. 

There are a number of important stats to keep track of an optimize in a full fledge cart abandonment campaign.

Below is a quick definition of the most important cart abandonment statistics. I've also included some global stats from the folks at MooSend.

These stats fall in line with our own study of email marketing statistics, which found that the average conversion rate for shopping cart abandonment emails was 18.64%.

If you are a Barilliance customer, all of these statistics will be tracked automatically in your dashboard.

You can find examples of cart abandonment emails (along with best practices and templates) here. 

Today mobile traffic accounts for over half (50.48%) of all traffic in eCommerce. 

Unfortunately, according to our own research done in 2015, there is a clear correlation between small screens and increased cart abandonment.

Further, every inconvenience driving cart abandonment on desktop - such as mandatory registrations and long checkout processes, are intensified on smartphones.

Data in aggregate can be misleading. The truth is, abandonment rates vary drastically from industry to industry.

In order to understand how your store is performing, you should compare your current checkout rates to other stores within your industry.

A study conducted by Statista shows that the abandonment rate went up by over 24% from the Gaming Industry to the Finance Industry.

This graphic from SalesCycle illustrates the point nicely.

As you can see, a "good" cart abandonment rate changes dramatically depending on what industry your store is in.

Finance and Non-Profits experience some of the highest cart abandonment rates, averaging over 10% more than the global average shopping cart abandonment rate. 

Meanwhile, Gaming and Fashion industries experience some of the lowest rates. 

We've put together an in-depth article on the top 10 reasons for cart abandonment and their solutions here. 

Two key takeaways to touch on here.

First, a full 22% of respondents said that they abandoned their carts because they were asked to create a new user account. 

When you combine that with other time-consuming and frustrating tasks from the user's point of view (literally labeled "Long and Confusing Checkout" in the survey), you can reduce your abandonment rate by 31% by simply streamlining your checkout process!

Second, some customers simply abandon carts because they are comparison shopping.

While you won't be able to prevent these visitors from shopping other stores, it does stress the importance of implementing cart recovery campaigns to get back in touch with prospects and distinguish yourself from your competitors.

While this article has focused on shopping cart abandonment, there are many other abandonment points that you should consider.

Form abandonment occurs when customers begin filling out fields in a form, but for some reason decide to leave before completing.

These forms could be for free products such as newsletters, more information such as a free demo request or price requests, or online applications.

In general, the longer the form, the more friction customers experience, and the greater possibility that they will not fill out the form.

Understanding the facts is the first step in creating an effective marketing campaign to recover abandoned carts.

The next step is understanding why your customers are not deciding to purchase.

We've created a number of free resources for you as you begin to combat cart abandonment.

Lastly, if you are looking for a complete solution to cart abandonment, schedule a quick talk with one of our cart abandonment experts. We will be able to share how Barilliance has helped hundreds of retailers maximize their traffic.

Good luck!