Abandoned cart analysis is an essential first step toward fighting ecommerce cart abandonment and boosting conversions.
E-merchants need to understand what proportion of customers abandon carts on their site before they can work out why this problem happens first place. Then, they can take decisive action to solve any issues leading to cart abandonment.
Calculating your own cart abandonment rate is complicated, so if it’s a calculation you’re going to need regularly, we recommend using either Google Analytics or a marketing automation software.
However, for those of you looking for a one-off calculation, we’ve got you covered:
The basic cart abandonment rate formula
- First, choose the time period over which you want to measure your cart abandonment rate
- Then, divide the total number of completed purchases by the number of shopping carts created
- Finally, turn this into a percentage by subtracting the total from 1 and multiplying by 100
For example, if over a period of one month you have 500 shopping carts created and 370 purchases your calculation would be:
So, your cart abandonment rate over this period is 26%.
What is an acceptable cart abandonment rate?
Rates of cart abandonment vary greatly depending on which specific industry you’re in. However, the generally accepted average cart abandonment rate for eCommerce is 68%.
This percentage is huge, so don’t get complacent and accept a cart abandonment rate anywhere near the average. Always work to reduce your online store’s cart abandonment rate as much as possible.
Cart abandonment rate is a formula best used to analyze your own performance month over month. Regular abandoned cart analysis is the best way to ensure that your retargeting efforts are working well.
It’s also a good idea to calculate the cart abandonment rate before and after making any big changes to your online store, to see if these changes help or hinder your conversion efforts.
Once you’ve calculated your cart abandonment rate, the next thing to do is reduce it! Launch a first-class retargeting campaign across multiple channels to chase up lost customers and bring them back to complete the purchase.
