Cart abandonment
Cart abandonment is when a shopper adds items to an online basket but leaves without completing the purchase.
In full
Cart abandonment describes shoppers who begin a purchase and do not finish it. Published industry research consistently places the average rate around 70 percent, though methodology varies. The most frequently cited causes are consistent across studies: unexpected additional costs such as shipping or fees revealed late, being forced to create an account, a checkout that is long or confusing, concerns about payment security, and slow loading. Most of these are information design problems rather than technical ones, which means most are fixable without rebuilding anything.
Why it matters
Abandoned carts represent demand that already exists and has already chosen the product. Recovering a share of it is usually cheaper than generating equivalent new demand.