The Ins and Outs of the Abandoned Cart

Written by buysight on June 17, 2010 in Infographics .

The Abandoned Cart: online retailers hate it, and most of us are culprits. Perhaps not surprisingly, in 2009 70% of online shoppers abandoned a cart at least once, leaving retailers frustrated and wondering what they can do better to help secure your purchase. But how much are they leaving in the carts, and what types of sales are retailers missing out on? Here is a comprehensive look at the details surrounding the abandoned cart.

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Comments: 33 comments , 8 pingbacks , 1 trackback

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  1. Hasan Luongo
    Hasan Luongo on June 17, 2010
    cool info graphic and data. there is a typo US population is 309.5 million on Billion.
  2. Sam King
    Sam King on June 19, 2010
    Wow, who knew there were 309.5 billion people in the US alone. Where do you put them all?
  3. David F
    David F on June 19, 2010
    There is another reason and one I will admit to doing too. That is not knowing the price of something until I'm made to jump through the hoops of a cart process. Sellers should put their prices on the item or make it easier to find it out before the cart process. To go through that and then find out it's too expensive is infuriating. When that happens I will more than likely never go back even if I could afford it.
  4. Delph
    Delph on June 19, 2010
    Most people use their "Shopping Cart" or "Wish List" as a bookmark, adding things to it that they don't necessarily intend to purchase, but want to remember later. This is the digital equivalent of looking at something, putting it back on the shelf while we wander around the store considering the purchase. If these companies want to get a better (and more accurate) idea of what we actually want to purchase versus what we're considering or wish we had, they should add a 'shopping list' feature that is non-committal. It will allow us to see all the costs associated with the purchase, and give us the option to purchase, but is not our 'shopping cart', which has the stigma of items already intended to be purchased.
  5. Bill
    Bill on June 19, 2010
    Under "Shopping Cart Abandonment in 2009" the second column reads "An average of 75% of the 309.5 Billion U.S. Population shopped online" Its 309.5 Million, not Billion. Kind of embarrassing you let that slip past. Better proof your graphics better guys.
  6. Bryan
    Bryan on June 19, 2010
    you've got to be kidding me...somebody spent time compiling and presenting data on abandoned E-CARTS? uhhh...what?
  7. obsi
    obsi on June 19, 2010
    >implying the US has 309.5 billion people
  8. EFBowler
    EFBowler on June 19, 2010
    I always wonder how accurate these things are, even though the sources are cited, who's going to look all those up and then verify their methodology? Either way, the US population should be in Millions, not Billions. A mistake that puts a simple data point off by orders of magnitude makes me wonder what else is off on this chart. And to suggest the $18B in "potential lost revenue" is fairly disingenuous. I've ditched out of carts for many reasons, but that almost always ends up being a sale for another retailer, and I bet most people who are looking to buy something don't give up because they don't like the 1st website they come across. Definite double counting here.
  9. Mr. Obvious
    Mr. Obvious on June 19, 2010
    Beyond not charging outrageous shipping and being more consumer friendly, I'd say that shopping cart abandonment is normal. People get close to the edge, look down, and figure out if they're ready to jump this hit to the wallet or not. Some turn back. That is normal. Not really a 'problem' that anything can be done about.
  10. Zoomshorts
    Zoomshorts on June 19, 2010
    I abandon carts because the a**holes do not show the price of the item UNTIL you add it to your cart and begin checkout. **** that crap.
  11. Doug Robinson
    Doug Robinson on June 19, 2010
    Exactly how does an abandoned on-line cart equal lost revenue? They lost the opportunity to make the sale. They lost no money. Next we will be saying that retail stores lost revenue when a person (can't call them a customer, they didn't buy anything) walks out without a purchase. That is not lost revenue people, it is called shopping!
  12. Jeff
    Jeff on June 19, 2010
    First row, second, graphic, the US population is not 309 BILLION. I find it hard to accept the other numerical statistics if one cannot distinguish between million and billion. Sorry.
  13. Bob
    Bob on June 19, 2010
    It would have been nice to mention why online cart abandonment is a problem.
  14. Si
    Si on June 19, 2010
    309 Billion US population ???. It may seem like it cause they're so obnoxious, but there arent that many of them
  15. Bryan K
    Bryan K on June 19, 2010
    Simply put, the problem lies in shoppers using the carts to gauge the cost of a potential purchase. If we don't want to follow through, we'll back out. If perhaps the term shopping cart were switched to some pre-purchase terminology, it would look more like we were shopping and not abandoning carts. The most common reason I use an online cart and then abandon it is because I have no idea how much tax, shipping, and coupons will come to before I add things to the cart. The cart does the math and then I can see where I stand financially.
  16. Tom
    Tom on June 19, 2010
    There are ~309 million people in the US, not 309 billion.
  17. harley
    harley on June 19, 2010
    I abandon my cart when I run out of time. I have a couple of favorite sites that save my cart automatically for a few days. Most of the time I go back and complete the transaction. I've abandoned my cart in physical stores when I can't find everything I need. This is probably another good reason to abandon the buy online so you can find a site that has all you need rather than pay another shipping. Thanks for this story. I always wondered if anyone noticed.
  18. chris
    chris on June 19, 2010
    How is this any different from window shopping? What is there to get all worked up about? I do it all the time, even if just to get a feel for how much a total purchase would cost. That's the great thing about the internet, you can go put together a whole shopping list, see if its worth your money. Another reason I abandon carts all the time is because I'm trying multiple configurations of things. Maybe I'm spec'ing out a computer, or putting a home improvement project together. I can try a lot of different combinations. Also, there's a typo in the graphic. The US doesn't have 309 Billion people (the WORLD doesn't have that many). That should be 309 million.
  19. jon
    jon on June 19, 2010
    1) The US population is not 309.5 billion 2) The figure of $18 billion in lost revenue is overstated. If I put a $100 item in my cart at amazon.com, abandon, and then go buy that same item at bestbuy.com, yes from Amazon's point of view, revenue has been lost. But from the standpoint of our entire economy, no revenue has been lost at all - I was only ever going to buy one copy of the item, and I did just that. In other words, Amazon's loss is offset by Best Buy's gain.
  20. Oscar Heisenberg
    Oscar Heisenberg on June 19, 2010
    I abandon carts almost every time I visit an online store. How else can you calculate the full price with shipping and taxes included?
  21. musicnut
    musicnut on June 19, 2010
    I admit I have abandoned online shopping carts many times. However, in my defense for doing so, I have often found myself in a situation where the only way to see the price of the item I am looking at is to put it in the cart, if it is then too expensive I will not buy it. Other times I need to know how much the shipping will be and putting it in the cart is often the only way to find that information. A good way to guarantee I won't buy something is to make it so that I have to go through the payment process to find what the shipping will cost. A simple solution would be for the seller to put all costs related to your purchase up front where it is easy to see. The harder some of this information is to locate the more likely people will abandon their cart.
  22. Nemo -- N'rn WI
    Nemo -- N'rn WI on June 19, 2010
    "309.5 Billion" ?!?! Wow! The US population sure did jump since the 2000 Census.
  23. Robert Bryant
    Robert Bryant on June 19, 2010
    Oh BOO HOO! After spending hours looking for a switch for a garden trimmer I found one for $8.99 USD, much lower than anywhere else. I filled out the form and the price suddenly jumped to $12.99 USD! I e-mailed the company complaining and they said the price HAD gone up. Still, it was less than everywhere else so I completed the from only to find out the shipping and handling (which was not visible anywhere on the website) was $15.95 USD! Saying companies maybe losing 18 billion a year is a lie since the items are in a virtual store and are not really "sold " yet.
  24. timothy
    timothy on June 19, 2010
    You need to fix your graphic. The U.S. population is not 309.5 Billion.
  25. Jacob
    Jacob on June 20, 2010
    "An average of 75% of the 309.5 Billion US Population..." typo: should be million, not billion.
  26. Robert Bryant
    Robert Bryant on June 20, 2010
    The population of the United States is not 309.5 billion. It's 305.5 million as of 1, jan 2009.
  27. Jamey O
    Jamey O on June 20, 2010
    Heya, I keep finding myself getting stuck on the second data point that talks about the 308 billion people in the US. Probably worth fixing that at some point.
  28. Nova T
    Nova T on June 20, 2010
    You may want to double check your "Population of the U.S.A" figure. You currently have it listed as approximately 50x the population of the entire planet ;)
  29. Jim Rollings
    Jim Rollings on June 20, 2010
    On the first graphic, it should be 309.5 MILLION people not BILLION.
  30. Jim Rollings
    Jim Rollings on June 20, 2010
    I'm sorry it's actually the second graphic with the typo.
  31. Jeff
    Jeff on June 21, 2010
    People use the cart to price shop not just to purchase. They put items in collect them all up, open a browser and try it again at another store until they find the best deal. Many sites do not calculate shipping until the items are in the cart and with shipping amounting to +10% it can make a difference. Cart abandonment is equal to window shoppers, not everyone who tries on a pair of shoes buys them.
  32. Scott
    Scott on July 12, 2010
    With any ecommerce site it’s critical to identify exactly where your customers are falling off – and do something about it. Apply some intelligent logic: if it’s when you show the shipping costs, change how you do it, be more upfront. If customers are not quite ready to purchase, how can you interact more? do they have unanswered questions? Consider a high street retail store, if 90% of people left without making a purchase the owner would be fixing it – finding a way to improve conversion rate. He would undoubtedly speak to the customers, look at prices/range/customer service/promotions/window display – all these can be applied to an online operation. The key one, and most underutilised (yet is extremely effective for conversion rates) is speaking to customers – so when a customer falls off your site it can trigger a phone call into your office or contact centre where a helpful agent is directly connected to the customer to discuss the order, offer advice and answer any questions (and maybe an incentive). You’d be surprised how effective this can be. Companies such as LeadCall are doing this for a number of big brands, and not so big, right across the various sectors.
  33. physical therapist
    physical therapist on Aug. 23, 2010
    Wow this is a great resource.. I’m enjoying it.. good article

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