How To Reduce Cart Abandonment: 21 Proven Ways

eCommerce is a tough place to be right now. Competition is fierce, shoppers are much more choosy and profit margins are at an all-time low.

Add cart abandonment into the mix and store owners have to work harder than ever to make a living!

Did you know that 70% of shoppers abandon their carts? (Source)

This means that out of every 10 people who reach your checkout page, 7 decide to leave without buying anything.

That’s a whole lot of lost revenue!

Do you have a similar situation in your store? Are you experiencing high cart abandonment rates?

We run several online stores and also suffer from abandoned carts. However, our cart abandonment rate is far less than 70%.

If you use the techniques we share in this comprehensive guide, you could reduce your abandonment rate too!

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Cart abandonment is when someone adds a product to their shopping cart and leaves without purchasing.

They are happily browsing your store, adding items to their cart, but disappear before completing checkout.

It’s a common occurrence throughout retail but there are ways to reduce it. We’ll cover 21 of them you can use in your eCommerce store shortly.

Why Do People Abandon Shopping Carts?

People abandon their carts for many reasons. They may be interrupted, they may have run out of battery, the doorbell may have rung, the boss might be hanging around, or something else entirely.

Not all the reasons are beyond your control, which is what this post is all about.

According to Baymard Institute:

Now you see the reasons behind cart abandonment, you can also identify ways to reduce it.

The good news is that reducing it is easier than you might think.

By making a few simple changes to your store and checkout process, you could revolutionize the customer experience and boost profits!

21 Strategies to Reduce Cart Abandonment

You’ll never eliminate cart abandonment. Believe us, we have tried!

But you can reduce it significantly with some straightforward strategies, 21 of them in fact.

Each addresses one or more of the causes we outlined above.

To keep things organized, we have split this post into logical categories:

1. Checkout
2. Shipping
3. Trust
4. Payment
5. Website-related

By systematically addressing each of them, you should be able to drastically reduce your cart abandonment rate.

We’ll show you how to measure cart abandonment later in the post.

Optimize Checkout

The checkout is where the magic happens. When a visitor that uses resources becomes a customer that earns you money.

1. Offer Guest Checkout

26% of users abandon carts because they had to create an account.

You wouldn’t make someone sign into a brick and mortar store would you? So why do it online?

Compulsory registration is often viewed as an unnecessary step and just an excuse to collect customer data for marketing.

One of the simplest ways to avoid this from happening is to offer guest checkout.

Many payment gateways offer guest checkout options so it’s easy to implement. While you don’t get data, you get the sale. That’s arguably the better result.

If you want customers to register, offer an incentive like ConversionXL.com does.

Some customers will usually be more willing to sign up if they get something out of it.

2. Display the Cart Prominently

22% of shoppers abandon carts because of a complicated checkout.

Have you ever added something to your cart but lost sight of it? That’s not a reassuring sign for shoppers.

To stop this happening, have a prominent cart icon visible on all pages clearly displaying the number of products in it.

Use an icon in the top navigation or a slideout side menu, whichever fits your design best.

Another way is to use a popup to indicate that the selected item was added with links to the cart or to ‘continue shopping’.

Whatever method you choose, keep the cart visible and updated at all times.

3. Show a Checkout Progress Indicator

22% of shoppers abandon carts because of a complicated checkout.

The faster someone can check out and pay for their stuff, the happier everyone will be.

The customer gets their product quickly and with minimum fuss. You stand a higher chance of conversion as there’s less to get in the way of that purchase.

The easiest way to do that is with a single page checkout. But, if you need more information, a progress indicator is the next best thing.

A progress indicator tells the customer exactly where they are in the checkout process and how many steps are left before they can finally make the purchase.

4. Clearly Label Checkout Buttons

22% of shoppers abandon carts because of a complicated checkout.

You want the customer to know exactly where they are going when they click a call to action, so clear labeling is critical.

Avoid labeling your buttons with some generic words like Read This, Click Here, Continue or Next Step.

Instead use intuitive labels like Continue to Payment, Review Your Order, Complete Your Purchase and so on.

The faster a visitor understands what’s going to happen next, the faster they convert into a customer!

5. Justify Your Need for Personal Information

25% of customers didn’t trust the site with credit card information.

Experience tells us that a good portion of websites that ask for our data just want to use it for marketing.

We have found that when customers are presented with a valid reason why information is required, they feel much more secure.

So if you are asking for personal data, explain clearly why you need it.

Also keep the amount of data strictly relevant for the transaction.

You can use tooltips for this or state the reason directly in the form description. Make it as clear and as transparent as possible to help create trust.

6. Optimize Your Checkout Form

22% of shoppers abandon carts because of a complicated checkout.

The most boring part about buying online is completing forms. This can quickly become annoying when they are too long or ask for unnecessary information.

Make your checkout forms as short as possible by removing unnecessary fields or label them as optional.

If you need a lot of information, consider breaking the form up into multiple steps with a progress bar.

Here’s a great example of a 2 step checkout form created using Cartflows:

The first step collects shipping information and the second step collects payment. Despite being two pages, it still looks short and easy to complete.

Don’t forget to add a ‘ship to a different address’ checkbox just in case the purchase is a gift or being bought for someone else.

From a usability perspective, try to avoid multi-column fields and use single column fields instead.

Here’s a great example of a minimalistic checkout form from Crutchfield.com with all single column fields.

Essentially, keep the checkout form as simple and as short as possible to maximize conversion.

7. Keep the Checkout Page Distraction Free

22% leave because of a complicated checkout process.

One of the prime reasons why people abandon carts is because they get distracted.

You can’t do much about external distractions but what you can do is ensure that your checkout page is distraction-free.

We recommend:

• Replacing the header and footer with a special version with minimal navigation.
• Keep only links to contact support (live chat, phone number and/or email address), return policy and privacy policy.
• Add trust signals (we’ll discuss that more in a short while).

The image below is an example of a clean, distraction-free checkout page.

The less there is to distract the shopper from the purchase, the lower your cart abandonment rate.

8. Have a Professional Looking Checkout Page

25% didn’t trust the site with credit card information.

If your checkout page doesn’t look the best, has typos or misaligned form fields, it isn’t going to create a great impression.

You want the customer to feel as comfortable as possible so they are willing to give you their credit card number.

A poor quality checkout page isn’t going to do that.

Here are a few points to bear in mind.

• The design needs to reflect the rest of your site.
• Your checkout form needs to look professional and inspire confidence.
• There should be clear and prominent calls to action where appropriate.
• The checkout page should ideally include a product image and information cost, shipping, taxes, and an estimated delivery date.
• Customers should be able to remove products, change quantities or change other variables like color or size.

Later in this article, we’ll discuss how to use CartFlows to design professional checkout pages that inspire confidence.

Optimize Shipping

Shipping can be a significant blocker to eCommerce so make it as simple and as painless as possible to minimize cart abandonment.

9. Offer Free or Low-Cost Shipping

48% of buyers abandon their cart because of unexpected charges like high shipping costs.

Shipping costs are universally disliked, which is why they are one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment.

Most of us understand why retailers charge delivery but we still don’t like it.

There are a few ways you can approach shipping charges:

• Offer free shipping and add the cost to the product price.
• Add a minimum order value to qualify for free shipping.
• Offer slower free shipping and expedited paid shipping.
• Offer free shipping in return for creating an account.
• Continue charging for shipping as you currently do.

There’s no right answer here as much depends on what you sell and who you sell it to.

We would recommend offering free shipping where possible or charging as little as possible if you need to.

10. Provide Delivery Time Estimates

23% of customers abandon carts because the shipping was too slow.

We’re an impatient bunch and usually want our products as soon as possible.

Most of us know we can’t have instant delivery for physical goods, so knowing how long we’ll need to wait is the next best thing.

The above image is a good example of a clear delivery estimate as it lets the customer know how long each option will take.

Plus there is an option for faster shipping for those in a hurry.

We mentioned offering shipping options earlier and here it is in action:

Customers can then make a conscious decision about how much to spend versus how long to wait.

Another great option is to allow the customer to track their order.

Many shipping companies provide order tracking you can use. Either as a tracking link or directly from the shipper.

11. Offer Expedited Shipping

23% of customers abandon carts because the shipping was too slow.

We mentioned impatience before and we’re continuing the thought here.

A large percentage of abandoned carts are caused by slow shipping, so it makes sense to offer an expedited option wherever possible.

Use a fast shipper as standard so nobody has to wait for their delivery. But also consider using overnight or next day shipping if you can.

People don’t mind paying extra to get their order faster so this is another opportunity to add a little profit.

12. Be Upfront About Additional Charges

48% of buyers abandon their cart because of unexpected charges like high shipping costs.

Hidden charges are one of the biggest mistakes an retailer can make and should be avoided at all costs.

Use your own experience of shopping online and put yourself in your customers shoes.

If you were about to buy something and suddenly saw extra charges that weren’t mentioned before, how would you feel?

If you’re anything like us, you’ll abandon your shopping cart and go elsewhere.

We recommend being upfront about all additional charges the customer is going to incur.

You can mention shipping charges on product pages or the initial checkout page. Any other charges should be mentioned on the first checkout page.

If shipping charges can only be calculated once you have an address, let the customer know the price is just an estimate.

Build Trust

Trust is everything online. If you don’t trust the store you’re shopping in, you’ll go somewhere else.

Here are a few tips for increasing trust in your store.

13. Address Concerns About Payment Security

25% didn’t trust the site with credit card information.

A simple way to address security concerns is to assure the customer their payment information is secure and will not be misused.

This is how we help manage security concerns on the Astra website.

We include trust badgers from PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, McAfee and Norton to assure customers their information is protected.

There’s also a 14 day money back guarantee badge for a little extra confidence.

Here’s another image that prominently displays the Norton security seal next to the payment button.

We recommend using small trust badges on as many pages as they will fit, especially your main store page and checkout page.

If you can fit them on product pages without getting in the way, all the better.

14. Have a Transparent Return Policy

18% leave because of a bad returns policy.

Part of building trust with a customer is telling them you’ll do the right thing if the product isn’t what they want.

Prominently displaying your returns policy and having a link to your policy page will help with that.

As you saw in the image above, we use a large 14 day money back guarantee badge on the Astra website.

We recommend you do something similar.

You can also consider displaying a small version of your return policy right below the Add To Cart or Payment button as shown below.

Using a policy popup is a good way to ensure that your customers don’t leave your checkout page to read it.

In most cases, people look no further than the badge or icon. They just need to be assured that you offer a sensible returns policy along with a money-back guarantee.

15. Offer Multiple Communication Channels

25% didn’t trust the site with credit card information.

Online shopping feels remote enough as it is without a clear means to contact the store owner.

If there’s no communication channel, it can impact trust, which can increase cart abandonment.

Work around this by offering contact details and multiple communication channels.

Consider placing your email address, WhatsApp, Facebook and X (Twitter) handles on pages and make sure you can receive messages when they come.

You could also add live chat easily using a WordPress plugin.

The rise of AI plugins means you don’t even have to be present to answer common questions.

Just make sure you have a clear escalation path if AI cannot answer as nobody likes being ignored!

16. Provide Social Proof

25% of customers didn’t trust the site with credit card information.

Still on the subject of trust, social proof can work wonders at reducing cart abandonment.

The concept of social proof is one of the key ideas from Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion.

We are social beings and find safety in numbers. We also have a tendency to follow and obey the crowd.

This is why testimonials and product recommendations from people who are seen as industry experts are so valuable in influencing the customer’s mindset and increasing conversion.

One of the main reasons why Amazon is so popular is because they allow unbiased customer reviews.

You can increase social proof by allowing customers to leave product reviews or by displaying testimonials from industry experts.

If you have received positive press let it be known.

Display any testimonials you have received from industry experts and ask for customer success stories wherever possible.

If you have won awards, tell the world about them.

If your product has been featured on popular websites, include brand images.

If possible, allow customer reviews and display them prominently on relevant product pages.

You can also consider adding Google, Facebook or Yelp reviews to your site. This can be easily done using a WordPress social media plugin.

We recommend doing whatever you can to increase trust by using all the social proof you can.

Improve Payments

The easier and more convenient you can make payment, the more likely someone is to pay.

Like optimizing checkout, the easier you can make it, the higher your conversion rate.

17. Offer Multiple Payment Methods

13% of customers leave because of a lack of available payment methods.

With the ease of use and convenience of payment gateways, it’s easier than ever to support multiple payment methods.

We recommend offering as many methods as possible. Especially credit cards, Paypal, Stripe, Google Pay, Apple Pay or Amazon Pay.

Express checkout options like Paypal and Google Pay allow customers to check out without manually entering credit card information.

Most methods offer in-context checkout, where the customer will not be redirected to Paypal (or any other external site). Instead, they stay on your site while paying through a secure popup.

Express checkout is a great option for mobile users as they don’t need to manually enter a credit card number either.

Resolve Website Issues

Not all causes of cart abandonment are about payment or checkout. Sometimes, it’s something to do with your store.

Let’s tackle that next.

18. Improve Mobile Usability

17% of customers leave a store because of website issues.

If one of those issues is mobile usability, you’re going to lose a significant portion of your audience.

In order to reduce mobile cart abandonment rate, the first thing you need to do is to ensure the site uses a responsive design.

All Astra eCommerce designs are fully responsive and work on all screen sizes, like the Clothing Store template:

Test your checkout pages, forms, call to action buttons and payment gateways on various sized screens to make sure everything works.

You can easily carry out these tests using sites like ready.mobi and mobiletest.me.

Testing will reveal if there are any difficulties users might experience while using your site.

In the following image, you can see that the presence of the ‘Live chat’ button will cause difficulty in scrolling and is best removed from the mobile version.

You also need to ensure that your site loads quickly. This is important for general usability as well as mobile users.

You can check page speed on Google page speed insights. Make any speed optimizations based on the recommendations.

19. Keep Your Website Error-Free

17% of customers leave a store because of website issues.

If your store works flawlessly and is well maintained, you could significantly reduce that 17% who leave.

Even if they don’t buy anything, they should leave with a positive impression and perhaps return.

Use a website monitoring service like Pingdom to keep track of downtime.

You’ll get a message whenever your site goes down and a monthly report so you know if your host is reliable enough.

If you are using WordPress, make sure to keep your WordPress version, store themes and plugins updated.

We also recommend using a CDN like Cloudflare. It helps with speed but also helps reduce the impact of downtime.

20. Use Scarcity To Your Advantage

These final two tips don’t address the main causes of cart abandonment, but they do help with conversion.

That alone makes them worth checking out.

Have you tried using scarcity to lower cart abandonment rate?

Scarcity is part of the Fear Of Missing Out, or FOMO to you and me. It’s an incredibly powerful motivator that can push customers into making purchases.

A customer is more likely to purchase a product if they think only a few are left. FOMO also works if customers think an exclusive offer is about to expire.

Here’s a good example from Etsy.com.

Etsy adds an hourglass icon indicating urgency and ‘Almost gone. There’s only 3 left’, to create a sense of scarcity.

Impulsive buyers or anyone who is even remotely interested in the product would want to buy it quickly so as to not miss out.

Here’s another example from Masorini.com.

The text ‘Only 9 left, 4 shoppers added it to cart’ creates a sense of urgency prompting the buyer to buy before they miss out.

21. Use Exit Intent Popups

To reduce cart abandonment, you can show a popup when a customer is on the checkout page but is about to exit.

The popup can either show an exclusive deal or limited-time discount to persuade the customer to stay and make the purchase.

Alternatively, you could use a popup that asks if they need further assistance, just in case.

The following is an example of an exit popup on LifterLMS.com that asks the customer if they need any help with their purchase.

Here’s another example of a popup on Swisswatchexpo.com where they offer a limited-time discount.

The time limit creates a sense of scarcity which should be just enough to persuade the customer to buy.

How To Design a Professional Checkout Page With CartFlows

Checkout pages should be designed from the ground up to maximize conversion and minimize cart abandonment.

As we have discussed throughout this post, not only does checkout need to look professional, but it also needs to be functional.

Here are some key aspects of a good checkout page.

Design

• It needs to look professional to create trust.
• The design should be consistent with the rest of the site.
• It should not distract the customer from completing the purchase.
• The page needs to display product image, testimonials, trust seals/logos/icons, security information, refund policy, and contact information.
• There should be a prominent checkout button with clear labeling.

Functionality

• Your checkout form should only include essential fields.
• Longer forms should be broken into steps to make it look less complicated.
• The form should clearly mark mandatory and optional fields.
• It should have inline error validation with clear directions.
• There should be mechanisms in place to prevent duplicate entries.
• Capture important customer information such as name and email address for remarketing.
• Your checkout and form should be fully responsive so mobile users can use it.
• Customers should be able to remove items and change quantities or product variables.
• Provide a variety of payment options with security information.

If you use WooCommerce, you’ll already know that the standard WooCommerce checkout page looks pretty basic.

That could be one of the primary reasons for high cart abandonment rates.

Is there a way to convert it into a professional and feature-rich checkout page?

Yes, there is, using CartFlows.

What Is Cartflows?

CartFlows is a WordPress plugin that allows you to build optimized checkout pages to help reduce cart abandonment.

It can also help you create sales funnels, upsells, order bumps and other profit-boosting practices too.

CartFlows also comes with a range of pre-built checkout templates you can easily edit using your favorite page builder.

Here’s an example of an optimized checkout page created using one of CartFlow’s pre-built templates.

As you can see, this page is optimized using some of the strategies we suggested earlier.

Here’s another example.

You can create beautiful, professional-looking checkout pages like these in minutes by using a template.

Simply select a template and edit it using your favorite page builder.

Checkout Form Design

Let’s take a closer look at a checkout form created with CartFlows. The form used here is a two-step checkout form.

The first step contains essential shipping fields. The second step contains the credit card information to complete the purchase.

As you can see, the payment step contains information about the product purchased and the total amount that needs to be paid.

The customer also has an option to edit their order or add a coupon code.

Use CartFlows and you’ll be able to create powerful checkout forms like this.

You can create one column, two-column or two-step checkout forms and have complete control over how they look and feel.

If you’re using WooCommerce – CartFlows is the best solution to reduce abandoned carts and boost profit margins.

Download CartFlows for free from the WordPress repository.

How Do You Measure Cart Abandonment Rates?

We mentioned earlier that we would show you how to measure cart abandonment.

You can easily calculate the cart abandonment rate for your store by setting up a Goal and related funnels in Google Analytics.

Here’s how:

Step 1

Log into your Google Analytics account and click on the gear icon located toward the bottom left-hand corner of your screen.

Once there, click on Goals.

Step 2

On the screen that follows, click on the New Goal button to create a new goal and then select the Place an order template under the Goal Set-up menu and click Continue.

Note: Depending on your industry settings in Google Analytics, the options you see may differ.

If you don’t find a Place an Order template, select any template that has the tagline, Completed Online Purchase or Completed Online Payment.

Step 3

Under the Goal Description menu, give your goal a name, select, Destination as your goal type and click Continue.

Step 4

Under the Goal Details menu, select the destination as the URL of your Thank You (or order completion) page.

Select the Funnel option and enter all your checkout steps in the space provided. For this example, we will use cart URL and checkout URL as the two steps for the funnel.

Now your goals and funnels are all set up.

In order to see your cart abandonment rate, go to Conversions > Funnel Visualization.

Select your goal from the drop-down menu and you should be able to see visualization as follows. You’ll need to wait for a couple of weeks to see accurate data.

This visualization shows you the number of people who used a shopping cart and the number who completed the purchase.

You can calculate your shopping cart abandonment rate by dividing the total number of customers who have completed the purchase with the total number of customers who added a product to their cart.

Then subtract from the result by 1 and then multiply by 100.

1 – (Total No. of customers who completed the purchase / Total No. of customers who entered your cart page) x 100

In our example, 26 out of 174 visitors completed a purchase.

So using the formula, we get:

1 – (26/174) x 100 = 86%

So your cart abandonment rate will be 86%.

We recommend setting up Google Analytics as soon as possible. If your store has been up and running a while, find your current percentage and record it somewhere.

Then, implement the tweaks covered in this post, leave it a few weeks and measure again.

We bet your cart abandonment rate will be lower!

Wrapping Up

We have covered a lot in this article, so let’s recap.

• We saw what cart abandonment is and why people abandon them.
• We discussed 21 powerful strategies you can use to reduce cart abandonment.
• We showed how CartFlows can optimize checkout pages to drastically reduce cart abandonment.
• Finally, we learned how to measure cart abandonment with Google Analytics.

The ball is in your court now. It’s time to take action!

Did you make changes using this guide? How much has cart abandonment reduced? Tell us your story below!

Reducing Cart Abandonment FAQs

Here are a few common questions around reducing cart abandonment and their answers:

An eCommerce business plans to optimize its website to reduce the number of abandoned carts. What action will help them achieve their goal?

Optimizing a website to reduce the number of abandoned carts requires multiple steps. They include optimizing for speed, offering multiple payment options, transparent returns policies, clear product pages, using trust badges and more. Check out all the actions you can take in this post.

How do I reduce cart abandonment rates?

You can reduce cart abandonment rates by making it as easy as possible for a customer to purchase. That can include improving site design, optimizing images, including all essential information on product pages, including reviews, simplifying checkout, offering multiple payment methods and keeping checkout short. There’s more that can be done, which is covered in this post.

How do I improve an abandoned cart?

You can improve abandoned cart rates by creating a store you would want to shop in yourself. Use a fresh design, use lots of images, calls to action, reviews and trust signals. The more professional your store looks, the more likely someone is to purchase.

What does cart abandonment mean?

An abandoned cart is when someone adds something to their cart but leaves your store before the purchase. It can be for a number of reasons but you can recover them with a few techniques. Every cart you recover is extra profit you would otherwise have lost, which is why we recommend cart abandonment recovery so much!

How to fix abandoned checkouts?

You can fix abandoned checkouts by removing as many barriers to purchase as possible. Consider checkout complexity, the amount of data you collect, your calls to action, number and types of payments you accept, whether you feature reviews or not, your returns policy, how your store design looks and feels and whether you have customer support or not. There’s a lot to it but this post covers it all.