Most online shoppers leave before finishing checkout. Globally, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 77%, according to Dynamic Yield data. Abandoned cart recovery rate measures how many of those customers come back to complete their purchase, often due to a business following up to save the sale.
It can be helpful to think of abandoned carts as opportunities, and your abandoned cart recovery rate as an indicator of how well you’re capitalizing on those opportunities. It’s not a small amount of opportunity, either; Baymard Institute estimates that $260 billion worth of lost orders are recoverable solely with a better checkout flow and design.
Read on to learn more about abandoned cart recovery rates, including how to calculate yours and practical ways to reduce cart abandonment.
What is abandoned cart recovery rate?
Shopping cart abandonment happens when a shopper adds a product to their online shopping cart but leaves the site before completing checkout. Abandoned cart recovery rate refers to the percentage of shoppers who return to those abandoned carts and complete their orders. This rate is often related to an ecommerce store’s recovery efforts, such as automated abandoned cart emails, text messages, and on-site reminders to checkout.
For example, coffee brand Grind builds separate abandoned cart messages for one-time purchases and subscription orders. The segmentation approach drives a 12.3% conversion rate on its abandoned cart series, according to a Klaviyo case study.
Bracelet brand Pura Vida added messaging app ShopMessage through Shopify Plus to recover abandoned carts through Facebook Messenger instead of relying on email alone. The messages, which included a discount code, delivered a 26% click-through rate, according to a Shopify case study. This resulted in a 10% boost to top-line revenue from subscribers logged into Facebook.
How to calculate your abandoned cart recovery rate
To calculate your abandoned cart recovery rate, divide your number of recovered carts by your total number of abandoned carts, and multiply the result by 100.
A recovered cart is defined as any abandoned cart that converts to a completed order within your recovery program’s attribution window. This is a set amount of time following abandonment that also accounts for when your recovery emails or texts are sent.
The formula for abandoned cart recovery rate is:
Abandoned cart recovery rate = (Recovered carts / total abandoned carts) x 100
If a store had 500 abandoned carts last month, and 40 of those shoppers completed their purchase after receiving a recovery text, the recovery rate would be 8%.
(40 recovered carts / 500 abandoned carts) x 100 = 8%
How to improve your abandoned cart recovery rate
- Automate abandoned checkout emails
- Present fees and savings upfront
- Reduce checkout friction
- Test timing, subject lines, and incentives in recovery emails
Use these best practices to boost your abandoned cart recovery rate and drive sales:
Automate abandoned checkout emails
Cart abandonment tools can automatically email shoppers who leave their cart without completing a purchase.
Platforms like Shopify have this functionality built-in. It has customizable send timing and an abandoned checkouts report that shows sessions, completed orders, conversion rate, and average order value for each flow. Ecommerce store owners can use Shopify Flow to build more advanced automations and take advantage of pre-built templates.
On an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Tique Chandler, founder of Chandler Honey, identifies abandoned cart alerts, as a top automation tip.
“My top three tips are: Set up your abandoned cart alerts, set up email sequencing, and get an employee that you really trust,” Tique says.
She uses Shopify’s built-in cart reminders, along with automated email sequences that share the brand’s story with shoppers to help bring them back to complete a purchase.
Present fees and savings upfront
Coffee concentrate brand Kloo used free shipping and transparency around fees to reduce abandonment, which founder Claudia Snoh says resulted in higher conversions.
“We did have a lot of abandoned checkouts, not abandoned carts, which means they had the full intention of purchasing,” she says on Shopify Masters. Kloo eliminated that fee, raised its minimum order to two bottles instead, and saw a higher conversion rate as a result.
Australian clothier W. Titley & Co. used Shopify Flow to reduce friction by showing shoppers how much more they needed to spend to unlock free shipping. They also added icons at checkout indicating fast shipping and free returns. The change contributed to a 36% increase in the brand’s conversion rate, and pointed to a better checkout flow with clearer costs and fewer surprises before payment.
Reduce checkout friction
Every extra step at checkout is a chance for a shopper to change their mind. According to the Baymard Institute 17% of online shoppers have abandoned an order due to a checkout process that felt too long or complicated. Meanwhile, 18% left because the site required them to create an account before checking out, and another 12% couldn’t see or calculate their order cost upfront.
An accelerated checkout option like Shop Pay lets shoppers check out with pre-filled contact details, shipping information, and payment options. This cuts the number of steps between adding a product to cart and completing an order.
Clothing brand Everlane found that checkout speed directly affects whether a shopper follows through on a purchase, according to a Shopify case study.
“The longer customers linger on the checkout page, the more they might reconsider their purchase,” says Anna M. Peterson, product lead at Everlane.
Within 30 days of adding Shop Pay as an option, 15% of Everlane’s US transactions were processed through it. Shopify’s internal measurement of Everlane’s performance found conversion rates as high as 70% through Shop Pay.
Test timing, subject lines, and incentives in recovery emails
Recovery email performance varies based on send timing, subject line, and incentive type, all of which is testable and iterative.
Beauty tech brand CurrentBody treats its abandoned cart flow as a work in progress, continually A/B testing send timing and messaging. The store has built 10 distinct abandoned cart flows tailored to the specific product a shopper left behind. Its text reminders, which are sent only to shoppers who have opted in, get the highest click rates in the sequence.
Abandoned cart recovery rate FAQ
What is a normal cart abandonment rate?
The average cart abandonment rate is 70.22% according to the Baymard Institute’s analysis of 50 studies on ecommerce checkout behavior. However, rates vary by device, with mobile carts abandoned at a higher rate than desktop carts, as well as by industry.
What are the statistics on cart abandonment?
The most common reason US online shoppers cite for abandoning carts is extra costs like shipping fees, taxes, and other unexpected fees, at 40% according to Baymard research. Slow delivery is cited 20% of the time. Distrust in sharing credit card information accounts for 19% of cart abandonment, and requiring account creation creates 18%. The Baymard Institute also estimates that $260 billion worth of lost orders are recoverable solely with a better checkout flow.
How do you recover abandoned carts?
Store owners can recover abandoned carts with automated recovery emails, personalized messaging based on cart contents, offering strategic discounts, a streamlined checkout process, and accelerated payment options like Shop Pay. Shopify’s built-in abandoned checkout tools and Shopify Flow templates can automate much of this process.
