Cart abandonment: what the Baymard Institute's 49 studies show
About seven carts out of ten are abandoned in online retail, a rate that has stayed stable for a decade according to the Baymard Institute's aggregate of 49 studies. The leading cause is neither the product price nor the competition: it is the extra fees discovered at the moment of payment, cited by 48% of US shoppers.
- The abandonment rate will never fall to zero. The realistic floor sits around 55 to 60%.
- 43% of abandonment comes from people who were browsing with no intention to buy. Those cannot be recovered.
- The remaining abandonment is mostly caused by design problems, so it can be fixed.
- Showing fees early appears to cost a few sales and actually saves more.
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Cart abandonment
Cart abandonment is adding one or more items to an online cart without completing the order. It is measured as the share of carts created that do not lead to a purchase. It covers two very different phenomena: exploratory browsing, which never had any intention to buy, and abandonment caused by an obstacle met during the process.
The real rate, and why it will not fall to zero
The Baymard Institute maintains an ongoing aggregate of 49 published studies on cart abandonment, weighted by methodological quality. The figure that emerges is 70.19%, and it is remarkably stable: it has hovered around 70% for more than a decade, with individual studies ranging from 55% to 84% depending on the method.
If you have ever tried to recover these carts with a series of emails and seen no movement in sales, the problem was upstream. A checkout is the end of a production line: you do not fix an overall loss rate, you measure the loss step by step and act where it occurs.
This figure is often misused, because it is treated as an inefficiency to eliminate. Yet Baymard estimates the realistic floor for a well-designed checkout sits around 55 to 60%, because part of the add-to-cart behavior is about comparison and setting items aside, not intention to buy.
The right question is not "how do I get below 70%." It is "what share of my abandonment comes from an obstacle I created." That share can be fixed, and it is the only one that matters.
The cart is only the first half of the journey. The frictions of payment itself, and the revenue they cost, are covered in our article on the checkout.
What to know before the call
Of ten abandoned carts, four belong to people who had no intention to buy. Those cannot be recovered, and any promise to convert them should raise a flag. The other six are mostly lost for design reasons, so they can be fixed, and the first of these is the price that changes along the way.
- What is our real rate, measured on carts created and not on visits?
- At which exact step does the customer discover the shipping cost?
- How many fields must be filled to pay, and how many are optional?
- Is guest checkout offered, and since when?
- How many sales did the recovery sequence produce last month, and how do we know they would not have happened without it?
A good answer gives a measurement per step and names the one that loses the most. A vague answer compares your rate to an industry average and proposes a recovery discount.
Showing fees earlier appears to cost sales and saves more. It is a margin decision as much as a design one, and it is the kind of trade-off a 90-minute consultation can settle before you touch the checkout.
The real causes, measured
The Baymard Institute's quantitative survey clearly separates the two populations. 43% of US shoppers report having abandoned a cart because they were simply browsing, not ready to buy. This segment cannot be recovered through design.
For the rest, the breakdown is clear: the main causes come down to decisions the merchant controls.
| Cause | Share of shoppers | Fixable |
|---|---|---|
| Extra fees too high at checkout | 48% | Yes, by showing them early |
| Mandatory account creation | About 25% | Yes, with guest checkout |
| Delivery time too long | About 24% | Partly |
| Process too long or complicated | Nearly one shopper in five | Yes, by reducing fields |
| Total cost impossible to calculate in advance | Significant | Yes |
| Lack of trust for payment details | Significant | Yes |
Baymard documents 140 distinct causes of usability problems in checkouts. Based on ten years of testing on large US and European sites, the institute estimates that a large online store can improve its conversion rate by 35.26% on average through better checkout design.
The problem with fees, and the fix that scares people
It is the main cause and the easiest to fix, and it is also the one merchants most often refuse to address.
The usual reasoning goes like this: showing shipping fees on the product page will scare off shoppers before they even add an item to the cart. That is true. What this reasoning leaves out is that those same shoppers were leaving anyway, but three steps later, after consuming time, bandwidth and part of your advertising budget.
Worse, an abandonment at checkout leaves a negative impression that an earlier abandonment does not. The shopper feels something was hidden from them.
Show the shipping cost on the product page
Or at least a calculator by postal code. The shopper must be able to know the total before starting the process.
Keep the free-shipping threshold visible at all times
A note like "you are $12 away from free shipping" acts on both abandonment and average order value. It is one of the highest-return changes.
Never introduce fees after the first step
An amount that rises along the way retroactively invalidates the entire assessment the shopper made. It is the precise mechanism that triggers abandonment.
Build fees into the price when possible
A product at $45 with shipping included is perceived as cheaper than a product at $39 plus $9 shipping, while it costs less. It is a documented loss-aversion effect.
Shipping-fee policy stays in-house. It depends on margin by product line, average order weight and carrier agreements, three inputs an outside team cannot arbitrate for you. What gets delegated is the instrumentation: measuring the drop-off at each step of the checkout, isolating mobile behavior, and separating exploratory browsing from triggered abandonment. Without this instrumentation, the margin decision is made blind.
The checkout, field by field
Baymard measures that the average checkout has 5.1 steps and 11.3 form elements, and that the average site presents 39 possible areas for improvement. On most sites, it is possible to reduce the number of elements displayed by default by 20 to 60%.
| Element | Decision |
|---|---|
| Mandatory account creation | Remove it, offer guest checkout |
| "Company name" field | Hide by default, show on request |
| Second address line | Hide by default |
| Email confirmation | Remove it, validation is enough |
| Separate billing address | Hide it, check "same as" by default |
| Prominent promo code | Hide behind a link, it sends people off to hunt for a discount |
| Progress indicator | Keep it, it reduces uncertainty |
A promo code field shown prominently pushes some shoppers to leave the checkout to hunt for a discount, and many do not come back. Placing it behind a discreet link keeps the function without triggering the exit.
Recovering abandoned carts
Email recovery works, provided you are clear about what it accomplishes. It does not fix a failing checkout, it catches part of the abandonment the checkout failed to prevent.
The timing of the first message is the most decisive factor. A follow-up sent within the hour gets a markedly better return than one sent the next day, because the need is still present and the context still fresh.
| Message | Timing | Content |
|---|---|---|
| First | One hour | Simple reminder, direct return to the cart, no discount |
| Second | 24 hours | Address the likely objection: shipping, returns, security |
| Third | 72 hours | Incentive only if the margin allows |
Offering a discount in the first message teaches your customers that abandoning a cart lowers the price. It is a behavior learned quickly and paid for lastingly.
A cart abandoned at checkout is a sale you have already paid for in acquisition. It is the most expensive traffic on your site.
Falia analysis gridCheckout diagnostic
The decision mechanisms behind these rules are detailed in what really triggers a purchase decision. The margin levers after the sale are covered in online retail, where the margin is. Recovery sequences are covered in email marketing. Execution is on the CRO agency page.
The general order of conversion fixes is set out in what conversion rate optimization fixes.
The purchase funnel is one lever of the Improve your site's conversion goal.
Already running a marketing team? See how we plug in as reinforcement on conversion rate optimization.
Frequently asked questions about cart abandonment
What is the average cart abandonment rate?
70.19% according to the aggregate of 49 studies maintained by the Baymard Institute. This figure has been stable for more than a decade, with individual studies ranging from 55% to 84% depending on the methodology used.
Why do shoppers abandon their cart?
The first fixable cause is the amount of extra fees discovered at the moment of payment, cited by 48% of US shoppers in the Baymard Institute survey. Next come mandatory account creation and delivery time. Aside from that, 43% were simply browsing with no intention to buy.
Can you get below 70% abandonment?
Yes, but not indefinitely. Baymard estimates the realistic floor of a well-designed checkout at around 55 to 60%, because part of the add-to-cart behavior is about comparison and setting items aside, never intention to buy.
Should you show shipping fees on the product page?
Yes. The usual objection is that it scares off shoppers earlier. That is true, but those shoppers were leaving anyway, three steps later, after consuming time and part of the advertising budget, with the added feeling that something was being hidden from them.
How many fields in a checkout?
Baymard measures an average of 11.3 form elements across 5.1 steps, and estimates it is possible to reduce the number of elements displayed by default by 20 to 60% on most sites. Guest checkout and hiding optional fields are the two fastest wins.
Should you offer a discount in recovery emails?
Not in the first message. Offering a discount immediately teaches customers that abandoning a cart lowers the price, a behavior learned quickly and paid for lastingly. The first message simply reminds; the incentive comes only in the third step if the margin allows.
- Baymard Institute, Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics, aggregate of 49 published studies, accessed July 2026.
- Baymard Institute, quantitative survey on abandonment reasons conducted with 1,012 US adults, February 2024, published in the same compilation.
- Baymard Institute, Checkout Usability Research, accessed July 2026.
- Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk, Econometrica, 1979, on loss aversion.
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