Cart abandonment rate is a metric used to measure the percentage of online shopping cart transactions that do not result in successful purchases. It is an important metric for gauging customer engagement and loyalty, as well as, evaluating the overall performance of ecommerce stores or websites. The higher the cart abandonment rate is, the lower the amount of revenue generated by a website or store.
Cart abandonment rate is related to another important ecommerce metric known as purchase funnel abandonment rate. Purchase funnel abandonment rate measures how many customers abandon their plans to buy something during their journey along the purchase funnel of an online store or website. Generally, purchase funnel abandonment rate should be lower than cart abandonment rate since customers are already further along in their journey and have already indicated more interest and commitment towards completing a purchase.
When analyzing these two metrics, it is important to look at not only what caused customers to leave (i.e., poor product availability, poor checkout experience), but also why they came back (i.e., discounts or promotional offers). This will help retailers identify areas of improvement and optimize their processes in order to increase conversion rates and overall revenue generated from online sales.
Finally, it is important for retailers to track both cart abandonment rate and purchase funnel abandonment rate over time in order to better understand how customer behavior may change over time. For example, if an ecommerce store notices that its cart abandonment rate has increased significantly over a certain period of time while its purchase funnel abandonment rate has decreased slightly in comparison, they might deduce that customers are abandoning carts more often due to pricing issues or lack of payment options. On the other hand, if both rates have increased simultaneously that could indicate that there are technical issues with the site or marketing messages are not resonating with intended audiences enough leading them away from completing purchases altogether.
