Cart abandonment rate

How it works

The rate shows what share of shoppers who start a cart leave without ordering. Part of it comes from people who save products, compare prices or are just browsing. Baymard’s survey of US online shoppers lists other reasons. The most common were extra costs such as shipping, slow delivery, not trusting the site with card details and a required account.

Knowing the checkout step where shoppers leave narrows the cause. The GA4 events begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info and purchase mark those steps. Our guide to cart abandonment shows how to measure it before fixing anything.

Formula

1 − orders ÷ carts created, for the same period

Ways to calculate

• By cart. From the closed funnel of Shopify’s Conversion rate breakdown report (Behavior reports): 1 − sessions that completed checkout ÷ sessions with cart additions.
• By checkout. Shopify’s abandoned checkouts (Recovering abandoned checkouts) include only checkouts left incomplete for more than ten minutes after the shopper entered an email address. The base is narrower, so the rate is not comparable with the cart rate.

Example

Example store, not client data.

In a month, shoppers at the tableware shop create carts in 1,000 sessions, and 300 of them end in an order. Cart abandonment rate = 1 − 300 ÷ 1,000 = 70%. GA4 shows 1,200 add-to-cart events for the same month, because some shoppers add products one at a time.

Not to be confused with

• Add-to-cart rate — the share of sessions that create a cart. Abandonment is what happens to those carts next.
• Abandoned cart email — a message to a shopper who left a cart, one response to abandonment. It raises the question of who gets credit for the order.

Right and wrong readings

• Wrong: “1 − 300 orders ÷ 1,200 add-to-cart events = 75%.” Right: one cart can hold several additions, so the event count is not a cart count. By carts, the rate is 70%.

Benchmarks

Benchmark according to Baymard Institute (50 figures published by different companies, 2006–2025; list updated 22 September 2025): an average of 70.22%. Individual figures range from 55% to 84.27%. Your niche may differ.

Sources

• 50 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2026 — Baymard Institute: the 70.22% average of 50 studies, reasons for abandonment. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Behavior reports and Recovering abandoned checkouts — Shopify Help Center: the session funnel, the ten-minute rule. Checked 2 October 2026.
• Recommended events — Google Analytics: checkout step events. Checked 2 October 2026.