What is Cart abandonment?
Also called: Abandoned cart
The short answer
Cart abandonment is when shoppers add items to a cart but leave without buying, commonly because of surprise costs, forced account creation or a long checkout.
Cart abandonment, explained
Showing total costs early, offering guest checkout and wallet payments, and a single reminder email recover the most.
Questions people ask about Cart abandonment
What is Cart abandonment?
Cart abandonment is when shoppers add items to a cart but leave without buying, commonly because of surprise costs, forced account creation or a long checkout.
Related terms
Checkout is the sequence where a shopper enters shipping and payment details and places an order; it is where most online sales are won or lost.
Conversion funnelA conversion funnel is the series of steps from first visit to purchase, such as landing, viewing a product, adding to cart, checkout and payment, measured to find where people drop off.
E-commerceE-commerce is buying and selling online: a website that shows products, takes orders and payments, and hands orders to fulfilment.
Payment gatewayA payment gateway securely passes card and wallet payments from a website to the banks and card networks, and reports whether each payment succeeded.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.