They fill the cart, look at the total and close the tab. That is an abandoned cart, and it happens to seven out of ten shoppers. Here you will see why they leave right at the payment step, how to fix your checkout and how to win back a good share of those sales without spending another euro on ads.
Someone lands on your shop, looks at a couple of products, drops two in the cart and reaches the payment screen. Then they see the total with shipping added, they are asked to create an account, and they close the tab. You just had an abandoned cart. It happens far more than it seems: seven out of ten online purchases are left halfway. The good news is that most of it can be fixed, and you do not need to spend more on ads.
An abandoned cart is a purchase someone starts and never finishes. They add products, sometimes they get as far as the payment form, and they go. This is not a passer-by: it is someone who had already decided to buy and stopped one step short.
That is why it stings. That customer cost you money: you brought them in with ads, with search or with social. They already wanted your product. And you lose them in the last thirty seconds.
The number the whole industry quotes comes from the Baymard Institute, which averages dozens of studies: close to 70% of carts are abandoned. On mobile the share is even higher. Translated to your shop: out of every ten people who put something in the cart, seven leave without paying.
It is almost never the price of the product. It is what happens after they have already chosen it. These are the reasons that come up again and again:
If you can only change one thing, change this. Shoppers build a figure in their head while browsing. When they reach the end and that figure jumps by twenty euros, they feel cheated and leave.
The fix is not free shipping for everyone. It is enough to show the cost earlier: on the product page, in the cart, in a bar telling them how much is left for free delivery. If shipping is expensive, say so early. People forgive a price; they do not forgive a surprise.
The checkout is where everything is decided. Every field you remove is one more sale. What tends to work:
Take care of the product page too: clear photos, stock, delivery time and reviews. Marking that data up helps Google understand and show it; the reference is in the product structured data documentation.
This is the easy money. If you have their email, you have a second chance. The abandoned cart email is one of the best performers in all of email marketing, because it reaches someone who already wanted to buy.
One note: save the discount for the last email, if at all. Give away 10% in the first one and you teach your customers to abandon the cart every time.
Not everyone leaves you their email. For those there is remarketing: ads reminding them of the product they left while they browse or scroll social. Done well, it is cheap and rescues purchases. Done badly, it chases people for weeks with the same banner and burns the brand. Cap the days and how often the ad shows.
If you have an app or web notifications, they work the same way: a short alert, at the right moment, with the product in front of them.
Let us be honest: you will not recover the seven out of ten. Some were leaving anyway, because they were comparing or saving the product for later. But rescuing a slice of those carts, on traffic you are already paying for, changes the month.
And the checkout work never stops paying: every field you remove, every doubt you answer earlier, lifts your conversion rate for good, not just for the people who abandoned.
The formula is simple. Take the carts created, subtract the completed purchases, divide by the carts created and multiply by a hundred. If 500 carts were created in a month and there were 120 orders, your abandoned cart rate is 76%.
Look at where people drop off too: in the cart, in the shipping details or at payment? That is where the problem is. And compare mobile with desktop, because they almost always tell different stories.
Recovering carts works when the rest is in place. A good email does little if the checkout still asks for an account and hides the shipping price. That is why we work on it alongside building your online shop, conversion rate optimisation and marketing automation, which is what sends those emails on their own at the right time. If you want the wider picture, the abandonment rate on Wikipedia is a good starting point.
At Magnes Factory we tackle the abandoned cart from both sides at once:
If your shop gets visits and sells less than it should, the cart is the first place to look. Write to us and we will take a look.
An abandoned cart is a purchase someone starts and never finishes: they add products, sometimes even reach the checkout, and leave without paying. It counts as a lost sale that in many cases can be won back.
Around seven out of ten. That is the average the Baymard Institute reports after reviewing dozens of studies. On mobile the figure is usually a bit worse than on desktop.
The most common reason is shipping costs that show up at the end. Behind it come forced account creation, a long checkout, doubts about payment security, unclear delivery times and a slow site.
With a recovery email that reminds them what they left and a link that brings the cart back ready to pay. If they do not return, a second email or a remarketing ad gives them another chance. First you need their email, so ask for it early.
The first one within the first hour, while they still remember. A second the next day and, if you want, a third at 48 or 72 hours. Beyond that you annoy people and gain little.
Take the carts created minus the completed purchases, divide by the carts created and multiply by a hundred. If 500 carts were created and 120 people bought, your abandoned cart rate is 76%.
The Spanish government grant for digitising your business is opening again. When it opens it runs out: it is granted in order of arrival, and whoever turns up with the paperwork ready gets in.
What is usually required: being a freelancer, micro-business or SME with a tax address in Spain, being up to date with the tax office and social security, and having completed the self-assessment test. The timetable is published by the government at acelerapyme.gob.es.