Abandoned cart

What is an abandoned cart?

An abandoned cart happens when a customer adds items to their online shopping cart but leaves without completing the purchase. It is one of the most common revenue leaks in ecommerce and a problem almost every Shopify merchant deals with daily.

Abandoned cart and checkout abandonment rate are related but not the same. A cart abandonment happens before checkout begins, while checkout abandonment is when a shopper starts entering payment details and then leaves.

Why do customers abandon carts?

Around 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before purchase. That is seven out of every ten potential sales disappearing before they complete.

The reasons are rarely a mystery. The most common causes are:

• Unexpected costs at checkout, such as high shipping fees or surprise taxes, this alone drives nearly half of all abandonments.
• Being forced to create an account before buying, which puts off first-time shoppers.
• A long or confusing checkout process that loses people mid-flow.
• Slow page load times, especially on mobile, where abandonment rates run higher than desktop.
• Shoppers using the cart as a wishlist while comparing prices across stores.

A high abandonment rate is often the clearest signal of a break in your conversion funnel, it tells you where shoppers are losing confidence or hitting friction before they buy.

How do you calculate your cart abandonment rate?

The formula is straightforward:

Cart abandonment rate = (1 minus completed purchases divided by total carts created) x 100

So if 1,000 carts were created and 300 resulted in purchases, your abandonment rate is 70%.

How can you recover an abandoned cart?

The most effective recovery strategies Shopify merchants use are:

• Sending a personalised email showing the items left behind, this is the foundation of any solid cart recovery process. The first email, sent within one hour of abandonment, consistently gets the highest conversion rates. A follow-up at 24 hours and another at three days works well as a sequence.
• Creating urgency with a time-limited incentive, such as 10% off or free shipping, to give hesitant shoppers a reason to come back and complete the order.
• Triggering an exit popup just before someone leaves, offering a deal or capturing their email so you have a way to follow up.
• Streamlining checkout by removing unnecessary steps, enabling guest checkout, and displaying trust signals clearly throughout the process.

Example of an abandoned cart in action

Emma is shopping for a subscription box and adds it to her cart. Before she checks out, her dog knocks over her coffee and she forgets about the whole thing. That is an abandoned cart.

The next day, she gets an email: “Still thinking it over? Here is 10% off to complete your order.” She clicks through and buys. That is a cart recovery.

Driftcharge Tip

Set up your abandoned cart email sequence before you launch, not after. Lead with the value of what the shopper left behind, not just a discount. A well-timed reminder with the right message will always outperform a blanket coupon. Keep it short, show the product, and make returning to checkout one click.

Ganesh Pawar

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Ganesh Pawar is the founder of Driftcharge, a subscription management app designed to help Shopify merchants streamline and scale their subscription businesses. With a deep focus on solving real-world pain points—like legacy account page support, flexible subscription options, and advanced analytics—Ganesh is passionate about building tools that drive growth and retention.