So you’ve got your ecommerce business set up with the best CRM software for small businesses, you’ve built yourself a slick-looking website with great products, and yet, you keep seeing abandoned carts popping up in your sales analytics.
Abandoned carts can be a frustrating aspect of online selling, especially when you see those potential sales slip through your fingers at the last minute. In fact, according to research from Baymard Institute, the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is a colossal 70.19%. That’s a lot of lost sales.
But there are a few different tactics you can use to get those customers back on your site and hitting the checkout button. I’ve done the research so you don’t have to. Based on expert advice and anecdotal evidence from real online sellers, I’ve put together the top ways to stop cart abandonment.
💡Key takeaways
- Unexpected costs at checkout are considered to be the number one cause of abandoned carts.
- You should use automated workflows, such as SMS and email reminders, to try to recover customer carts.
- Mobile pages have the highest rate of abandoned carts at 85.65%, so make sure your mobile checkout page is optimised.
- Make sure you have a simple checkout process with no more than five steps.
- Ensure you have a clear, easy-to-read return policy on your site.
Why do customers abandon carts?
Data from Statista shows that shopping cart rate abandonment has been steadily rising over the last decade. But why? While a good amount of this can be attributed to an unpreventable “just browsing” mentality, there are some more quantifiable (and preventable) reasons for why carts are being abandoned:
- Unexpected costs: Shipping costs, taxes and additional fees can all scare off a customer at the final moment.
- Complicated checkout process: Customers are prone to give up if the checkout stage is taking too long with too many annoying steps.
- Having to create an account: Being asked to create an account during checkout is a big reason why customers abandon their carts.
- Lack of trust in the site: Customers are understandably wary of sites that are unfamiliar to them, fearing data breaches or scams.
- Lack of payment options: If you have a limited number of ways to pay, there’s a strong chance you’ll be reducing your conversion rate.
- Slow-loading mobile pages: A sluggish mobile experience can cause users to get frustrated and give up on the purchase.
These are the most common reasons for cart abandonment, but we’ll take you through our top tips for how to beat these annoying issues and maximise your conversions.
How to prevent abandoned carts
Here are our seven top tips to keep conversions flowing and your customers happy:
1. Automated cart recovery email campaigns
The exact workflow will look different for different businesses, but you need to make sure you have an automation process that will send out SMS and email messages to your prospective buyers if they leave your site empty-handed.
Make sure to keep the tone of these friendly, professional and polite, and give your customers a gentle nudge that they’ve left something behind. Include high-quality product images to show them what they’ve missed.
Once you have your automation workflow set up, when your customer receives their abandoned cart email, you should consider offering a limited-time discount on the product they were shopping for, to try to tempt them back into a purchase.
💡Pro tip: show them the savings
If your customers used a promo code you provided in an abandoned cart email, make sure to show them how much they’ve saved on the checkout so they feel great about their purchase.
2. Keep it simple
One of the most effective ways to keep customers through the sales funnel is by making the purchasing process as simple and smooth as possible. Don’t bog your site down in unnecessary steps through bad UX design.
Efficiency is one of the all-time top marketing tips for keeping customers happy, so you should keep your checkout process to three to four steps only. A better checkout design can lead to a 35.26% increase in conversion rate, according to Baymard.
While it can be tempting to make your customers sign up for an account before purchase, you’re better off by configuring your site with a guest checkout function. It’s also best practice to provide a “one-click” checkout option, as well as auto-fill elements to reduce manual input.
💡Pro tip: add a progress bar
Consider adding a progress bar on your website to clearly show your customer their current stage in the checkout journey. You can do this using one of the top ecommerce website builders, like Shopify or Wix.
3. Offer a range of payment options
You should offer the widest range of payment types possible. To do this, you’ll need to integrate your website with one of the best payment gateways for your business and use a shopping cart plugin.
The key point is to make sure your ecommerce site is enabled to take credit and debit cards, as well as digital wallet payments, like PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Wallet. These are only increasing in popularity amongst online shoppers. Don’t give your customer a reason not to buy when they’re practically at the finish line.
💡Pro tip: save cart function
Including a “save cart” functionality is a great way to reduce abandoned carts. That way, your customer can return and complete the sale at any time.
4. Optimise for mobile and tablets
According to Barlliance, mobile has the highest rate of cart abandonment at 85.65%, followed by tablets at 80.74%, and desktops at 73.07%. It’s clear that customers prefer to make their purchases on the biggest screen possible, but that’s no reason to neglect your mobile design.
A big reason for this is that, often, mobile ecommerce pages are slower to load than their big-screen counterparts. It’s easy to get caught up in polishing your desktop online store, but don’t neglect your mobile design.
You should be testing your site speed on both your desktop and mobile versions. Some of our top-rated website builders, like Squarespace and Wix, offer specific tools to help optimise your mobile pages.
💡Pro tip: make sure your site is accessible to all
Research shows that inaccessible web design could be costing you 5% of web traffic. Make sure you’re not shutting out disabled shoppers. Use alt-text, choose clear fonts, and examine your checkout process by using keyboard navigation only.
5. Offer free or reduced shipping
This will depend on your own budget and finances, but offering free shipping is always a tantalising option to make sure your customer doesn’t jump ship mid-purchase.
How many times have you been on the precipice of hitting the “checkout” button before being met with unseemly shipping costs and thought to yourself, “maybe I’ll just forget it”?
If you can’t quite swing entirely free shipping, you should try to lower the shipping cost. You could also consider redistributing the cost of shipping into the product price.
💡Pro tip: be clear about costs
High extra costs are the number one reason for abandoned carts, according to Website Builder Expert. Make sure you’re upfront about the additional fees and shipping as early in the process as possible.
6. Build trust and have a clear return policy
Trust and confidence are the building blocks of steady sales conversions. The best way to instil trust during the checkout process is with a well-written, easy-to-understand returns policy. You should highlight some key details (like the returns window) on your checkout page.
You should also make sure your customers feel like they can trust your site when they land on it. You should use trust signals like clear contact information for your company (as well as presence on social media, like a LinkedIn business account), SSL certificates, and include some positive reviews from happy customers.
Having a trustworthy site will keep your customers happy, and it’s also the key to small business SEO success.
💡Pro tip: abandoned cart rates will depend on industry
The higher rate of abandoned carts will depend on your specific industry. According to Statista, home furniture has the highest rate of abandoned carts, whereas electronics and accessories have the lowest. It’s important to know the average abandoned cart rate of your specific industry to determine if you need to change your strategy.
7. Try AI
Customer retention is key to success in 2025, and you can use AI-powered tools to analyse customer shopping behaviour. You can also set up AI-powered chatbots that your customers can use to guide them through their shopping journey.
The most useful way to employ this at the checkout stage is with analytics-driven personalised recommendations. You can find out more in our guide to the 7 Types of AI for marketing, and how to future-proof your business using generative engine optimisation (GEO).
💡Pro tip: utilise your web builders AI tools
You should consider using an ecommerce builder with a built-in suite of AI tools to help you optimise your ecommerce site. Shopify has a range of AI-powered features, like Shopify Magic and Shopify Sidekick. You can read more in our full Shopify review.
So, now you know why customers might abandon their cart, and how you can prevent it. It can feel overwhelming building your ecommerce store, especially if you’re a first-time seller. However, there are many free CRM providers that can help you keep your budget down while staying on top of your steadily growing customer base.
Read next: Want to market your products, but not ready to build a full site? Learn how in our guide to marketing with Facebook in 2025.
