What Is Cart Abandonment Rate? How to Calculate It

Quick Definition

Cart abandonment rate is the percentage of shopping carts that never turn into an order. To get it, divide completed orders by carts created, subtract that from 1, and multiply by 100. Some tools start counting at checkout instead of the cart, so two reports can show very different rates for the same store.

How to Calculate Cart Abandonment Rate

The formula is cart abandonment rate = (1 − orders ÷ carts created) × 100. Use the same date range for carts and orders. A cart counts as created once a shopper adds at least one item.

Example: a pet supply store's week

Carts created: 600
Checkouts started: 270
Orders: 162

Cart abandonment rate = (1 − 162 ÷ 600) × 100 = (1 − 0.27) × 100 = 73%.

That's 438 carts left behind. Of those, 330 never reached checkout. The other 108 got to checkout and still didn't pay.

Cart Rate vs. Checkout Rate

This rate counts from the cart. A checkout abandonment rate only counts people who began to pay, since it starts at checkout. For the pet store, that's (1 − 162 ÷ 270) × 100 = 40%. Same store, same week. You get 73% or 40% depending on where you start. So check which one a report or article means.

And the rate isn't the same thing as cart abandonment itself. That's the act of leaving a full cart. The rate tells you how often it happens.

In our data from 958 Shopify stores, 58% of carts never reached checkout. Of shoppers who started checkout, 43% didn't finish. Put together, total cart abandonment was 76.04%. You'll find the full breakdown in our Shopify cart abandonment rate statistics.

Where You See It in Shopify

Shopify's Analytics shows how many sessions added to cart, reached checkout and completed checkout. You can work out the rate from those counts. Just keep in mind they count sessions, not carts. So your result won't match a cart-based tool exactly.

The Abandoned checkouts page under Orders is a different view. It only covers people who got to checkout. If you judge cart abandonment from that list alone, you miss everyone who left before checkout. In the pet store, that's 330 of the 438 lost carts.

When a Lower Rate Fools You

Many store owners read a falling rate as good news. It can be. But the rate drops in two ways: more carts turn into orders, or fewer carts get made in the first place.

Next month, the pet store gets fewer casual add-to-carts. Carts fall to 450. Orders stay at 162.

New rate = (1 − 162 ÷ 450) × 100 = 64%.

The rate fell 9 points. Sales didn't move at all.

A $15 cart and a $400 cart also count the same here. And some shoppers use the cart to save items or see the total with shipping. Those carts were never close to an order. So read the rate next to your order count, conversion rate and revenue.

Want to win some of those carts back? Lots of stores send reminder emails, and when you send them matters. See our guide to abandoned cart email timing.

Related Terms

Checkout Abandonment: when a shopper starts checkout but leaves before paying.
Checkout Conversion Rate: the share of started checkouts that end in an order.
Add to Cart Rate: the share of sessions where someone adds an item to the cart.
Cart Recovery: getting shoppers to come back and finish a cart they left.
Cart Abandonment Flow: a set of automatic reminders sent after a shopper leaves a cart.
Drop-off Rate: the share of people who leave at one step of your funnel.