Abandoned Cart Basics Before You Buy Another App
Cart abandonment sits somewhere around 70% for most stores, and the reflex is to install a recovery app. Recovery is worth doing, but it works on the small slice of shoppers who left for reasons other than your checkout. Fix the checkout first.
The four causes you control
- Surprise costs. Shipping, handling, and tax appearing at the final step is the most cited reason people abandon. Show shipping cost or a threshold on the product page and in the cart, not after they enter an address.
- Forced account creation. Guest checkout should be the default path, with an optional "save my details" checkbox at the end.
- Too many steps. Every screen between cart and confirmation loses people. Combine shipping and payment where your platform allows it.
- Payment options. If you only accept cards, you lose the shoppers who expect a wallet button. Wallets also remove the address-typing step on mobile, which is where most abandonment happens.
Diagnose before you treat
Set up funnel tracking so you can see where people drop: cart view, checkout start, shipping, payment, purchase. A store that loses 40% between cart and checkout start has a cart problem. A store that loses 40% at the shipping step has a shipping cost problem. Those need different fixes, and without the funnel you are guessing.
Then send the emails
When you do add recovery, three messages is plenty: one at an hour, one at a day, one at three days. Include the actual items with images, one clear button back to the cart, and support contact details. Hold the discount for the third email or skip it entirely; training customers to abandon carts for a coupon is an expensive habit to build.
What to measure
Track recovered revenue against the app cost, and track your checkout completion rate month over month. If completion is improving, your fixes are working. If only recovered revenue is growing, you are paying a subscription to paper over a checkout problem.
