Definition
Abandoned cart describes the point at which a shopper has shown enough interest to add a product to an online cart, but leaves without completing an order. The term can refer to a single shopper’s incomplete purchase or to the broader behavior measured across a site or app.
Teams often summarize this behavior with an abandoned-cart rate. A common calculation is: (1 − completed purchases ÷ carts created) × 100. The exact denominator should be defined consistently, because some businesses count carts, sessions, or shoppers differently.
Abandoned cart is broader than checkout abandonment. Cart abandonment can happen before checkout begins, while checkout abandonment refers to leaving after the shopper has entered the checkout flow. Separating the two helps teams locate the problem more precisely.
What does that mean
Imagine a shopper putting an item in a basket at a physical store, then leaving the basket behind before paying. An abandoned cart is the online version of that unfinished purchase.
Why this matters.
Abandoned carts represent potential sales that did not happen, but they are also clues about the customer experience. Studying where and why shoppers leave helps ecommerce and UX teams decide whether to clarify costs, simplify forms, fix technical issues, or build trust at the right moment.
Use cases
Find where shoppers drop out of the purchase journey
Ecommerce and Data teams may see many carts created but relatively few completed orders, without knowing whether shoppers are leaving on the cart page, during delivery selection, or at payment. Mapping the paths before and after cart creation helps reveal the stages and audience segments with the highest drop-off. The result is a clearer list of journeys to investigate and a more focused optimization plan.
See it in practice
Harrods used Contentsquare to surface checkout pain points and investigate them with Frustration score, Error Analysis, and Session Replay. The resulting checkout improvements reduced cart abandonment by 8%.
Understand the friction behind an abandoned cart
UX/UI and IT teams need more than a rate when shoppers encounter confusing forms, repeated clicks, errors, or slow-loading delivery options. Reviewing relevant user sessions and friction signals shows what happened immediately before the shopper left, so teams can distinguish usability problems from technical failures. This makes fixes more specific and easier to prioritize.
Ask shoppers why they are leaving and test improvements
Marketing and Ecommerce teams may suspect that shipping costs, account creation, payment options, or trust concerns are driving abandonment, but assumptions can be wrong. A targeted survey at an appropriate point in the journey can collect direct feedback, while behavioral analysis can compare the experiences of converters and non-converters. The expected benefit is better-informed messaging, checkout design, and experiments instead of one-size-fits-all changes.
See it in practice
Rakuten used Contentsquare to compare new and returning visitors on its cart page. After identifying confusion and redesigning the one-page checkout into four steps, the conversion rate from checkout initiation to shipping increased by 10%.
How Contentsquare helps.
Journeys shows how shoppers move through the site or app, where they drop off, and which paths lead to conversion or return visits.
Session Replay lets teams watch real interactions—including clicks, taps, scrolls, and errors—to understand what happened before a shopper abandoned a cart.
Frustration score surfaces signals such as repeated attempts and rage clicks, then helps teams prioritize friction by business impact.
Surveys collects feedback at relevant moments, including exit-intent questions, and connects responses with the surrounding user experience.
Impact Quantification helps estimate how behaviors or issues relate to conversion and revenue so teams can prioritize the changes most likely to matter.
FAQs on abandoned cart
An abandoned cart is an online shopping cart that contains products but is left before the shopper completes the purchase. It can describe one incomplete shopping attempt or a pattern measured across many shoppers.