Cart Abandonment Rate by Industry

Whether it’s bounce rates, add-to-cart rates, or any other metric, average conversion rates of ecommerce brands vary from industry to industry. This means that knowing what targets to set for your business will depend on the sector you’re in.

Here’s a look at what cart abandonment rate refers to in ecommerce, how to calculate this key metric, and a breakdown of the different cart abandonment rates by industry.

Cart abandonment rate: key takeaways

As of July 2024, the average cart abandonment rate of ecommerce businesses is 73.12%.
The industry with the highest cart abandonment rate is luxury and jewelry, with 81.39%.
Businesses in the pet care and veterinary services sector have the lowest and best cart abandonment rates, with 52.84%.

What is the cart abandonment rate?

The cart abandonment rate is a metric used in ecommerce to measure the percentage of online shoppers who add items to their shopping cart but leave the website without completing the purchase.

How to calculate cart abandonment rate?

The cart abandonment rate is calculated by dividing the number of abandoned carts by the total number of shopping carts created and then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.

Here’s an example. If 100 customers add items to their shopping carts, but only 30 complete the purchase, leaving the number of customers abandoning their carts at 70, the cart abandonment rate is calculated as such:

Cart abandonment rate = (70/100) x 100 = 70%

Why is the cart abandonment rate important?

This metric is crucial for ecommerce businesses as it helps identify potential issues in the purchasing process that might be causing customers to leave without buying. Understanding and reducing cart abandonment rates can lead to higher conversion rates and increased revenue.

Average cart abandonment rate

This then raises the question: What is the average cart abandonment rate?

Recent data studying cart abandonment rate by industry shows that, as of July 2024, the average cart abandonment rate across all industries is 73.12%.

However, using this figure to establish a benchmark can be unreliable because, as we’ll explore in a bit, online shoppers behave differently from product to product, depending on the sector. In other words, to effectively measure whether your online store’s cart abandonment rate is below or above average, you need to benchmark it against the specific average cart abandonment rate for your industry.

Cart abandonment rate by industry

Industry	Cart abandonment rate
1. Luxury & jewelry	81.39%
2. Home & furniture	79.08%
3. Fashion, accessories, and apparel	78.04%
4. Beauty & personal care	72.10%
5. Multi-brand retail	68.27%
6. Food & beverage	61.44%
7. Consumer goods	57.35%
8. Pet care & veterinary services	52.84%

As of July 2024, topping the list ranking the cart abandonment rate by industry is the luxury and jewelry sector. At 81.39%, this means that more than four out of every five people arriving at an online store selling products related to luxury and jewelry leave the site without purchasing anything after having added items to their shopping carts.

This is one of the highest cart abandonment rates the luxury and jewelry sector has seen over the past 12 months. Its lowest rate came in December 2023, at 74.13%. Meanwhile, its highest was in August 2023, at 82.52%.

According to the list analyzing the cart abandonment rate by industry, the home and furniture sector follows in second place, with a rate of 79.08%—just 2.31 percentage points behind luxury and jewelry.

This is followed by the fashion, accessories, and apparel industry, with 78.04%, and the beauty and personal care industry, with 72.1%. In other words, around three out of every four shoppers arriving at online stores in these two industries do not complete their checkouts after adding items to their baskets.

Fifth on this list analyzing the cart abandonment rate by industry is multi-brand retail, with 68.27%. Food and beverage follows, with a cart abandonment rate of 61.44%. This sector has experienced fluctuations in its cart abandonment rate over the past year. Its lowest rate of cart abandonment, registered in February 2024, was 58.18%. Just a month later, in March, it surged to 64.57%—a 6.4 percentage point difference.

According to this list studying cart abandonment rates by industry, the sectors with the lowest (and best) rates are consumer goods and pet care and veterinary services. In these industries, 57.35% and 52.84% of all shoppers on these online stores abandon their carts, respectively. This is also the lowest cart abandonment rate the pet care and veterinary services industry has registered in at least 12 months.