How to reduce cart abandonment in peak season
When potential customers are about to complete a purchase with your online business, there are a lot of reasons they might abandon their cart. It might be the total cost of their purchase after shipping is added or challenges with checkout that cause them to leave. During peak digital traffic times—like the holidays, during new product launches, or in limited-time promotions—cart abandonment might even lead to you losing a sale completely… sometimes to your competitors.
Cart abandonment is a challenge for online businesses, but it can be addressed.
- It’s a leading cause for lost revenue opportunities in eCommerce.
- There are both customer-driven and site-driven factors that increase cart abandonment rates.
- An optimized website, transparent pricing, and personalized retargeting campaigns can reduce cart abandonment.
- A connected retail solutions partner can help you get ahead of cart abandonment in busy seasons.
A smooth shopping experience can lead to more customers converting from the “browsing” stage to the “buying” stage. But how can you reduce your cart abandonment rates to make sure your customers finish their purchase?
What is cart abandonment?
Cart abandonment is when an online customer adds items to their digital cart in your eCommerce store but exits your site before completing their purchase. They don’t remove the items from their cart but leave the cart full when they exit your site. The result is a lost opportunity for a sale. Cart abandonment is much higher during the holidays. In fact, up to 70% of online carts are abandoned before a purchase is made, leaving huge profits on the table.1
What causes cart abandonment rates to rise?
There are a number of reasons why a customer might abandon their cart. One of the most common is the final cost for their purchase, which includes shipping, taxes, and fees. When seeing one price on the site for the item and another with shipping and taxes figured in, customers may choose to pass on their purchase.
Other common causes might be the quality of their experience with your store. If the checkout process is complicated or has too many steps, requires your customers to create an account, or obligates them to a subscription, they may not think the purchase is worth the effort.
Also, a slow load time or connection on your site can cause an eager buyer to leave. And if your site crashes, they may return to try again, but if your products are available on another site, they may try elsewhere, especially if what they’re wanting is in high demand. A high-performing site can funnel consumers toward their purchase more efficiently, reducing the odds they abandon their cart before the page loads.
A simplified, streamlined purchasing process can improve the shopping experience and raise conversion rates for your customers completing their purchases. The good news is that there are a number of things you can do to reduce your cart abandonment rates.
Preparing to reduce cart abandonment
Before you start to address how your cart abandonment rates might be improved, you’ll need to examine what the checkout pain points might be. There are a few steps you can take to get the insights to take the best actions.
- Assess your site. Check your eCommerce site for factors like page load times. A slow load time can create customer frustration. Also, load times affect search engine response page (SERP) rankings. Lower ranking means less traffic.
- Know your data. Closely examine all of your metrics to understand where the sticking point might be in the checkout process. Do customers leave on the shipping page? How many times do they visit before they complete their purchases?
- Conduct user testing. Consider investing in a user testing service or tool if you don’t already have a team in-house. You’ll get live, first-hand feedback as testers talk through their experience with your site.
- Look for feedback. Poll your customers to understand what they like and dislike about their shopping experience on your site. Pop-ups after a sale is complete, post-purchase surveys, and if you have a loyalty program, customer feedback surveys, are great options to hear the voice of your customers. Also pay close attention to online forums.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you can focus on the most impactful areas to improve your completion rates. While there are lots of ways to reduce cart abandonment, you can focus on the areas which might help the most.
How to reduce cart abandonment
Now that you know where the issues are, you can act. A good approach is to test a few solutions to see which ones have the most benefit for your customers.
- Begin with a reliable, secure network
Unfortunately, cyber breaches are so common that some customers are becoming apathetic to them.2 And while a few customers may still be willing to purchase from you, 47% of respondents in a recent poll say they are not.3
The first step to reducing cart abandonment is to have a stable network, which includes business network continuity to help ensure your network doesn’t experience downtime. Since your business internet connections are entry points to your network, it’s important to include your internet in your continuity plan, along with a layered defense strategy to reduce your security risks and add network resilience.
- Encourage trust with built-in security features
Security concerns can be a cause for cart abandonment. Security begins at your network and extends to customer data collected on your site. Having and displaying security features—SSL certificates, trusted payment logos, encryption—can offer comfort to consumers anxious about their personal data. Secure payment gateways will encrypt and protect customer data and help prevent fraud. It’s important to note that if your company has been in the media for a data breach, you may see a drop in completed purchases.
- Improve site performance and speed
Fast page load times—especially on mobile devices where cart abandonment rates are highest—makes checkout easier. Optimized images, efficient coding, and an up-to-date content management system (CMS) can make your site run faster for the user. Also, a dedicated business internet provider can help you make sure you’re getting the most out of your network and internet connection to keep your site secure by isolating your internet to your business.
- Optimize your mobile shopping experience
Up to 90% of consumers use a smartphone or tablet for product research. Over 60% of overall web traffic comes from mobile devices.4 This is why many online businesses have a mobile-first approach. Simplified navigation and checkout on mobile devices makes it easier—and more likely—for mobile users to complete their purchase.
- Simplify the checkout process with transparent pricing and multiple payment options
A complicated checkout process increases the likelihood that your customers will leave. The fewer steps a customer takes, the more likely they are to complete their purchase.
Offer a number of payment methods to make checkout easy. Allowing access to services like digital wallets saves time by autofilling payment information. Keeping pricing simple and transparent is another way to reduce cart abandonment rates. Avoiding surprises with pre-calculated shipping rates reduces sticker shock in the checkout process, leading to more conversions.
- Use exit-intent popups and targeted campaigns
Automatic popups or onsite banners that offer discounts or incentives like free or discounted shipping can lead to better completion rates. Periodically reminding consumers of the contents of their cart has a similar effect.
Another opportunity is to use a retail omnichannel to encourage your customers to complete their purchases. Creating a seamless customer journey across channels and touchpoints enables you to see your customer’s interests, where they left off, and if they’ve not completed a purchase engage with a reminder or incentive to do so.
[Read: A guide to understanding what is an omnichannel in retail]
- Offer shipping incentives and easy returns
A popular tactic is to offer free shipping for a minimum purchase. Make any promo codes and the terms clear both before and during checkout. In addition, make it easy to find your return policy. It might be FAQs or even a link on your checkout page that promises easy returns, along with what that process is.
These actionable options may be able to help convert more carts into completed sales. By understanding your data, opportunities ahead of high-traffic periods for your site, you can decrease cart abandonment and increase sales.
Cart abandonment can be addressed with a bit of planning, multi-layered tactics, and most importantly, keeping your customer first. Analyze your site, gain insights from your data, and implement plans to make a confident checkout easier for your customers. Build this on a foundation of a reliable, secure network, complete with defense in depth to protect your data, and clear communication throughout the sale so your customers have what they need to buy. You’re offering stability and transparency to build trust, confidence, and to plant a seed for them to return and buy again.
Learn more about our business networking services, business internet, and cybersecurity solutions. To connect with an expert who knows business, contact your AT&T Business representative.
Why AT&T Business
See how ultra-fast, reliable fiber and 5G connectivity protected by built-in security give you a new level of confidence in the possibilities of your network. Let our experts work with you to solve your challenges and accelerate outcomes. Your business deserves the AT&T Business difference—a new standard for networking.
1"Global Mobile Traffic 2025", Statista, Accessed June 6, 2024, https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/.
2Kristen Doerer, “Customers are becoming apathetic to cyber incidents, research finds”, Cybersecurity Dive, January 13, 2025, https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/consumer-trust-cyber-incident-data-breach/737145/.
3Larry Szebeni, “Nearly Half of Customers Stop Buying After a Hack,” Apex Tech Services, July 17, 2025, https://www.apextechservices.com/topics/articles/462497-nearly-half-customers-stop-buying-after-hack.htm#/.
4"Global Mobile Traffic 2025", Statista, Accessed December 1, 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/.
