Acceptable Number of customers that abandon checkout

What would be an acceptable percentage of customers that would start the checkout process but not complete it for what ever reason?

10% maybe? So if 300 started the checkout, 30 that abandon the checkout process would be acceptable?

Thanks
JB

30-40%.

Ya, 10% wouldn't be bad at all, I know I abandon my checkout all the time. The main reason is if I have to go into it the checkout to see shipping charges.

Just FYI:

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Abandoment Reasons:
35% Shipping costs
30% Requesting too much customer info
17% Lack of product info on web site
14% Opt to buy via "brick and mortar"
Source: NetIQ survey, Jan 2004

Interesting survey...thanks for the info.

Hmm... 30 to 40% Seems it would be very high to me, but.......

Yesterday, for example, we have over 800 shopping carts created. Of those 800, 371 went to check out (about 45%). Of those 371, only 250 actually completed the check out process (67% of the 371).

So.. 53% that created a shopping cart, did not bother to actually attempt to check out. For what ever reason, o well.

BUT... 30% in the middle of the checkout process did not complete it.

So.. we have about 30% not completing their order. Three months ago... it was around 10%.

Of our carts created YTD, 56% began checkout, 45% completed checkout.

80% of people that made it to the checkout page completed their order.

Cart abandonment is the end-user not turning into a paying customer, regardless of when or why they don't become one. It should be measured by abandonment after they click your CTA (call to action), whether its "buy it now", "add to cart" or another.

Obviously you will always lose 10-15%, but including all the pertinent ordering, shipping, assembly, product info or whatever, before this CTA is the best way to assure increased conversions.

GaryTheScubaGuy

An abandonment rate of 10% is not only acceptable, it would be phenomenal!! From what I've read, industry average is around 75%. Getting that down to 50% is considered a miracle in certain circles.

after you take into account all the people that would just start a cart to get a total price from your company including shipping with no aim of buying anything

they are still shopping and using your site as a glorified calculator

a 10% abandonment rate as said above is tremendous

this can also depend a lot on your indurty too

if you have a low ticket spontaneous item then you may get different results again

The problem I am having it those filling out the forms, like shipping address, cc info, etc and not finishing. That is about 30%.

So someone actually makes the effort to place an order, going beyond just adding info to their shopping cart, and never finishes.