For every 10 carts created, 7 are abandoned.

Abandoned carts are one of the most frustrating aspects of running a Shopify store - even more so across Black Friday Cyber Monday.

However, the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend can also be the easiest time to turn those carts into conversions.

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What is Shopify Cart Abandonment?

Shopify cart abandonment is when a customer browses your store, adds an item (or a few) to their cart, but then leaves before completing their purchase.

Cart abandonment across Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday is generally higher as there are more shoppers, so more carts are being created.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to completely eradicate cart abandonment, but it is possible to reduce it.

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What is the average Shopify cart abandonment rate?

The average cart abandonment rate on Shopify is 68.8%, whilst the average cart abandonment rate for all online stores is 70.19%.

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What is the average cart abandonment rate on Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday?

Cart abandonment on Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday sits between 77% and 82% - 7-12% higher than normal.

That means for every 10 customers adding items to their basket across Black Friday Cyber Monday, 8 of them will leave before checking out.

A store with 20,000 monthly traffic and a conversion rate of 1% will be converting 200 users. However, that also means around 800 carts are created and abandoned.

If that same store had an average order value of $10, that means they’re missing out on $8,000 every single month from abandoned carts.

Thankfully, once you know the reasons why, it becomes easier to fix.

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Why causes Shopify cart abandonment?

There are several reasons why abandoned carts occur.

Unfortunately, you can’t control them all.

According to research by the Baymard Institute, these are the most common reasons for customers abandoning their cart:

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48% - Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees)

24% - The site wanted me to create an account

22% - Delivery was too slow

18% - I didn’t trust the site with my credit card information

17% - Too long/complicated checkout process

16% - I couldn’t see/calculate total order cost up-front

13% - Website had errors/crashed

12% - Returns policy wasn’t satisfactory

9% - There weren’t enough payment methods

4% - The credit card was declined

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4 Tips to Reduce Abandoned Carts on Black Friday Cyber Monday

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1. Segment Your Marketing Approach

Tackling abandoned carts doesn’t just involve improving your checkout process - it starts at the beginning of your customer journey.

The better their initial touchpoint, the more likely they are to convert.

Customers come in different shapes, sizes, and behaviours. Some will have interacted with you for years, some will be finding you for the first time. Some will have bought 10 of your products, others just 1. Some will have found you through Instagram, others through word of mouth, google, or TikTok.

By customising your marketing strategy to be more specific to each group of customers, you’re more likely to create convincing, relatable messaging that resonates with them.

With so much promotional material across Black Friday Cyber Monday, your customer’s inboxes will be full of similar messaging. If you can craft a deeper, personalised message, you’re more likely to stand out and get noticed.

It also means you can hit specific pain points and barriers, creating more compelling messaging with a higher likelihood of getting your customers to convert.

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Segments to consider for Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday

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‍VIP customers

VIP customers may mean something different to every business.

It may mean early adopters, customers who spend the most, or the shoppers who deliver the most referrals.

Think about what a VIP customer means to you and then think about how you can deliver additional value based on that criteria.

For example:

Early adopters: As a thank you for being there before nobody else was, they get early access to your sale.
High spenders: If they hit a certain order value, they receive an exclusive offer.
Referrals: For every customer they refer over Black Friday Cyber Monday, they get an additional discount.

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Promotional shoppers

These customers only shop with you when you’re running a sale, so you want to make your Black Friday Cyber Monday sale as obvious as possible - as well as how long they can access it for.

You may also want to remind them of the great offers they got in your last sale. Though try not to make it sound like you run sales often, otherwise there’s no urgency to shop now.

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Social engagers

This is the audience who frequently engages with you on social, so you’ll want to run retargeting ads in a similar style to your organic social content.

They most likely know what you do, but they may not have visited your website before, so introducing them to your product range is a good idea.

Social posts are also easily shareable, so keep in mind these may be people’s first contact with your brand, also. Try to be informative about who you are and what you do as well as about your sale. Videos work great here as you can pack a lot of information into a short clip.

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High-interest non-converters

High-interest non-converters are the audience that browses and browses, but never actually makes a purchase.

For this audience, you’ll want to emphasise the exclusivity of your Black Friday Cyber Monday offer as well as an additional reward for first-time customers.

For example, you may be running a 30% off site-wide offer with an extra 10% off if it’s your first purchase.

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Category lovers

This segment is all about recommending products you know your customers will love.

Category lovers are segmented by their shopping or browsing activity for one specific type of product.

If you’re a clothing brand, you may have customers who only look at your t-shirts or accessories. Highlighting the offers on these specific categories to those customers creates a higher chance they’ll convert as you know they’re already interested.

Alternatively, they may have already bought from this category a few months ago, so you can now advertise new additions they might have missed.

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Recent buyers

For recent buyers, you’ll want to avoid showing them any of the products they just bought.

Nobody likes buying something at full price only to find out it’s 50% off a few days later.

Instead, try to show them products that complement their recent purchase. For example, a clothing brand may highlight clothes that complete an outfit.

Or you can show them products they put in their basket but took out before completing their purchase.

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Low Average Order Value

Customers who generally have a low average order value can be encouraged to buy more through strategic incentives.

For example, you may create product bundles where the customer can get several items at a discounted price but needs to buy them all at once, bumping up their order value.

Alternatively, you could offer free shipping or a gift, but only if they reach a certain spend level.

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2. Focus on Mobile

In 2022, 73% of Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday sales were made on a mobile device - similar to the 79% average.

By focusing on desktop, you’re ignoring ¾ of your customer base - and that ¾ are most likely having a stilted, awkward, and slow experience.

When you consider that 14% of carts are abandoned due to the website crashing or having errors, then it becomes even more important to focus on your website experience no matter the device.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your mobile experience is by using a Shopify mobile app builder.

Shopify mobile app builders allow you to create a fast, high-converting mobile app for your store, driving 3x more conversions on average vs. mobile websites.

Not to mention, mobile apps have an 85% higher add-to-cart rate and deliver a 10% higher average order value.

So you’re not only getting more orders, but those orders are worth more, too.

A few simple ways to improve your mobile website are to:

Keep your photos centred: most mobile experiences are visual-heavy. Instagram, TikTok, and popular shopping apps like Amazon and ASOS position videos and photos as the centre of attention. Why? Text is harder to read on a smaller screen and images are easier to engage with.

Minimise your use of text: On mobile, you want to keep to the most impactful text, such as headlines, CTAs, and short descriptions. Large chunks of text can feel overwhelming on mobile, pushing customers away. Try to show them, not tell them.

Make sure CTAs are readily available: With such a small amount of retail space to play with on mobile, you need to make sure the most important actions are emphasised. Keeping CTAs abundant and prominent means they’re more likely to be clicked.

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3. Optimise Your Checkout

The checkout process is both exciting and stressful for customers.

It’s exciting because they’re about to order something new, but it’s stressful because they have to part with their money. The more you can make it about the former and less about the latter, the better your checkout experience will be.

That’s why 48% of carts are abandoned because extra costs are too high.

Customers commit to the price they’re paying before checking out. Any additional fees reset that mental process, adding unnecessary stress, and pushing them to leave.

Try to keep all of your costs transparent and included before the checkout. Include any tax and fees in the item price and offer free shipping where possible.

On the other hand, 18% of carts are abandoned due to the checkout process being too long or complicated.

In fact, according to research by Capterra, 2/3 of customers expect the checkout process to last less than four minutes.

Make sure to get rid of any unnecessary forms, fields, and questions that add stumbling blocks to your customer’s checkout flow.

You can always get more information from them once they’ve converted, but if your priority is to reduce abandoned carts, then reducing the steps in your checkout flow is imperative.

You may also want to include a ‘buy now’ button on your product pages as well as an ‘add to cart’ button. A ‘buy now’ button allows customers who just want to buy one product a streamlined entry to checkout.

Using Shop Pay will be particularly useful for Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday as it saves customer’s payment information. So whether they’ve bought from you before or another Shopify store, they can use an easy one-click checkout.

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How to activate Shop Pay:

Go to your Shopify admin
Click Settings
Click Payments
Click Manage
In the Shop Pay section, check Shop Pay
Click Save

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4. Run Retargeting Campaigns

The chances of you converting a customer on their first visit are slim.

Though we’d like it to be, the modern customer journey isn’t linear. Customers don’t find your brand, browse your store, add items to their cart, and then checkout all in one flow.

Generally, they find you, browse your store and then exit. Then they might come back a few hours, days, or weeks later to look at you again, possibly leaving a second time before finally coming back to purchase - or not.

In between engaging with your store, they might be checking out your competitors, shopping for other goods, or not even thinking about their next purchase. So it’s your job to keep them interested and engaged to help get them over the line.

You can run retargeting campaigns through:

Social ads (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
Email
Google
Mobile push notifications

With any Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday retargeting campaign, it’s important to stress the time sensitivity behind your offer.

Why should your customers buy from you right now? What will they miss out on if they wait another few days?

The time sensitivity might be because the offer’s almost over, the products they left in their basket are almost sold out, they can buy one get one free for a limited time, or anything else exclusive to the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend.

Targeting cart abandoners through social ads can be one of the highest-converting audiences. You already know they’re interested in you and you know what products they like, so all you need to do is the final bit of convincing - and there’s nothing more convincing than a good deal.

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How to Get More Sales on Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday

If you play it right, Black Friday Cyber Monday could be the biggest weekend for your Shopify store all year. The key is in the planning.

If you’re looking for more ways to drive Shopify sales across the Black Friday weekend, check out our 5 top tips article, which also includes a handy checklist to leave no stone unturned.

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Shopify Abandoned Cart FAQ

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How do I reduce cart abandonment on Shopify?

The top 3 reasons for Shopify cart abandonment are:

47% Extra costs too high (shipping, tax, fees)
25% The site wanted me to create an account
24% Delivery was too slow

Check out our blog on more ways you can reduce abandoned carts on Shopify.

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What percentage of carts are abandoned on Shopify?

According to research conducted by Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate for online stores is 70.19%.

Here’s how it splits up between devices:

Desktop: 69.75%
Mobile: 85.65%
Tablets: 80.74%

The higher rate for mobile is generally due to the fact most Shopify store owners think desktop-first, despite 79% of traffic to Shopify stores coming from mobile.

Over Black Friday Cyber Monday, Shopify cart abandonment is generally higher between 77% and 82%.

If you’re looking for more ways to increase your Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday sales, check out our handy article here.

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