Are your visitors adding products to the cart and not buying through with them? Abandoned carts mean lost sale opportunities – but how much should you be losing out? And how many users on your eCommerce store should add products to carts? Here is a look.
What is a good add-to-cart rate?
Add to cart rate means the percentage of sessions where a product is added to the cart. According to Littledata’s survey of more than two thousand stores in January 2022, the average add-to-cart rate was 5.9%.
Generally, anything more than a 9.8% add-to-cart rate would put any store in the top 20% stores. Also, more than 12.3% can put you in the best 10% list.
In addition, an add-to-cart rate of less than 3.0% can put you in the bottom 20% of online stores. Furthermore, anything less than 2.1% can put you on the list of the worst-performing or under-performing stores. In short, an online store with a rate of between 3.0% and 9.8% is considered average or common.
Smart Insights defines this rate as the percentage of unique visitors to a particular website, which involves a click on the add to cart or basket buttons. Once a customer starts browsing your online store, it is obvious that they will be either reading some information or details about your business first or going straight to the list of products. However, not every customer plans to buy the products they browse at first. Some will just browse and compare the products and businesses.
Nonetheless, some people check the products one by one. Some of them will even add selected items to the cart. Most of these people already decided to buy the product, hence they visited the site. The add-to-cart rate considers such actions and calculates the percentage. It is important to note that this is not the complete picture for understanding the e-commerce process.
Different sources have their own variations to the statistics and the way they define the add-to-cart rate. Monetate (and Certona – now part of Kibo) states that the average add-to-cart rate starts from around 2.5% whereas as mentioned above, Littledata states it starts from 3.0%.
Should you optimize for add-to-cart?
A short answer to the question – should you optimize for add-to-cart? – is yes. Add to cart rate is one of the most important metrics to monitor online e-commerce websites. It displays statistics of product selections, pricing strategies, user experiences, traffic acquisition, and merchandising.
For example, if your rate is declining even after increasing your expenditure on marketing then this means that you are spending your money on the wrong prospect. In the end, you can be sure that all the sources are properly utilized and reach the correct audience. Optimizing the add-to-cart rate can help you with adjustment issues by closely monitoring the traffic.
How do I increase my ADD-TO-CART value?
There are several ways to increase the add-to-cart ratio and some of them are as follows:
- Optimize product page by using relevant information, images, videos, reviews, testimonials, and more
- Free delivery or free shipping options to motivate consumers
- Notify visitors about their abandoned carts through website, SMS, or email
- Pop-ups for customers exiting the website offering free delivery, discount, or promotion
- Provide verified customer reviews and feedback on product pages
- Customer chat window on-site for proper assistance during online purchases
- Optimize the overall layout of the product page for efficiency and effectiveness
- Provide subscriptions for new products and notifications for out-of-stock products
What is a normal conversion rate on Shopify?
The E-commerce rate of conversion is the total number of purchases divided by the total number of sessions on the Shopify store. Just like bounce rate, conversion rates must be calculated both on the mobile and the desktop separately. The rates between these two platforms can tend to be very different.
Also, the conversion rate of e-commerce can have different variables impacting it. Hence, it is important to approach the improvement of conversion rate in a very structured way.
According to Littledata, the average Shopify mobile conversion rate in 2019 was 0.9%. It also defined that the top 20% of all Shopify stores had a rate of over 2.2%. Along with that, the average desktop conversion rate for Shopify is 1.4%. A 3.1% or above desktop conversion rate would mean that the store is within the top 20%.
In January 2022, Littledata surveyed almost four thousand Shopify stores and found that the average conversion rate was 1.9%. Now, anything more than 4.1% is considered among the top 20% of Shopify stores. Also, more than 5.8% would put a store in the top 10% on Shopify.
The bottom 20% stores would have a conversion rate of less than 0.6% and worst-performing stores would have less than 0.1%. Anything between 0.6% and 4.1% is considered an average benchmark.
Conclusion
The first and foremost thing you need to understand is that every business is unique and the same applies to online stores. Then you will know what kind of changes you need to make to improve the add-to-cart and conversion rates of the website. You can opt for online guides or third parties to help you do it or simply follow some of the tips mentioned above. To conclude, there is always room for growth and every improvement is worth it in any business.
