How to Reduce Cart Abandonment on BigCommerce

Cart abandonment is the most expensive leak in ecommerce, because it happens to the people closest to buying. Around 70% of shoppers who add to cart never complete the purchase, and on mobile that climbs above 85%. BigCommerce gives you a strong starting point with its one-page checkout and built-in recovery tools, so much of the work is using those well and removing the friction around them. This guide covers what to do, in priority order.

This is one execution piece of our BigCommerce conversion rate optimization guide, and it pairs closely with BigCommerce checkout optimization.

Why shoppers abandon

The reasons are consistent across every platform and mostly fixable. In rough order of impact: extra costs like shipping and taxes revealed too late, being forced to create an account, a checkout that feels too long, not trusting the site with card details, and no clear total shown early enough. The theme is the same everywhere: most abandonment is not a change of heart about the product, it is friction and surprise introduced after the decision to buy was made.

1. Kill the shipping surprise

Surprise cost is the number one reason people abandon, so removing it is your highest-leverage fix:

• Show a free-shipping threshold in the cart ("You are $9 away from free shipping"). It removes the surprise and lifts average order value at the same time.
• Surface estimated shipping in the cart, before the final step, using BigCommerce's real-time quotes.
• If your margins allow, run a free-shipping promotion outright.

Nothing about the total should be a shock once the shopper reaches checkout.

2. Use guest and express checkout

Two of BigCommerce's built-in strengths attack abandonment directly. Make sure guest checkout is enabled so no one is forced to create an account to buy. And turn on express and digital wallet payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, so returning shoppers pay in a couple of taps instead of typing an address. Both target the most common abandonment reasons, and both are already available to you. Our checkout optimization guide covers the full set of levers.

3. Keep the store and checkout fast

A slow store leaks carts. BigCommerce gives you a fast hosted foundation, so the most common way to ruin it is to pile on apps and scripts for features the platform already offers natively. Protect your speed: check whether BigCommerce already does a job before installing an app, compress your images, and keep third-party scripts lean. A fast path into a fast checkout keeps more carts alive.

4. Build trust at the point of payment

Small reassurances matter most right when someone reaches for a card. Keep the checkout visually consistent with your brand, show a secure-payment signal, make your return policy easy to find before the final step, and give a visible way to reach a real person. For a newer brand, these signals are the difference between a completed order and a hesitation.

5. Recover the ones who still leave

BigCommerce includes built-in abandoned-cart recovery, so use it. A timely, automated email to the high-intent shoppers who leave wins a meaningful share of them back:

• A first email within about an hour, while intent is still warm.
• A reminder a day later that reinforces value and answers the common objection.

Lead with helpful reminders rather than reflexive discounts, so you do not train shoppers to abandon on purpose. Free shipping is often a better nudge than a percentage off, because it targets the top reason people abandon in the first place. We cover the full flow in BigCommerce abandoned cart recovery.

What to measure

Set a baseline, then watch, always split by device:

• Cart-to-checkout rate, which your shipping and cart fixes should move.
• Checkout-to-purchase rate, which your guest-checkout, express-payment, and trust fixes should move.
• Recovered revenue from your abandoned-cart emails, tracked on its own.

Give each change time to gather data, and when you have the traffic, prove the bigger changes with a controlled test. Our master guide to ecommerce conversion rate optimization covers the method, and our benchmarks show where your numbers should land.

Use the tools you already have

Cart abandonment on BigCommerce is friction and surprise you can remove with tools the platform already gives you: a one-page checkout, guest and express payments, and built-in recovery. Start with the shipping surprise, use the built-in checkout and recovery strengths, keep the store fast, and follow up with the shoppers who still leave. If you want a read on where shoppers are bailing on your store, that is what our free conversion audit is for. No call, no card.