- The average cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, according to Baymard Institute, across 50 studies. 42% of US online shoppers have abandoned a cart because they were just browsing.
- The top reasons shoppers gave Baymard for abandoning a cart: extra costs (40%), slow delivery (20%), not trusting the site with card details (19%) and an unsatisfying returns policy (13%).
- 60% of respondents in a Baymard survey look for return policy information on the product page, but by Baymard's count 44% of sites don't show it in the main product page content, and 67% don't show a total cost estimate near the buy section.
- In a 2021 PowerReviews survey of 7,528 US shoppers, 72% said they read product Q&A always or regularly, and 58% use it to get a sense of size.
- According to Shopify, average conversion rates globally sit around 2% to 3%. According to Contentsquare, 69.9% of traffic comes from mobile devices.
What is the average cart abandonment rate?
The average cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, according to Baymard Institute, which calculates it from 50 different studies of online shopping cart abandonment. In other words, about 7 in 10 carts never become a purchase.
Some of it is natural. According to Baymard, 42% of US online shoppers have abandoned a cart because they were just browsing or not ready to buy, and Baymard calls these largely unavoidable. Source: Baymard Institute, Cart Abandonment Rate, updated September 2025.
Why do shoppers abandon their carts?
The top reasons are extra costs (40%), slow delivery (20%) and not trusting the site with card details (19%). These are the reasons US online shoppers gave Baymard for abandoning a cart, setting aside those who were just browsing.
| Reason | Share | Can the product page help? |
|---|---|---|
| Extra costs too high: shipping, tax, fees | 40% | Yes: the shipping cost, or the free-shipping threshold, next to the price |
| Delivery was too slow | 20% | Yes: delivery time in days |
| Didn't trust the site with their card details | 19% | Partly: reviews, the payment methods, a way to contact you |
| The site wanted them to create an account | 18% | No, it's in the checkout settings |
| Checkout too long or complicated | 17% | No, it's in the checkout settings |
| The website had errors or crashed | 17% | No, it's a technical fault |
| The returns policy wasn't satisfactory | 13% | Yes: the returns policy in one sentence |
| Couldn't see or calculate the total cost up front | 12% | Yes: the total price, or an estimate of it |
| The card was declined | 10% | No, it's with the payment provider |
| Not enough payment methods | 9% | No, it's in the checkout settings |
The shares add up to more than 100%, so shoppers could give more than one reason. Another 7% said they didn't know. Source: Baymard Institute, Cart Abandonment Rate, updated September 2025.
What to check when you have many add to carts and few checkouts: add to cart but no checkout.
What do shoppers look for on the product page?
Shoppers look for the shipping cost, the returns policy and the product's size on the product page, and many sites don't show them there. The table sets what shoppers look for, from Baymard Institute's research, against how many sites don't show it, by Baymard's count.
| What | Shoppers who look for it | Sites that don't show it |
|---|---|---|
| The returns policy | 60% of 1,032 survey respondents look for return policy information on the product page | 44% don't display or link to the return policy from the main product page content |
| Shipping cost and total cost | 64% of test users looked for shipping costs on the product page before deciding to add to cart (2017) | 67% don't show a total order cost estimate near the buy section |
| The product's size | 42% of test users try to work out a product's size from the product page images | 37% don't provide an in-scale image, one that shows the product next to something of known size |
The site shares come from the headings of Baymard's article, which don't say how many sites each share counts.
Overall, only 48% of the leading US and European ecommerce sites on desktop, and 38% on mobile, rated decent or good for product page UX, out of more than 155 sites Baymard benchmarked. These are leading sites, not small Shopify stores.
Sources: Baymard Institute, The current state of ecommerce product page UX, updated March 2026. Baymard Institute, Product Pages Need to Show Estimated Shipping Costs, June 2017.
Do shoppers read product Q&A?
Yes, according to a PowerReviews survey: 99% of shoppers said they read Q&A on product pages at least occasionally, and 72% said they read it always or regularly. The survey ran in June 2021, among 7,528 US shoppers who had opted in to offers and discounts from retailers.
| What shoppers said | Share |
|---|---|
| Read Q&A at least occasionally | 99% |
| Read it always or regularly | 72% |
| Use it to get a better sense of size | 58% |
| Use it to learn other shoppers' experience of the product warranty | 28% |
| Use it to learn other shoppers' experience of shipping | 23% |
| Expect an answer to their question within 24 hours | 56% |
| Expect an answer in four hours or less | 21% |
| Are more suspicious of product or brand quality when the page has no Q&A section | 26% |
On a later PowerReviews page, which has no date, 24% said a product page with no Q&A makes them more suspicious, and 23% said it makes them less likely to buy. The same page reports a 177.2% lift in conversion among visitors who interact with Q&A, from an analysis of 1.5 million product pages on 1,200 sites.
Keep two things in mind. This compares visitors who chose to read with visitors who didn't, and it doesn't show that the Q&A caused the purchase. Shoppers who read Q&A may already have been closer to buying. And PowerReviews sells review and Q&A software, so the company is measuring what it sells.
Sources: PowerReviews, Missing product Q&A raises shopper suspicions, August 2021. PowerReviews, How Q&A impacts shopper trust and purchase behavior, no date on the page.
What do furniture and apparel shoppers look for?
In furniture the question is whether it will fit, and in apparel the question is size. This is how it looks in two 2026 Baymard Institute surveys of US online shoppers:
- Furniture and home decor: written dimensions (49%) and dimension images (42%) are among the most essential product page content for feeling confident an item will fit the shopper's space. The survey asked 1,598 shoppers.
- Apparel and accessories: the thing shoppers look for most in reviews is size accuracy and fit (48%). After it come quality and durability over time (43%), problems or complaints (40%) and value for the money (36%). The survey asked 1,922 shoppers.
Sources: Baymard Institute, Furniture & Home Decor quantitative UX insights 2026, May 2026. Baymard Institute, Apparel & Accessories quantitative UX insights 2026, June 2026.
What to write on the page itself: furniture product page questions, and apparel size and fit questions.
What is an average conversion rate?
According to Shopify, average conversion rates globally tend to sit around 2% to 3%, or 2 to 3 orders for every 100 visits. The article gives this range as a global average and doesn't name a source for it.
Shopify adds that this number varies widely by industry, price point, device mix and traffic source. So the most useful comparison is with your own store's numbers, before and after a change.
And most traffic comes from mobile devices: 69.9% of all traffic, according to Contentsquare's 2026 benchmarks report, based on 99 billion web and app sessions across more than 6,000 sites. So check your product page on a phone first.
Sources: Shopify blog, Ecommerce Conversion Rate, updated August 2026. Contentsquare, Digital Experience Benchmark, the new rules of digital traffic, March 2026.
How should you read these numbers?
Ask who measured it, how, on whom and when. That is why every number on this page has a source and a date.
- A survey tells you what people say they do. Usability testing shows what participants actually do on a site. A site benchmark counts what sites show.
- Most of the numbers here come from US shoppers. Shoppers in other countries may behave differently.
- Some sources are companies that sell a fix for the problem they measure. That doesn't make the numbers wrong, but it's worth knowing.
- An old number is still useful, as long as you know when it was measured.
Numbers we left out
A number whose original source we couldn't open doesn't go on this page. So, for example, a figure attributed to the research firm Forrester, about shoppers who leave when they can't find a quick answer, is missing here. PowerReviews quoted it in 2021, but we couldn't find it on Forrester's site. The conversion averages that Shopify's article quotes from other companies were also left out, because we couldn't check them at the source.
Where BOOX fits
BOOX fits when shoppers hesitate on your product pages and you want to answer their questions there, and see in your own store which answers led to a sale. We make BOOX, so here are the details.
- What it does: it shows a popup on the product page with three questions about the product and their answers, which BOOX writes with AI from the product page and the store's policies. You can edit any of them.
- When: after time on the page, after a scroll, or after an add to cart with no checkout, whichever you choose, with separate rules for computers and phones. It opens by itself at most once per visit and never blocks scrolling.
- The data: per product and per question, how many saw the popup, how many answered, and how many bought after answering. So you see which questions your own shoppers pick, not only what a US survey found.
- Price: free for up to 50 answers a month. Premium, unlimited: $10 a month, with a 14-day free trial.
When it doesn't: if you want an open Q&A section on the page, where shoppers ask and see the answers to other shoppers' questions, the kind the PowerReviews survey asked about, you need a Q&A app. BOOX isn't one. It also won't help when the problem is in checkout itself, such as a required account, declined cards or errors. And if what's missing is one fact that is the same for every product, like the shipping cost, a line next to the price may be enough.