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April 16, 2026
Guest Writer, Bizrate Insights
Updated 4/16/2026
For a PDF download version of this report: Download Now
A potential customer visits your website. Without adding anything to their cart, filling out your newsletter signup, or taking another action, they close your tab in their browser.
Did they leave because they experienced a glitch on your website? Were they unable to find the product information they needed? Was it hard to navigate your site on mobile? If you never ask, you could miss opportunities to make improvements and capture loyal customers—a crucial step when more than 70% of those who leave never return.
This blog explores the importance of evaluating the causes behind site abandonment. With case studies and actionable strategies, this report shows why it’s vital to learn directly from prospective customers and target investments accordingly.
Site abandonment occurs when a visitor leaves your website without taking an action. It’s often overlooked in favor of cart abandonment, where customers have added items to their shopping cart but don’t complete a transaction.
Ecommerce brands tend to focus on cart abandonment because it’s the final stage of the purchasing process where they hope to make the sale. However, site abandonment can happen at any point in the customer journey. Paying closer attention to why customers leave your site can unveil issues that drive them away, preventing them from reaching checkout in the first place.
On average, B2C companies spend up to nearly 12% of their revenue on marketing. From paid sales and marketing staff to social media campaigns and pay-per-click advertising, getting prospective customers to your ecommerce site isn’t cheap.
Yet, 85% of visitors never add an item to their cart, and as little as 1% may complete a transaction. Unaddressed site abandonment has a large impact on overall conversion rates. Without understanding the customer experience and how it leads to abandoned browsing sessions, ecommerce sites lose revenue opportunities while being hit with higher customer acquisition costs.
On the other hand, broader insights into user experience issues can influence your brand perception and long-term customer value. Instituting strategies to recapture lost opportunities earlier in the customer journey allows for a greater return on investment. Research has found that for every $1 million in turnover, companies can lift sales 3.3% simply by sending a browse recovery email when shoppers leave the site.
There are several reasons why shoppers may leave your site without making a purchase. While these causes are common, they’re also preventable.
Customers find it difficult to locate products of interest due to poor website organization.
Bizrate Insights’ research revealed that 85% of website abandoners who encounter technical difficulties, site usability problems, or payment issues, want the retailer to contact them to complete their order. An abandoned browse is an opportunity to deepen connection with customers through employing strategies that improve their shopping experience.
Good site navigation requires ongoing improvement. Gather customer feedback to address friction as it occurs. When making any large changes to your ecommerce site, tap outside sources to perform user testing to get objective feedback on site design, functionality, and usability. People less familiar with your site will always spot things you can’t.
For every second delay in a website’s loading time, there’s a 12% conversion reduction. If your site is not fast and mobile-optimized, you’re not meeting customers’ needs for immediacy and on-the-go shopping. This is particularly important, as 90% of Americans own a smartphone, with 15% accessing the internet solely through their phones.
Data from Bizrate Insights’ Site Abandonment Survey showed that 31% of shoppers used checkout just to calculate the total cost of their purchase. Don’t make customers jump through hoops to find the information they need. Provide product information in visually appealing ways throughout the customer journey to inspire conversions.
It takes visitors to your site a mere 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about your page. To make a good first impression, display trust signals, such as security logos, so customers know their information is secure. Incorporate social proof so browsers see that peers already trust your site, such as noting how many customers bought your product in the last 24 hours.
To build brand loyalty for its online shop, Lehman’s Hardware Store redesigned its ecommerce site with dynamic content and relevant products based on search history. It also employed targeted search engine and social media campaigns. Site traffic increased, but conversions did not — visitors were abandoning the site.
Lehman’s used Bizrate Insights’ Site Abandonment Solution to quickly collect feedback from people leaving the site to decipher purchasing roadblocks. The solution proved easier and faster than the Google Analytics and multivariate A/B testing the company had previously used.
The result? When surveyed customers were asked, “What would have enticed you to make a purchase today?” 53% of site abandoners chose free shipping. Lehman’s shipping costs had been tiered from $10 to $50+ based on the order’s size and weight.
The digital marketing team used this feedback to run a month-long free shipping promotion on purchases over $99. Within two weeks, Lehman’s saw a 12% lift in overall conversion rate and a 5% increase in average order value.
Given how crucial site abandonment is to ecommerce performance, Bizrate Insights now includes its Site Abandonment Solution with all plan tiers. It’s a powerful tool with potential to turn “window” shoppers into long-term, loyal customers.
The solution comes with key features, each geared to better understand and re-engage potential customers as they leave your site:
With these easy-to-use, quick-to-employ tools, your ecommerce brand can quickly identify whether any of the common causes of site abandonment are impacting your customers, such as slow load times, navigation difficulties, or mobile optimization. With that knowledge, you can then prioritize solutions like improving site performance or building customer trust.
Unexamined and unaddressed site abandonment issues can lead to lost revenue, higher customer acquisition costs, and negative brand perception. The best way to learn why customers are leaving your site without taking an action is to ask them.
Tools that give you real-time data and center the customer voice can highlight the challenges site abandoners may be facing, such as:
A simple solution like Bizrate Insights can help you identify these pain points so you can improve conversion rates and elevate the customer experience.
For a PDF download version of this report: Download Now
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