What Is the Average Add-to-Cart Rate in eCommerce? (And How to Increase It)

There are a few important metrics to track and optimize for in your eCommerce business, one of which is your add-to-cart rate.

Improving this is a clear way to boost your store’s revenue and profitability. But first, you’ll want to know what the average add-to-cart rate is for eCommerce stores, so you know how much room you have to grow.

Stick with us and we’ll share all you need to know, including what is a good add-to-cart rate, and how to maximize it for your business.

What is Add-to-Cart Rate?

Add-to-cart rate means the percentage of website visitors who added a product to their cart after browsing your eCommerce website.

Add-to-cart rate is calculated by taking a ratio of the total number of website sessions by the total number that resulted in a product being added to a cart.

It doesn’t take into account purchases or abandoned carts - only the shopper clicking the “add-to-cart” button.

Why Does Add-to-Cart Rate Matter?

This is one of the most important metrics to track in your business because it represents a clear statement of interest and intent from the shopper. Many of your visitors will view a few pages and bounce without doing anything. Adding a product to their cart instantly signifies they are further along in the buyer’s journey.

Adding a product to their cart also gives you more data you can use to market to the customer, as you have a clear idea of what kind of products the shopper is interested in. Even if they don’t purchase, you can now send abandoned cart notifications, emails or retargeting ads personalized towards that shopper.

What is a Good Add-to-Cart Rate?

The average add-to-cart rate in eCommerce is 7.52%, according to data from Dynamic Yield.

This means that for every 10,000 sessions, 783 will result in a product being added to a cart, on average.

In comparison, the average eCommerce conversion rate is 1.89%, meaning that less than a third of add-to-carts actually end in purchases.

The data can vary greatly depending on a few factors. So let’s look a little deeper now.

Predictably, high-ticket industries such as Home & Furniture and Luxury & Jewelry have lower average add-to-cart rates, while Food & Beverage and Consumer Goods, which have more repeat purchases and necessity items, are above the overall average.

In terms of regional averages, the Americas score slightly above average, Asia-Pacific slightly below, and add-to-cart rates in Europe, Middle-East & Africa the lowest.

Tablet, interestingly, has above-average add-to-cart rates, though the sample size of people shopping on tablet is considerably smaller.

Between desktop and mobile, desktop has a higher reliability that people will add a product to their cart, similar to how desktop has higher average conversion rates than mobile.

How to Improve Your Add-to-Cart Rate

There’s little reason why you wouldn’t want to improve your add-to-cart rate. Even if your add-to-cart rate is already above average, there’s probably still potential for you to increase it further, which will mean more leads, and likely more purchases and revenue from your existing traffic.

Here are six tips to help you boost your add-to-cart conversion rate.

Use Clear and Obvious Call-to-Action Buttons

Don’t leave anything up to the customer to figure out when it comes to taking actions you want them to take. CTA buttons (e.g. “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart”) should be big, bold and easy to notice. Any confusion here will result in lost sales.

Provide Complete Product Details

A lot of people leave without adding a product to their cart because they didn’t get the information they needed. This could be product specs, pricing, images or video, or more details the shopper feels they need to be comfortable making a purchase.

Display Reviews & Testimonials

Social proof is another key necessity for eCommerce sites. You can say that your product is top of the line, but shoppers are less inclined to believe brands talking up their own product than hearing the experiences of past customers. Use customer testimonials and reviews to provide this, and convince potential customers that your product is going to meet their expectations.

Improve Your Customer Experience

If your store is frustrating to navigate, takes too long to load, or for any other reason has a poor customer experience, people are going to leave without taking meaningful actions. Improve your customer experience and many other things will improve, starting with your add-to-cart rate.

Cut Out Noise

Similar to a poor user experience, excess “noise” on your site and product pages will cause people to bounce without adding anything to their cart.

This includes excess copy on your product pages, distracting popups or confusing visual elements. “Noise” can even come from other browser tabs, and if you can find a way to get people to focus on your store and your store only, you’ll get fewer shoppers pulled away to other websites who leave your store without purchasing.

Optimize Your Site for Mobile

Average add-to-cart rates and conversion rates are both lower on mobile devices, showing the impact of many sites’ suboptimal mobile user experience.

That leaves a clear opportunity for you to increase add-to-cart rate by improving how mobile shoppers navigate your site. And the impact of improving your mobile UX is only going to get bigger, with mobile commerce predicted to increase by 50% over the next two years.

Let MobiLoud Help You Boost Add-to-Cart Rate

MobiLoud is the best way to improve your mobile user experience and provide a contained environment that leads to higher add-to-cart rates, along with delivering many other benefits, such as increased conversion rate, average order value and retention.

MobiLoud converts your eCommerce store into mobile apps for Android and iOS. With a mobile app, you can provide a better mobile UX, by ensuring that mobile shoppers are getting an experience tailored for mobile phones.

This also lets you cut out the noise of other browser tabs, as people only see your store, nothing else, when they're shopping with you.

The clear benefits you get from launching your own app, coupled with the minimal cost and time investment to do it with MobiLoud means there's little downside and incredible upside.

Just hear what David Cost from Rainbow Apparel had to say about building an app with MobiLoud:

“The expense isn’t that big, and operationally, there’s not that much we have to do for the app. You’re essentially offering an app for free, there's no reason not to try it."

To see how easy it is to convert your online store into an app, use our Preview Tool to view an interactive demo. If you're ready to move on and learn more about the process, click here to book a free, personalized demo with one of our project managers.

Launching an app is the number one way for e-commerce sites to boost key revenue and engagement metrics, take control of their customer's journey, and build a business that's fully optimized for mobile commerce.