Average Add-to-Cart Rate in Ecommerce
One major aspect of running an online business is the monitoring of ecommerce key performance indicators (KPIs). In doing so, you’re able to track your performance, understand what areas of your business require more work, and what’s doing well.
Bounce rates and order values aside, one of the most important KPIs to track is the add-to-cart rate. Knowing what’s considered a realistic target to aim for requires answering the question: What is a good add-to-cart rate in ecommerce?
According to the latest data, the average add-to-cart rate of US ecommerce stores in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 12.8%. In other words, out of every 100 visits to an online store based in the US in Q4 2021, around 13 of them resulted in users adding items to their check-out carts.
This was a 0.4 percentage point fall year-over-year and a 1.5 percentage point increase from the previous quarter. In fact, Q4 2021 saw the highest rate in the entire year. The lowest rate was in the second quarter of the year, when it fell to 11%.
Add-to-cart rate by device
The add-to-cart rate in ecommerce can vary according to the devices online shoppers use. Across all devices in Q4 2021, the highest rates came from buyers shopping on desktops, with a rate of 13.5%
In comparison, average add-to-cart rates for tablets and mobile phones were relatively lower, at 13% and 12.5%, respectively.
Add-to-cart rate by source
How and from where buyers land on your online store can also affect the odds of them adding items to their shopping carts.
For instance, in Q4 2021, 13.3% of online shoppers who arrived at an ecommerce website ended up adding products to their carts. By comparison, those who landed directly by entering the store’s website in their browser only did so 12.9% of the time.
Search engine optimization is one area ecommerce businesses focus on when growing their business, and it’s not hard to see why—11.7% of visitors who landed on an online store via search added items to their cart.
The source with the lowest add-to-cart rate was social, with 8.5%. Nevertheless, it’s one channel that businesses should prioritize their marketing efforts on, especially considering the growing number of social media users year after year.