The headline number: 70% abandonment, still
Baymard Institute's most recent rolling average sits at 70.2%. Essentially unchanged from 2015. In a decade of one-click checkouts, Apple Pay, Shop Pay, BNPL, and faster sites, the headline abandonment number has barely moved. The drivers shift; the total stays the same.
The reason is simple: every new checkout improvement raises baseline conversion, but it also raises baseline cart adds. As friction drops, more shoppers add-to-cart speculatively. The percentage who abandon stays roughly constant; the absolute number of recoverable carts grows.
That's a feature, not a bug. For stores running recovery flows. A 1% checkout-conversion improvement and a 70% abandonment rate together mean more recoverable revenue, not less.
By industry
Abandonment varies meaningfully by category, driven by consideration weight, price point, and shipping complexity:
- Consumer electronics. 82–84% (highest; price + spec consideration)
- Travel + booking. 78–82% (high price + cancellation anxiety)
- Luxury + high-fashion. 73–78% (AOV-driven hesitation)
- Food + grocery. 72–76% (delivery-window + freshness friction)
- Apparel + fashion. 68–72% (sizing-driven, recoverable)
- Beauty + skincare. 65–70% (lower AOV, more impulse)
- Subscription D2C. 60–65% (lowest; intent-heavy)
By AOV bracket
Higher-AOV carts abandon more, but they're also worth more to recover. The math always pencils out for €50+ AOVs once voice channels are included.
- AOV under €25. 60–65% abandonment, low recovery margin
- AOV €25–60. 68–72% abandonment, the sweet spot for email + SMS recovery
- AOV €60–150. 70–75% abandonment, where voice channels start dominating
- AOV €150+. 75–82% abandonment, voice is essentially mandatory for ROI
By region
Regional patterns track payment method maturity, mobile dominance, and consumer trust norms:
- North America. 70% baseline, SMS opt-in friction below EU
- Western Europe. 70–73%, GDPR-driven consent slows email-first stacks
- LATAM (Mexico, Chile, Brazil). 75–80%, WhatsApp-first recovery wins
- Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Vietnam). 78–82%, WhatsApp + voice dominate
- India. 80%+, COD-driven verification call is essentially mandatory
By recovery channel. The numbers everyone wants
Recovery rates measured as: of all abandoned carts, what % converted to paid order within 72 hours, attributed to a specific recovery touch?
- Email only. 5–8% average recovery (best-in-class Klaviyo flows ~9%)
- SMS only. 4–10%, weighted toward higher-AOV high-engagement segments
- Browser push only. 1–3%, mostly a top-of-funnel signal
- AI voice only. 18–32%, varies by region and language fit
- Email + SMS combined. 9–14%
- Voice + email + SMS combined. 25–40%
Why voice wins where it does
Three structural reasons: (1) email open rates in 2026 sit around 22% for cart-recovery sends. Voice pickup is 60–80%. (2) Voice catches the objection live ("will it fit?", "is the discount real?") that email can only address generically. (3) First-touch speed: voice averages 5 minutes from abandonment to call; email averages 1 hour and SMS 30 minutes.
The structural advantage compounds in higher-AOV and multi-language stores. At €150 AOV in a Spanish-speaking market, voice is rarely a question of "should we?". It's a question of "how soon can we ship it?"
What to do with these numbers
First: measure your own baseline. If you don't know your store's abandonment rate and current email-recovery percentage, get those before any channel decision.
Second: layer channels in the order of marginal ROI. Email if you don't have it. SMS if your AOV justifies opt-in cost. Voice if you're above €40 AOV or operate in multi-language markets.
Third: don't replace. Layer. The merchants doing best in 2026 are running email + SMS + voice as a coordinated cadence (voice at 5 min, email-1 at 1 hour, SMS at 4 hours, email-2 at 24 hours), not picking one channel.