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The psychology of online shopping cart abandonment: a scrutiny of the current research framework and building an improved model of the online shopper journey

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Abstract

About two-thirds of all online shopping carts get abandoned, costing e-tailers substantial lost sales. Over the last two decades, consumer researchers have investigated the consumer psychology behind this consumer act. However, the guiding research framework for this entire body of research is conceptually flawed. To remedy this flaw, the present paper formulates a new construal of online shopping cart abandonment (OSCA), differentiating its three forms anchored in the three specific stages of the customer’s journey: exploration, pre-choice, and post-choice. The drivers of OSCA are then also pinned down to the stage-specific OSCA forms. The proposed framework suggests the need to reframe all of the past research hypotheses, for which purpose 15 propositions are advanced. Because the three stage-specific OSCA forms have their own individual drivers and, correspondingly, their own remedial managerial actions, future research findings informed by the proposed framework will be theoretically more valid and therefore more valuable as action guide for e-tailers.

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There are no empirical data; therefore, data availability to future researchers does not apply.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Marla R. Stafford (William F. Harrah Distinguished Chair and Professor, UNLV.edu) and Arch Woodside (Boston College) for comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

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  1. Haile College of Business, Northern Kentucky University, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY, 41099, USA

    Banwari Mittal

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Executive Summary

Two decades of research on online shopping cart abandonment (OSCA) has yielded a list of factors that drive this shopper behavior that e-commerce vendors would like to minimize. The findings have been inconsistent across the studies, so more studies are needed, of course. However, the first need is to iron out the conceptual flaws in the current research framework. We identify these flaws, and to remedy them, we formulate a modified research framework. This framework uses the lens of “customer journey” and recognizes three forms of OSCA at three stages of the customer journey: exploration, pre-choice, and post-choice. This distinction of three OSCAs avoids confusing a step in the journey with the drivers of cart abandonment or cart completion. Without this “cleansing,” future research findings will continue to be atheoretical and therefore misleading. In developing this modified research framework or model, this conceptual essay makes a significant contribution to knowledge on this topic. To become aware of the flaws and gaps in the current framework, and then, based on this recognition, to have available a conceptually more valid framework is an asset for theory and for a body of knowledge. It will be of immense utility also to future researchers, and to aid their research further, we recast the various hypotheses of past research into 15 new propositions. The proposed framework will also be of significant value to e-tailers and designers of e-tailer and e-commerce platforms. First, the practitioners have used the drivers suggested in past research directly as their own guide; in the proposed research framework, they will now have a conceptually more valid inventory of drivers and a guide as to the stage of the customer journey for which each set of drivers will apply. Second, the findings of the future academic and scholarly research, if anchored in the proposed, conceptually more valid framework, will be theoretically more valid, and therefore of more value to managers. Acting on the findings of future research, improvements made in e-tailer platforms will in turn offer better shopping experience to shoppers.

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Mittal, B. The psychology of online shopping cart abandonment: a scrutiny of the current research framework and building an improved model of the online shopper journey. Electron Commer Res 25, 777–803 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-022-09667-0

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