For ecommerce brands of all sizes, the shopping cart is one of the most critical and most misunderstood moments in the buyer journey. Customers have already shown intent by adding items to their cart, but stats show that an average of 70.19% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout, meaning most never become purchases. 

That’s where a cart test becomes essential. Instead of guessing what might improve conversions, cart tests use real visitor behavior to determine what actually helps customers move from intent to purchase. This article walks you through why cart tests matter, what you should test, and how to run them effectively for real revenue impact.

What Is a Cart Test?

A cart test is a specific type of A/B or split test applied to the shopping cart experience. Rather than overhauling your site based on opinion or intuition, you systematically test specific changes in your cart page to see which version leads to more users continuing to checkout.

It’s different from checkout optimization, which focuses on the payment process itself. Cart testing targets the gap between adding a product and starting checkout, the moment when customers evaluate their choices, costs, and confidence. Because of this, small improvements here can have a large impact on conversions.

Why Cart Tests Are Important

Cart abandonment is one of the biggest revenue leaks in ecommerce. Recent industry data shows:

• Nearly 8 out of 10 mobile users abandon carts, with mobile abandonment rates significantly higher than desktop. 

• If you reduce cart abandonment from 70% to 60%, completed purchases can increase by as much as 33%. 

These benchmarks highlight the scale of the opportunity and why systematic cart testing should be a priority.

What to Test in a Shopping Cart

When planning a cart test, it’s helpful to focus your efforts on high-impact elements. Here’s a numbered list of key areas that often yield measurable improvements:

1. Cart Layout & Visual Hierarchy

This plays a major role. When carts feel cluttered or distracting, users hesitate. Testing a simplified layout that prioritizes product details, totals, and the primary action often improves clarity and momentum. Many brands discover that making the “Proceed to Checkout” action more visually dominant alone increases progression.

2. Pricing Transparency & Cost Breakdown

This is another high-impact area. Unexpected shipping fees or unclear tax calculations are among the most common abandonment triggers. 

A cart test might explore showing estimated shipping earlier, clarifying discounts, or emphasizing “no hidden fees” messaging. When costs feel predictable, shoppers feel safer moving forward. 

3. Trust and Reassurance Signals 

This also matters at this stage. Subtle cues, such as security icons, return policy links, or delivery guarantees, can significantly influence confidence when placed near the primary action. Cart tests help determine whether these signals are actually seen and trusted, or simply ignored due to poor placement.

4. Quantity Controls & Edit Flexibility

These are often overlooked. Shoppers want to feel they can easily adjust quantities, remove items, or save products for later without risk. Testing smoother interactions here often reduces abandonment, even when users don’t make changes, because flexibility itself builds confidence.

5. Upsells or Cross-Sells

This deserves careful testing. While they can increase average order value, they can also introduce distraction at a sensitive moment. Cart tests frequently reveal that fewer, more relevant recommendations outperform aggressive add-ons that compete with the checkout action.

6. Cart Messaging & Microcopy

Text that reassures (e.g “No hidden fees”, “Free returns”) or clearly guides the next step can influence subconscious purchase decisions.

By structuring your cart tests around these core elements, you systematically uncover which parts of your experience are supporting purchases and which are holding users back.

How to Run a Cart Test That Produces Clear Insights

A cart test is most effective when it follows a disciplined process. Here’s a simple framework you can follow:

1. Define a Clear Goal: Decide the specific metric you’re optimizing (e.g., cart-to-checkout rate, revenue per visitor, cart abandonment percentage).

2. Formulate a Hypothesis: A good hypothesis explains why you expect a change to affect the metric. For example: “If we show estimated shipping costs in the cart, the abandonment rate will drop because customers won’t be surprised later.”

3. Identify One Variable to Test: Only change one significant thing per test (e.g., layout, messaging, or CTA text). This makes it clear which change drove the result.

4. Create Variations: Build your original cart (control) and one variation that implements the change. Avoid making multiple edits at once.

5. Split Traffic Evenly: Use a testing tool to randomly show the original or the variation to similar audiences. A 50/50 split is common and helps ensure fairness.

6. Run Long Enough for Statistical Confidence: Let the test run long enough to capture representative behavior, including weekdays, weekends, and any marketing fluctuations. Gathering enough data helps ensure your results are statistically meaningful.

7. Analyze Results and Repeat: Compare cart abandonment rates, progression to checkout, and downstream conversions. Implement the winning variation as your new baseline, then plan the next hypothesis.

When executed correctly, cart testing becomes a continuous improvement loop, not a one-off fix. Over time, you build institutional knowledge about what actually moves the needle for your audience.

Final Thoughts 

A shopping cart is far more than a checklist; it’s a decision environment where confidence, clarity, and urgency interact. A well-structured cart test removes guesswork and reveals what types of experiences increase conversions at one of the most critical junctures in ecommerce.

Whether you’re a small shop or an enterprise seller, the same principles apply: test deliberately, measure results accurately, and iterate based on insights. Revvy can help you track visitor behavior and identify the highest-impact test variations so every cart experiment is guided by real user intent, not guesswork.