Antecedents of Electronic Shopping Cart Abandonment during Online Purchase Process

Abstract

The present study synthesized the extant literature on electronic shopping cart abandonment (ESCA) for the last 22 years (2000–2022) using the PRISMA approach. This is one of the first studies that comprehensively synthesized the widely applied theories in the ESCA literature and the reasons for ESCA during the various stages of online shopping process (search stage, consideration stage, evaluation stage, and purchase stage). The findings suggest that Stimulus Organism Response theory, Cognitive Dissonance theory, and the Theory of Reasoned Action are the most prominent theories used in the ESCA literature. Further, customers abandon the electronic shopping cart due to several personal factors (e.g., trust, experience), website features (e.g., perceived behavioral tracking), and product attributes (e.g., perceived service quality). This study gives a snapshot of knowledge gaps in the ESCA domain and suggests future research directions from multifarious perspectives i.e., theoretical underpinnings, contexts, and customer characteristics. For marketers, it provides insights on factors affecting ESCA at each stage of the online shopping process to develop stage wise pragmatic strategies like gamification on shopping websites, improving navigational aspects on websites, removing threats to customer privacy, and creating greater transparency to increase customer trust.