Studies estimate that up to 75% of online transactions are abandoned before they are completed. That's a lot of potential sales leads for someone who is willing to do a little follow up. Online auctions shoppers abandon carts for several reasons, and understanding those reasons will help you to recover some of those sales. Many shopping carts are abandoned because the buyer got nervous, or had second thoughts. Maybe they decided to think about things for a while. If you use a shopping cart which requires the shopper to sign up for an account before adding an item to their cart, you're in luck. You should have the shoppers telephone number. Give them a call. It might just be that a friendly phone call with a sincere effort to help complete the sale will calm any fears or give you an opportunity to answer any objections. Having mentioned this, I want to point out that a shopping cart which forces a shopper to set up an account before adding an item to the cart can deter a fair number of shoppers as well. If your cart allows a online auction shopper to add items to a cart before giving contact info, you might think that there's no way to contact the shopper, but that may not be the case.  Another reason why orders are not completed is because of failed credit cart transactions. You might think it would be fruitless to follow up on these leads, but the truth is that providing a credit card number online confuses the heck out of some people. A lot of rejections are because they give the wrong address, or don't understand how to find their security code. A friendly call from you might resolve the situation. Even a declined transaction might be converted to a sale with a simple phone call. After all, just because the shopper doesn't have funds today, this doesn't mean he or she won't have sufficient funds tomorrow.