Determinants of Shopping Cart Abandonment Among Young E-Consumers: The Role of Sustainable Consumption Motives

Shopping cart abandonment remains one of the most significant challenges in e-commerce, generating substantial revenue losses and reducing the effectiveness of sales activities conducted in digital environments. As digital commerce evolves, understanding the role of sustainability motives in online purchasing decisions has become increasingly important. Although previous studies have focused primarily on the role of perceived risk, purchase-related costs, and barriers encountered during the transaction process, considerably less attention has been devoted to the influence of sustainable consumption motives on consumers’ perceptions of these factors. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between sustainable consumption motives with perceived costs, perceived risk, and transaction inconvenience associated with online shopping, as well as to investigate the influence of these factors on young e-consumers’ shopping cart abandonment behavior. Data were collected using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) method among Polish consumers aged 18–34 who had experience with shopping cart abandonment. A total of 455 valid questionnaires were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that sustainable consumption motives significantly increase perceived costs, perceived risk, and transaction inconvenience associated with online shopping. Transaction inconvenience was the only factor that predicted shopping cart abandonment in the hypothesized positive direction; perceived risk showed a significant negative relationship, whereas perceived cost was nonsignificant. Furthermore, sustainable consumption motives exerted an indirect relationship with shopping cart abandonment through transaction inconvenience. The findings extend current knowledge on shopping cart abandonment by demonstrating that sustainable consumption motives influence the way consumers evaluate the online purchasing process. The study contributes to the literature on consumer behavior in the digital economy and provides practical implications for companies seeking to reduce shopping cart abandonment while addressing the growing importance of sustainable consumption.