Add-to-Cart Rate
Add-to-cart rate is the share of sessions in which a shopper adds at least one product to the cart, calculated as the number of sessions with an add to cart divided by total sessions over the same period.
Add-to-cart rate sits in the middle of the funnel, between landing on a product page and reaching checkout. It tells you whether the product detail page is doing its job: turning interest into intent. A healthy add-to-cart rate with weak overall conversion points to friction later, in shipping costs or checkout, rather than on the product page itself.
The levers are the things a shopper weighs before they commit: clear photography, an honest description, price and delivery expectations, and reviews. Star ratings and review counts near the buy button reduce the perceived risk of adding an unfamiliar product, so review coverage on the page often shows up here before it shows up in final conversion.
Read it next to cart abandonment rate, not in isolation. A high add-to-cart rate is not automatically good news, because shoppers also use the cart as a wishlist or a way to check a delivery total, then leave. The metric measures intent, not purchase, so it only tells the full story paired with what happens after the cart.