In eCommerce, abandoned carts are often treated as one of the biggest problems to solve. Teams invest time, tools, and budget into recovering lost sales, assuming that every incomplete purchase is a failure. But what if this perspective is fundamentally flawed?
At Balkan eCommerce Summit 2026, Robert Petković challenges this widely accepted belief by shifting the focus from fixing carts to understanding customer behavior. With over two decades of experience in digital analytics and user behavior, he brings a more nuanced view on how people actually make purchasing decisions and why the data is often misinterpreted.
In this interview, we explore why “abandoned carts” are not always what they seem, how the difference between “want” and “need” shapes buying behavior, and what eCommerce teams should really measure if they want to drive smarter decisions and sustainable growth.
Robert, your talk “Stop Fixing Your Abandoned Carts: Want vs Need in eCommerce” challenges a very common belief. What can attendees expect to learn?
Most eCommerce teams look at cart data as a problem to fix, while I approach it as behaviour to understand.
In this session, I’ll show how what we call “abandoned carts” often reflects how customers actually make decisions, not where they drop off.
Attendees can expect a different way of looking at cart behaviour and a clearer understanding of why some products stay in the cart for a long time, while others are purchased almost immediately.
Most eCommerce teams see abandoned carts as a problem to fix. Why do you believe that’s the wrong focus?
Because the problem is usually not the cart, but how we interpret it.
We often assume that if a product is added to the cart and not purchased immediately, something went wrong. In reality, the cart is often used as a kind of reservation or shortlist.
People don’t abandon carts as often as we think, they just use them differently.
If we treat every cart as a failed purchase, we end up reacting too aggressively and sometimes pushing customers away instead of supporting their decision process.
Can you explain the difference between “want” and “need” in customer behavior, and how this affects conversion rates?
Some products are driven by desire, others by necessity.
That difference has a huge impact on how customers behave.
A “wanted” product can stay in the cart for days or even weeks, because people use the cart almost like a reservation or a reminder.
A “needed” product is often purchased faster, because the decision is more rational and more urgent.
When you look at this through appropriate data, the patterns become very visible.
You can clearly see which products are “wanted”, which have strong purchase potential, and even identify products that deserve much more attention than they currently get.
If we measure everything the same way, we miss those signals and make poor decisions.
From your experience with large eCommerce companies, what are the most common misinterpretations of data when it comes to user behavior and conversions?
One of the biggest mistakes is assuming that user behaviour should follow our expectations.
Teams often expect customers to visit once and buy immediately, while in reality people return multiple times, compare options and take their time.
Another common issue is focusing on aggregated numbers instead of looking at what is actually happening with specific products.
When you analyse behaviour on a product level, many things suddenly start to make sense.
If companies should stop focusing on abandoned carts, where should they focus instead to drive real growth?
Instead of asking “how do we fix abandoned carts?”, companies should ask:
What is happening with specific products before the purchase?
They should look at how often products are added to the cart, how long they stay there, and how many visits it takes before a purchase happens. That kind of understanding helps not only marketing, but also campaign planning, pricing decisions and even inventory planning.
Because the real question is not why customers leave the cart, but how they actually move towards a purchase.
Meet Robert Petković at Balkan eCommerce Summit 2026
If you want to rethink how you interpret customer behavior, move beyond misleading metrics, and make better decisions based on how people actually buy, this is a session worth attending.
🎟️ Grab your ticket at balkanecommerce.com and explore how to turn data into real understanding, not just assumptions.