Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate and What You Can Do About It.
When things like COVID enhanced the uncertainty in the 2020s, human ingenuity worked to bring forth innovative digital solutions to help consumers and retailers, and businesses adapt to the change in the e-commerce space. Online shopping demand has dramatically increased in the past two years.
Several reasons are highly apparent, and e-commerce is mutually beneficial for customers and retailers. Consumers can easily shop from any place, and retailers can now reach out to a broader area and demographics of the shoppers. They need to include facilities like fast speed delivery, same-day delivery, and other attractive and feasible options for their products and services.
Despite many technological innovations, there is a great scope to improve things to give a highly evolved shopping experience just as you use your ingenuity. An Ecommerce SEO Agency can help you with this and allow you to convert the orders successfully.
Shoppers may have great intent and enthusiasm when they begin to browse your website. But, they may miss completing the checkout process. And everyone has done this at one point or another. Isn’t it?
The most crucial point of thought after you’ve chosen and added the items to a cart is that you may be caught in the process of self-negotiation when it is time for checkout. Suddenly, you find a tall order before you. Then begins the process of asking questions to yourself. “Do I need it right now?” or “Hold on, let me wait till I pay off my credit card.”
Shoppers may decide to retract after struggling with a lengthy thinking process resulting in “shopping cart abandonment.” This is only one of the various abandonment scenarios.
Some studies like the Baymard Institute study shows that the average cart abandonment rate is 69.80%. This means that for every ten shoppers, seven don’t complete the process of placing the order. This is not happening to a particular industry. On the other hand, you need to go for cart abandonment in various industries. So, all businesses are into this together.
From the business viewpoint, Emil Kristensen tells you why cart abandonment can be highly detrimental. “It’s incredibly frustrating to successfully move a shopper through the sales funnel and create enticing offers enough to pique their interest, only to lose them at the point of purchase inevitably.”
It is necessary to identify and explain why shoppers leave their carts after putting products into them. You need to go for the best solutions to decrease the chances of cart abandonment. This is how you can deal with different e-commerce pain points related to your shoppers.
Cart abandonment is an essential factor leading to lost sales in the e-commerce industry. Shopping cart abandonment is related to the problem of visitors browsing your online store. They may add the item to your cart but leave without a purchase.
With the ever-evolving, dynamic landscape of the e-commerce space, cart abandonment is one of the biggest battles digital marketers face today. Last year, in March, about 80 percent of online shopping orders had been abandoned.
One may use several tactics to get higher foot traffic to a website. They include using:
You may still have been losing potential customers due to reasons you can avoid. There are many reasons for the essential and actionable steps you need to choose to lower cart abandonment and increase conversions.
The worst thing that puts a shopper off is finding out at the last step that the total costs are higher than what they expected. Moreover, your purchase cost will again be another deterrent for your shoppers. This is the most vital factor where they don’t want to see lacunae. It is not unusual to find several costs added in the end that they didn’t expect to see. They include shipping, taxes, and other kinds of service fees. Such unexpected costs are an essential reason for cart abandonment.
There have been various ‘Reasons For Abandonment’ by Baymard Institute in which an estimated 49% of respondents said that extra high costs were an important reason for them abandoning their cart. Taxes are a necessary guarantee, but the stacked costs can be a reason for customer apprehension.
Consider that your prospective customer is going through Instagram and suddenly stumbles on your accurately targeted ad featuring products that attract the eyes. Post a few clicks, as the customers can readily check out, a prompt pops up that requires them to “create an Account.”
When you need to append such a thing, it’s no wonder that shoppers are less inclined to complete their orders. Imagine why anyone would want to go through the complex account creation process if it is easier to leave the site? It’s no secret that shoppers want you to create their account at the last checkout, and most probably, they are why shoppers feel disillusioned.
New shoppers should not find things that slow down the checkout process. In the worst case, this feature is like a non-negotiable deterrent, making the shoppers abandon the cart altogether.
As e-commerce stores are open most of the time, shoppers can always take to window shopping as it does not require shoppers to leave their homes or pay anything. Therefore, your shoppers just being on their online “window shopping” spree is another reason why they have abandoned their carts.
People often just like to browse their favorite online store to kill boredom. Other times, they may not have any specific product on their mind to buy and casually end up adding some of the items they love in their cart. However, on reaching the checkout, they abandon the cart because they did not have any purchase intention in the first place.
At times, a shopper can make up their mind to buy, but seeing so many added costs might demotivate them from buying or just changing their mind as they reach the checkout step. Shoppers may renegotiate with themselves, throwing a question to themselves if they want to dole in that amount of money upfront. Platforms with features can motivate the customers. Tools like Sezzle nullify the fear factor in the customers’ minds to make a purchase.
It is essential to check the natural consumer behavior, which all of us can relate to. So, we have to subscribe to several payment options or go for the right services or the uniqueness of online shopping.
As shoppers find multiple products and services conveniently, they want to see that they can find their preferred payment option at checkout. It’s no wonder shoppers can drop off or abandon their carts if they don’t find the right payment option they prefer or trust.
No one involved in online shopping is very comfortable shopping when they have the slightest doubt about a site’s trustworthiness. Customers will walk away from your store iff your online store lacks payment security measures or does not have trustworthy payment services. The most common signs of the lack of security measures on a website include:
Similar stamps provide you with visual reinforcement of trust, which are essential triggers to raise your skepticism about a store’s information security. Customers are worried if the retailers would misuse the information in specific scenarios. This is a very understandable situation. So, if a customer doesn’t feel safe providing you with hypersensitive details, there’s no question about starting an order placement.
Online shopping offers a high level of convenience associated with certain hangups. They do not have to be true for your store, but they can be essential reasons customers abandon the shopping cart. And you can easily control them. Here are a few measures that give shoppers great confidence to see their order go through completion.
While shopping online is the predominant choice among most people, the retailer needs to be transparent. And last-minute shocks are no good, especially when customers reach the checkout.
Certain retailers can offer free shipping, but others cannot. When the latter is the case, retailers need to be upfront about the costs. If you have shipping fees, ensure that your customers know about them beforehand and throughout the checkout process. Mention it someplace on the website so that shoppers know about the same at an earlier time and are not taken by surprise at checkout.
Make sure that you add a shipping calculator, which is a great way to enhance transparency. Let customers access the tool on your site, whereby they can enter their zip code. Shoppers can understand what they can expect at checkout. This will help to lower the chances of cart abandonment.
Not only do you require to improve the cost transparency, but you also need to focus on special features and solutions that lower the alarm of high payments on customers’ minds. For example, platforms with features like Buy Now and Pay Later.
The more you can lift the burden from customers’ minds of paying huge sums in total upfront, the better they’re likely to respond. BNPL option is an excellent way to do this.
Platforms that let shoppers break up the payments over a few weeks. This truly empowers the new and returning customers to place an order with you. And there’s no catch. Such platforms pay fully to their merchant partners, while customers can pay in easy installments with 0% interest over six weeks.
An important thing to avoid to create a smooth checkout process is removing the need for mandatory account creation. You should not enforce the idea of forcing your new shoppers to create an account. This may turn them off even if they were initially excited to make a purchase. Give them an option to place an order like a guest. First-time shoppers find it very convenient and get a great experience, making checkout frictionless. The checkout process becomes effortless, and it leaves a significant impact to encourage shoppers to revisit your site.
Another way to optimize the checkout process is to add Sezzle as a payment option. Users can quickly checkout without logging in to your e-commerce site. With instant approval decisions, new shoppers can fast go through the checkout.
For shoppers who are just in for a leisure stroll or are for a “wishful thinking shopping,” it allows you to get many ways to make them commit. Maybe it’s free shipping or a discount code. One sure-fire way to remove the fear factor of paying in total upfront is by offering BigCommerce’s pre. New shoppers can easily go for solutions like Sezzle. Whemers have the option to pay in installments, and they’re more likely to commit to placing an order.
Shoppers who use the BNPL solution allow you to get many out placing orders because there’s a financial benefit to splitting payments up over time. Sezzle provides shoppers the confidence to buy what they need on their time, leading to larger basket sizes and more frequent orders. So, by adding Sezzle as a payment option, you give your customers a higher purchasing power.
Every shopper has their preferences in choosing the payment method. Moreover, usually, the shoppers like to go for completing the payment if they find their preferred provider on the net. When they do not have the choice for their desired payment mode, you can lose them quickly at the last point. You may lose them permanently. This means that they will feel hesitant to return to you. However, it’s no point inconveniencing the customers, especially when you can avoid it.
When you find alternative options, you have Sezzle, which is an excellent addition to enhancing your payment variety. Users who use the right platform, such as the Sezzle widget, are more likely to convert their order and even increase basket sizes. That’s because shoppers can buy what they need sooner with the help of a flexible payment schedule.
Buy Now, Pay Later services have sharply increased in popularity, especially ever since the pandemic. Shoppers are greatly inclined to pay for a purchase over time in small installments. If you choose the right platforms which allow your client to pay quickly, it won’t afflict the users with high-interest rates, and they can pay on time.
You cannot alleviate 100% of the anxiety of sharing sensitive and personal information such as credit, especially regarding can at least reassure shoppers about a few practical ways. It is essential to show your shoppers that their data is protected as you embed the trust seals. You do not only require adding suitable security measures to help you build the customers’ trust. If you scroll through the happy customer reviews, you can often find the right source of truth for your new shoppers.
Also, you need to understand how they can vet a company or a product. You need to instill confidence in the shoppers to include testimonials, reviews, and photos of the right people to submit to your satisfied customers. You also get a money-back guarantee, which is a critical way to get your buyers’ trust and get a higher buyer credibility.
Adding the Buy Now Pay Later solution helps you take care of your trustworthiness just as the shoppers require. Becoming a certified Corporation lets, you become financially empowered for the upcoming generation of shoppers. As you allow the shoppers to pay in installments, there won’t be any penalties allowing you to pay your interest as the users pay on time.
U.S. retailers spend nearly $23.50 billion on digital ads every year for driving traffic to an e-commerce website. However, you need an average conversion rate that is around 2.68%.
Though you make such as investment, you can still get relevant traffic alongside many visitors who will leave you empty-handed.
Several retailers will continue to struggle with a leaky funnel as it gives you high shopping cart abandonment rates, which will be a crucial contributor. We will tell you the important reasons to let shoppers abandon their purchases to offer you essential strategies that you can implement to improve conversion rates.
Cart abandonment rate is a vital business metric that helps retailers monitor and correlate customer conversion rates and revenue. Having a high cart abandonment rate rightly indicates friction in the checkout process.
Shoppers do not prefer to add items to only the cart, which will, later on, help them find out if they cannot truly get the restrictions. It is essential to check how much every person can put into purchasing. It enables you to implement and improve the quantity limits to set the right expectations if the right product quantity limit is for customers. It lowers the frustration of the consumers they may face at some point or another for purchase.
Comparison shopping is not related to the internet or the increase in mobile commerce. It gives customers proper access to different options for shopping online.
You can also compare such possibilities quickly. It’s not unusual to find shoppers doing deal-hunting to add items to their cart. Ultimately, it leads to purchases from other retailers to give a better deal.
Online shoppers need to complete their purchases with suitable payment methods that are highly convenient. Few shoppers can also be willing to accept the right default option. Others can find that the platform does not support a preferred method: PayPal, Apple Pay, or some platform with a buy now, pay later option. This becomes a basis for them to leave the site altogether.
Customers may also need to add the correct information on the return policies and warranties. An ambiguous return policy can lead to few customers making a second attempt on their purchase. Shoppers need to understand things that went wrong with a product. This means that they can return to the retailers to get their refund.
Shoppers require the items to be delivered within a particular timeframe. If shoppers have to wait a lot, you will find that the value of shopping online in a store gets diminished. A customer may require getting product delivery by a specific date. And if they do not find it with you, they may want to look elsewhere in place of waiting for your store to ship.
Having an unstable e-commerce site makes shoppers lose their confidence in the checkout. Shoppers may feel frustrated and leave. Instead, they may feel skeptical about filling in the payment information, especially when they encounter an unexpected crash or get slow page load times because they fear being double-charged during a purchase. They may suspect that their payment may fail.
Shoppers can find themselves flooded with offers and promotions from different retailers. Many deal-seekers like to get similar discounts from your store. When this is not the case, they will hop on to your competitor.
The checkout process is not hard for your customers to follow. Focus on the various cart optimization tips; you can offer customers a smooth and seamless shopping experience on your site.
As you tell your customers all the costs upfront, including the shipping costs, the taxes, and other fees they can expect, you will reduce the chances of shoppers getting caught off guard because of an unexpected price increase.
Tools like TYLER’S will automatically add the concerned shipping costs to the final order price directly on the order preview page itself.
Make sure that you include the progress indicators on your checkout page. A progress indicator lets the users understand their position in the checkout process and how many steps they need to follow.
Having a progress bar will also give shoppers visual reinforcement as they progress with the purchase. Shoppers can get highly motivated to accomplish their purchases when they reduce the chances of shoppers leaving the checkout process.
It is necessary to include product thumbnails in the entire checkout process as this is a great way to reassure customers about their current purchase.
During an in-person purchase, customers can tangibly feel the items they want to buy. In an online purchase, they may not be able to do such things. Moreover, product thumbnails help keep such products on the customers’ minds’ during the checkout process.
Badgley Mischka considers thumbnails a great insight into the checkout process letting shoppers see what they purchase.
Your website settings must allow customers to quickly add items to their shopping cart and promptly get back to browsing the remaining inventory quickly. The more work customers need to do; it decreases their likelihood to add products to their carts.
Customers may find it effortless to drop items into their cart and return to checkout when ready to buy. Few retailers also allow the shoppers to directly checkout from a product page by minimizing the number of page views and clicks needed to complete the transaction.
Extreme Power House also gives the shoppers a fast checkout as they find an appropriate tire rim. It has the add the item button and populates the checkout model to let shoppers purchase from your point of adding the things they were browsing earlier.
You do not want a customer to question if their order was placed successfully. A fast loading page helps to satisfy the shoppers’ demand to get a fast checkout experience. It brings happiness to the customers and enhances their tendency to purchase more products from the website because they don’t have to wait for long.
As you lock the users behind a checkout wall, you will exclude all of the potential customers. You also know how to check out as a guest in place of forcing your shopper to account creation. What you need to do is to collect emails and use other contact information for various promotional purposes. It prompts shoppers to proceed with the checkout information at the step of the confirmation page.
Customers also love in-store shopping when they get a friendly staff to help them find the correct items or answer their questions. You can get the right level of attention as you integrate the customer support options into the checkout flow. The cart abandonment data is crucial for identifying the area where shoppers are highly likely to drop off. Users can also chat with the online customer support representative to lower abandonment.
Kettlebell Kings has a chat feature allowing shoppers to chat with the brand through Facebook Messenger.
You need to reassure the customers that your store is secure for them though they share confidential information such as their credit card number and shipping address. Reassuring customers to build customer confidence on the platform is achieved as you display the relevant security icons or seals in the process. Showcase PCI-DSS compliance alongside the various safety seals helps reassure shoppers that their details will be confidential throughout order completion.
When the payment platform has a single payment option or only a few choices, it exerts a non-required hindrance on your and your shoppers’ path. Shoppers can access several payment options such as direct bank transfers, digital wallets, and credit cards.
Suppose you’re offering the right support for top-rated payment options, especially those used by the target audience. It helps in ensuring that you do not send away good customers. To have a high AOV (average order value) product, you can allow shoppers to purchase as they choose the customer financing options.
This Shop allows the shoppers to dissect their payments into monthly payments instead of paying the complete price straightaway.
Return policies are highly useful in e-commerce as shoppers lack the facility to see the items and check the products in person. Customers must have a top-class return policy that gives them peace of mind to purchase items from your store. You need to link to them to provide a good return policy early in your checkout process to inform shoppers and attract them to buy from you.
There are high chances that shoppers abandon their on-site purchases if you do not combine the off-site and on-site marketing efforts. You can re-engage with the shoppers so that they can reconsider if they want to purchase from you. Some of the most useful marketing tactics include:
If a feedback loop gets triggered when the customers abandon their shopping cart, such popups will clearly show the reasons why users are leaving their cart in case they have a promotional discount. At times, all you need is to offer a discount to let the shoppers complete the purchase with a discount code to give the correct percentage of their purchase. As the user is highly likely to close a window to navigate a separate tab, it is best to put the things in place for the popup from an item they did not leave behind in the shopping cart.
Few shoppers require using multiple touchpoints as they become ready to purchase. Make sure that you retarget the cart abandoners through the best ads as it helps to keep the items in place or view them in their cart to get at the top of the mind. It’s essential to allow your customers to purchase as you remind them of the items left in the shopping cart.
You may follow up with your customers’ post-checkout abandonment through cart recovery emails. It is vital to remind shoppers what they can do to complete their purchase, and it also gives them the ability to pick things up at a point where they left. Streamlining the process is essential, and you also have to consider how you can populate the link, which lets them reach the right stage where they were before they left. It is important to give shoppers a small discount which is also a great way to draw them to revisit their purchases.
It’s necessary to have enough social proof, which is an important tactic that you can use to trigger the shoppers to let them make a purchase. Do not go for the right product pages. Also, abandon the cart emails using the best testimonials from happy customers to get reviews of a few products to communicate the products’ value.
It’s essential to lower the shopping cart abandonment rate as an ongoing process. This helps improve the company’s optimization efforts which you can consider by finding out the data from various sources. You must benefit from qualitative and quantitative data to take care of your experimentation.
Using Google’s Advanced Ecommerce Analytics helps create huge conversion funnels to find out where the shoppers drop off. If the maximum number of customers are exiting the payments page, it suggests a problem in capturing payment information. You may need to add a critical payment method your customers want to use to complete a purchase.
Make sure that you ask the converted shoppers and the cart abandoners about how they can improve the checkout process. Having direct customer base feedback gives you insights that are difficult to measure with the data analytics tool. You can ask open-ended questions whereby shoppers can easily qualify to get a great experience as they highlight the critical areas that need to be improved.
Carrying out A/B tests regularly helps you to see the designs, layouts, and the proper forms of content that perform well. If you are running A/B tests, you can alter just one variable at a time. It helps you to identify the things impacting a new campaign’s performance.
The total number of completed purchases/Number of created carts. Subtract this amount from one and multiply by 100.
Having created 300 carts and 100 completed purchases, your cart abandonment rate will reach 67%.
Checkout abandonment rates get changed depending on the industry where you’re operating. Find out the products you are selling and who you’re selling. The Baymard Institute’s 2019 research also shows an average cart abandonment rate of 69.57%.You need to optimize the cart abandonment rate, which will be lower than this. However, it can be a standard for your average performance. If the abandonment rate is connected to this number, you will need a bit of optimization or achieve a higher conversion rate quickly.
Every customer segment is distinct, and many shoppers have somewhat similar buying habits and preferences. One thing is clear: checkout experiences may be frustrating and time-consuming and are highly likely to make shoppers abandon their purchase.
An Ecommerce SEO Agency has online retailers who should also prioritize the most crucial purchase experiences for higher conversions to succeed in the present-day experience-driven world. There can be so many reasons for cart abandonment, and it may not be possible to tackle all of them at once.
They can feel overwhelming for an e-commerce leader. But, it is necessary to reduce the cart abandonment rate to eliminate all the friction points that prevent shoppers from making quick and easy purchases. You can turn around the cart abandonment rate, which will compromise with “the ones you can get away with.”
