Why is shopping cart abandonment a problem for retailers?

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It’s obvious to most vendors that shopping cart abandonment is a major issue. An average online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.80%! However, more than half abandoned goods are potentially recoverable. Isn’t this a good thing?

What is shopping cart abandonment?

Cart abandonment is the process in which a potential customer starts a checkout process for an order but drops out before making any purchase. When any item is dropped into the cart by the shopper but the transaction for that item is incompleted, the item is considered as “abandoned”. Cart abandonment is a major issue in online shopping that retailers have to face.

Cart abandonment rate is determined by the total number of transactions completed by the total number of transactions initiated. This rate will let you know about the number of users,their intent to buy the product but not actually complete the purchase process.

Cart abandonment is a crucial metric for e-commerce because high cart abandonment signifies the poor user experience. Reducing cart abandonment leads directly to increased sales and revenue.

What are the major reasons for shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment is a major issue for most of the online retailers, which is mainly responsible for the decline of online sales and revenue.

So, before finding the solution to the cart abandonment problem let’s discuss some of its major causes.

1. Long and complicated checkout process

Shoppers generally want a simple and seamless checkout process. They do not not like complicated and lengthy checkout processes. A baymard study shows that “21% online shoppers abandon their purchase if they find the checkout process too complex”. Also avoid asking unnecessary data from the users, make your checkout process as short and as simple as possible.

2. Hidden Cost

Another major reason for cart abandonment is the hidden extra cost, shoppers don’t want to pay any extra cost like shipping cost, tax or any other hidden cost. 23% of people interviewed by baynard revealed that the reason they abandoned the cart was that they could not get the total order cost.

3. Forced to create account for checkout

Generally people don’t want to waste their time in creating an account, this makes them bored. A report by baymard study shows that 37% of shoppers abandon their carts just because they are forced to create an account before finishing the purchase process. So the shoppers need everything ready , and do not want to sign up or register unnecessarily.

4. Slow delivery process and limited shopping options

Delivery is the crucial part of an e-commerce. Shoppers expect to have on time delivery and shipping options that are suitable for their needs. So for this you need to offer a variety of shipping options to your shoppers, along with a quick delivery process.

5. Improper return policy

Buyers often get information on warranty and return policy of products after adding them to their carts. An insufficient or improper return policy will prevent buyers from buying the products.

How to reduce shopping cart abandonment?

There are numerous potential reasons for shopping cart abandonment, making it a perplexing issue to handle. The thing we should do to resolve this issue is to identify the cause of the problem. This can be done by taking a gander at analytics data and recognising drop-off points, conducting surveys and user research, comparing checkout flow process to competitor sites.

Once a theory has been created, then at that point various solutions can be tried on the site through A/B testing to decide if a proposed solution will help improve the shopping cart abandonment rate.

For instance, one basic issue that numerous online stores face is the issue of trust. Although users have now become more comfortable in sharing their credit/debit card details over the web. But still there are a number of users who hesitate to share their transaction details to the new or unfamiliar websites.

So if you find lack of trust is the major cause for abandonment, then, at that point various solutions can be tried to build trust, for example, testimonials and reviews, including trust seals, featuring identity and pictures of real people, and offering money back offers. Each of these can be tested on the site to decide if they essentially affect the abandonment rate.

By making hypotheses for why buyers abandon a cart they’ve added items to and testing better ways for improving their sales, online businesses can continually improve the conversion of their website and grow revenues without spending more on expanding traffic.

What are the ways to recover abandoned carts?

While retailers may assume that purchasers essentially change their mind on purchasing the product. But sometimes reasons may be different. Numerous customers intend to buy those products sometime in the future or from somewhere else. Other reasons may also include unexpected costs like shipping cost or tax. The good thing is that, with a little effort you could easily recover abandoned shopping carts.

Here we will discuss some important tips for recovering abandoned carts and improving conversion rates

1. Target your buyer before they leave

First and foremost thing you need to do is to grab the attention of your buyer before they leave. Target cart abandoners with an exit intent pop-up. As the popups are the simplest and effective way to recover lost carts. Keep the message in the pop humorous and effective than could bring your lost customers back to sale.

2. Retargeting ads

Retargeting is the most effective method to bring back your lost customers. With retargeting ad campaigns you can show the exact product to your customers what they left behind in the cart.

3. Push notifications

Push notification is another approach to recover lost carts. You can approach your customers through personalised and attractive notifications. An appealing and effective notification on the shoppers mobile screen can bring your lost customers back to sale.

See also: What are Push notifications and their importance in the Ecommerce world?

4. Sending Emails

Sending email to lost customers is another most effective way to recover abandoned carts. Simply sending an email can never bring your customers back. But email should be appealing to the viewers to draw their attention.

Ways to Prevent cart abandonment

1. Improve the loading time of your Site

A report by KISSMetrics, reveals that 40% of the users will abandon the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Moreover, a one second delay in the loading time can cause upto 7% reduction in conversion rates. So to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate you need to speed up the loading time of your site.

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2. Offer Guest checkout options

You might observe that the checkout process could be the most crucial thing for collecting data about your customers. But forcing shoppers to create an account for completing a purchase could be a major deterrent.

As per a report by Invesp, “Not offering a guest checkout option to buyers is one of the major causes of shopping cart abandonment “.

Around 14% shopper revealed that the main reason for their cart abandonment is forcing them to create an account.

3. Creating seamless navigation between cart and store

Just like physical stores, online shopping can also be inefficient, indirect and far from linear. The simpler you make it for your shoppers to move between their carts and your online store, the more likely your customers will stick with your store.

4. Multiple payment options

When you are creating ecommerce checkout pages, you need to offer a seamless shopping experience to your users. For a seamless shopping experience you need to offer everything your customers want. You need to offer multiple payment options to your customers including credit cards, debit cards and other options required by your users.

5. Thumbnail images of the products throughout purchasing phase

In most cases customers forgot what products they picked to buy. So including thumbnail images of the items can be another effective technique that creates a seamless buying journey for the buyers.

Conclusion

So cart abandonment is a major issue for retailers. To avoid this you need to consider important points that lead to seamless checkout experience. These important points incorporate faster loading speed of your site, multiple payment options etc. And in case your buyer’s have abandoned their cart. Then retarget them through emails, notifications and ad retargeting campaigns. In a nutshell cart abandonment is an important thing to consider for online business. Do every possible effort to prevent it, and in case if it occurs then make efforts to take back your customers. Get started with a seamless checkout experience with MageNative Mobile app.