Why do online shoppers abandon carts & what do retailers have to do with it?
Cart abandonment happens to be a key concern that eCommerce retailers should prioritise addressing. It’s imperative to understand your customers and why they leave the checkout page without ordering your merchandise. Digital cart abandonment can lead to as much as 75% customer loss for eCommerce platforms. In this article, we are going to explore the common reasons leading to cart abandonment. Besides, you will find some strategic solutions to this issue.
So, why do you think a customer would leave your cart after adding it for purchasing? Maybe, they are encountering certain glitches that you can try and sort out. Reducing the cart abandonment rate happens to be a key priority for online merchants.
Common reasons behind eCommerce cart abandonment
Based on analytics, here are some common reasons that lead to cart abandonment on eCommerce platforms.
- Delivery charges, tax, and packing costs might be too high, leading to 48% of cart abandonments.
- 24% of cart abandonments take place when customers are required to create a new account.
- Slow delivery accounts for 22% of the instances of cart abandonment.
- Mistrust of credit card information leads to 18% of instances of cart abandonment.
- Complicated or long checkout processes lead to 17% of instances.
- Lack of transparency like the inability to calculate the cost upfront causes 16% of cart abandonment issues.
- Website crashes and errors cause 13% of cart abandonment issues.
- Unsatisfactory return policies account for 12% of abandoned carts.
- The lack of relevant payment methods leads to 9% of these events
- Decline of credit cards accounts for 4% of cart abandonment.
What do customers do after abandoning carts?
In the first place, eCommerce retailers should try and prevent cart abandonment.
Here’s what customers do after abandoning their carts.
- 31% of the customers are likely to return to your website to make the purchase later after abandoning the cart.
- 26% of the customers are likely to make the purchase from another online retailer, which implies that you lose these customers.
- 23% of online customers visit your website without the intention to purchase, so they abandon your cart without checking out.
- 8% of customers who abandon their cart are likely to purchase the same product from a physical store.
How can eCommerce retailers reduce cart abandonment rates?
Forward-thinking eCommerce retailers can reduce cart abandonment rates by adopting these strategies.
- Live chat feature
Integrate the live chat feature into your eCommerce store to ensure real-time interaction with customers. 79% of eCommerce stores trying this tactic reported a positive change in their sales, conversion rate, and client retention. In case your customers face any glitches during the checkout process, they should be able to chat with your agents. Integrating automated chat features can also help in enhancing your customer’s experience.
- Show social proof
Capitalize on user-generated content as social proof of the reliability of your website. This will help you demonstrate the trustworthiness of your brand. Testimonials and product reviews go a long way in branding your eCommerce website as a reliable platform to purchase. This attracts new visitors and entices them to check out after making the purchase.
- Discount codes work
Banking on analytics, online retailers can identify high-intent customers. When you furnish discount codes and coupons to these shoppers, they are likely to check out faster. This will eventually prevent cart abandonment rates. Besides, this will keep your email list growing. At the same time, discount codes will fetch you new customers.
- Development cart abandonment strategy
The most complex task lies in creating a strategy that will prevent cart abandonment. There’s nothing more disappointing than losing potential customers just when they were about to check out.
How to prevent cart abandonment?
Let’s check out some of the effective means to reduce your cart abandonment rate. Deploying these strategies on your eCommerce platform, you can expect a higher number of conversions.
- Remove hidden costs
As statistics reveal, 48% of cart abandonments happen due to hidden costs like delivery, packaging, and tax. The best way to eliminate this hurdle is to do away with these expenses altogether. Successful eCommerce companies bundle these costs within the price of the product. This way, they prevent their customers from getting disappointed while making the purchase. What they see as the price of the product should exactly be the same as what they pay. You may also provide discount codes to your customers to waive these additional costs.
- Provide guest checkout option
Remember, you might be losing 24% of your customers simply because you force them to create an account. In the fast-paced digitized world, customers hardly have any time to waste online. So, the best option to address this factor of cart abandonment is to provide an option for guest checkout. This way, your customers would be able to complete their payment and check out even without creating an account. In case they are happy with the purchase, they might come back later and create their accounts to make further purchases.
- Strengthen payment security
Mistrust related to finances is the first thing you need to weed out between your customers and the brand. When you receive payments through digital means, customers are likely to be concerned about the security of their cards and bank details. Particularly, if the website has missing images, outdated layouts, and no SSL certificate, informed buyers would be reluctant to proceed with the purchase. In the first place, work on the security loopholes of your website to ensure trust. Also, provide your contact details like phone number, so that customers can seek help instantly if they face payment glitches.
- Complicated checkout process
A lengthy and complicated checkout process can lead to cart abandonment frequently. So, make sure to eliminate unnecessary steps from the checkout process. Streamlining the navigation of your eCommerce portal will help in simplifying the checkout process. This will also reduce the checkout time for your customers.
Endnotes…
Now that you understand the key reasons for abandoned carts, you are better poised to mitigate these issues. The guidelines in this article will significantly help you streamline your policies to convert a higher percentage of visitors.