Shopping cart full of items but no converted purchase. E-commerce business these days is challenging the cart abandonment at a high rate, with an average of 69.57% of cart abandonment in online shopping .
The condition is similar to when a customer fills items in a shopping basket at an offline store and leaves without purchasing them, due to some distraction or any other reason. This is what as easily shopping cart abandonment can be explained. It is one of the crucial problems that online business is facing.
Statistics show that customers using mobile devices for shopping show a high cart abandonment rate i.e., up to 85.65% as compared to other devices.
What is Shopping Cart Abandonment?
When a customer adds items to their virtual shopping cart and leaves without completing the check-out process, the condition is noted as cart abandonment. The product which is added to the cart but didn’t get purchased is abandoned by the customer. This reflects the potential customers who left without completing the purchase.
It is calculated by dividing the total number of complete purchases by the total number of created shopping carts, subtract the result from 1 and multiply with 100. This rate will reflect the potential customers who intend to purchase products from your website but due for some reason didn’t complete their transaction.
This rate of the abandoned shopping cart helps online merchants to understand the shopping behavior of customers and visitors and why they leave half of the process. It is one of the factors that break the sales funnel, there could be any reason behind the poor user-experience because of which conversions and sales have to suffer.
Why are Shopping Cart Abandoned?
I am sure you must have wondered, what suddenly happens is that the customer decides to leave the items he/she liked in the cart behind and exits without purchasing them. There are many possible reasons for the customers’ mood or behavior (low buying intent) to complicated technical reasons he/she found difficult (such as complex check-out process, etc.).
Top 7 Reasons why Customers Abandon their Shopping Cart are:
In order to improve the customer purchase percentage and their check-out experience, you need to have a look and understand the reasons why they leave their shopping cart full of items, what forces them to abandon their shopping cart.
1. Lengthy Check-Out Process:
Long and complex check-out processes often confuse the customers and they decide to leave the site although they like the products and wanted to purchase them. The check-out procedure should be quick and easy. Create a check-out procedure that doesn’t require multiple steps or form filling.
2. Extra Shipping Costs Involved:
It becomes difficult to digest when the customer completes the check-out process, enters all the required shipping details, and then they find additional shipping costs they didn’t expect. Customers might re-evaluate their cart and abandon the products if they feel the site is not meeting their expectations.
3. Unclear Refund and Return Policy:
Most often, customers look for the return policy after they have added the products to their virtual cart. The incomplete or obscure information related to refund and return causes customers to have second thoughts and may leave the full shopping cart.
4. Mandatory Account Creation:
Mandatory requirements of account creation before check-out sometimes piss off the new customer, as they don’t understand the need for account creation. This causes a hindrance in the purchase cycle and turns customers away. Instead, you can offer a guest check-out, there you can ask for details at the last stage when the customer has made its purchase.
5. Payment Security Issues:
When customers put their card details (credit/debit), they may lack trust in your system if some images are missing, or the page is not loading properly. So, the trust of the customer regarding the security of their financial details is important to reduce the cart abandonment percentage at your site.
6. Lack of Payment Options:
Customers purchase items online as it provides convenience to them. But with a lack of payment options/methods, they lose the privilege of the convenience they were looking for. The availability of fewer payment options forces the customer to leave the site and abandon the shopping cart.
7. Long Delivery Time:
What customers look for while shopping online is the delivery/shipping time involved. Non-availability of express shipping or delay in shipping or long period of delivery are amongst the major reasons why the cart is abandoned by the customers.
Recovery of the Abandoned Shopping Cart
It is good to know the reasons for any problem before finding its solution. As we have discussed the top reasons for cart abandonment above, let’s have a look at how the problem can be solved.
1. Personalized Follow-Up Mail:
You can choose an email marketing method for your customers who have abandoned their shopping carts as a reminder. The email will remind them about their forgotten items which are still their cart and offers or discounts on those items if any. The cart abandonment email method is very successful and has a conversion rate of 10.7%, according to Statistics.
2. Retargeting for Abandoned Cart:
You can opt for one more marketing method to chase potential customers (who have left items in their shopping cart). You can target those customers who have abandoned their shopping carts through messages, emails, etc. instead of targeting the customers randomly.
3. Social Proof Attached to Emails:
Through your emails for cart abandonment, you can tell your new customers about your happy and old customers from their reviews about the product (they have abandoned). This also has a successful conversion rate for the customers who have abandoned the items because they were not sure about the quality of the product.
4. Clear Refund and Return Policy
You should offer a clear and transparent refund and return policy with the warranty of items. A simply written policy is always best to understand and help the customers to make a purchase comfortably. Make it very clear about the return period of the product after shipping, and if possible increase the period as it reduces the chances for return.
5. Transparent About All the Costs:
Transparency in pricing is the major concern for the customer to shop online. So, when a customer makes a purchase you should provide full pricing in detail, about all the included taxes and shipping costs. Customers tend to definitely make a purchase when they know all the pricing in detail, reducing their chance to abandon the shopping cart.
6. Easy Guest Check-Out:
Offer guest check-out to your new customers and don’t force them to create an account. If the information is required for remarketing purposes you can ask those after check-out like email, contact no, etc. (while filling the shipping details) or you can ask for confirmation if the customer allows you to send the marketing emails about offers, discounts, etc. in future.
7. Provide Several Payment Options:
Provide your customers with as many payment options as available. Let them feel the convenience and comfort of purchasing online. Provide customers what they want and you only focus on sales. Don’t let them leave because of a lack of payment methods.
The Goal
The goal is to figure out how shopping cart abandonment percentage be reduced. As it decreases automatically the revenue will increase. As a seller, it’s hard to digest when a customer leaves midway of shopping, abandoning their cart. So, a strategy is to be built that could focus on potential customers and get a way that will help to make them happy customer and reduce the cart abandonment rate.
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