The Top 7 Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment & How to Combat It

Have you ever left a full cart of stuff at cash register in a brick-and-mortar store? Probably not. Then why do hundreds of thousands of people do it at the online stores. This occurrence is very frequent in e-commerce and is referred to as shopping cart abandonment.

It’s a real problem that companies have to battle with on a daily basis. There are so many reasons behind it, and we are going to take a look at some of the most common shopping cart abandonment  reasons and see what you can do to fight against them.

1. Unexpected Shipping Costs

According to the recent research, the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment are unexpected shipping costs, taxes or any other fees. Imagine, your customer is finishing their order and sees additional 15$ for shipping that weren’t mentioned anywhere before. Many will definitely be less interested in purchasing the product. The reason for this is simple; people don’t like it because they feel deceived or they didn’t plan to spend more money than the said price. Shipping costs can be very expensive and not everyone is prepared or able to pay the extra money.
The best way to combat it, is to disclose all of the cost at the beginning. Give them an option to calculate the shipping cost based on their location. If you have free shipping, always highlight the minimum purchase needed for it. Customers will know that there are no additional charges and will more likely finish the purchase, and there will be less abandoned carts.

2. Just Browsing/Research for later

I will be the first one to admit that I do this. I click on ‘Buy’ for everything that I like, go to the check out to see the total and exit. Why I do it? It is fun. Sometimes I do it with the intention of not buying anything, other times I’m saving it in the basket till I’m ready to buy. I never really thought about if it was a problem for someone. And I know a lot of people who are doing the same.

So, how do retailers battle this? The sad truth is that they can’t do much about it. People just do it for fun and you can’t take it away from them. It’s the same as when someone takes a new product at the grocery store, puts it in a cart, and then returns it on the shelf, because he doesn’t really want it. The best thing that e-commerce companies can do is to use remarketing campaigns to target the customers that didn’t finish the purchase and were only couple of steps away from it. How does remarketing work? It allows you to strategically position your ads in front of the people who previously interacted with your website or mobile app but, didn’t purchase anything. As they browse Google or its partner websites, it reminds those audiences to make a purchase.

3. Have to create a new account

Many people are not willing to leave their information on a website, which they are buying from for the first time. They also don’t want to spend more time on something they thought would be fast. And online shopping is meant to be like that; fast and without any fuss. Best solution for this problem is to give customers guest checkout option. And next time they buy something from the same website, they can create an account.

4. Concerns about payment security

This problem has been around since the beginning of online shopping and will probably be there for a long time. People are afraid to leave their credit card and personal information on the Internet. They don’t trust the sellers who are asking their personal information, and it’s understandable. One more thing concerning the payment is ‘return and refund policy’. Some will drop their purchase, because your store isn’t the only one. The only thing that you can do is to make them feel safe; don’t have flawed design (like a weird looking button that people associate with scams), display that you will return the money if they are unhappy with the product. And the most important one, display security logos close to transaction forms, that guarantee the safety of action (see the picture above, Norton logo).

5. Long and confusing checkout

As we said before, online shopping needs to be faster and safer, and long checkout isn’t the way to go. So, if your customers need to click 7 buttons and fill out 4 forms before they finish their purchase, they will probably end up leaving your online store. How to fix this issue? Well, the answer is very easy; have very simple checkout, where people won’t need to spend too much time. Even better, try to keep it as single page checkout. Give the customers an option to move to check out the minute they put an item in the basket (picture below). Ask only for the necessary information (e.g. have them check the billing address as the shipping one – if it’s the same, they won’t need to write it twice). Give them an option to save their purchase, so that they can return to it. It is also a good idea to have a progress indicator, which will show them on what step of the checkout they’re on. Doing this will help you to reduce the shopping cart abandonment, for sure.

6. Website experience

If your online store is taking ages to load or is constantly crashing, customers will not going to like it. Next, the navigation needs to be easy, so people can find the product they’re looking for or any information fast. Anything wrong with the experience can drive away some of the customers and increase your number of shopping cart abandoners.

The solution is to have an impeccable working website. Good way to tailor it to customers’ needs is to use “7C model” when creating it. Seven element of the website according to this model are; context, content, customization, connection, communication, commerce, community. Each of these elements will help you to create a good website, that will be easy to use and navigate.

7. Lack of payment options

It’s always important to have as many payment methods as you can (different credit cards, PayPal). Some of the customers have preferred method of payment, some don’t have the credit card that you’re asking for. If somebody doesn’t see the credit card they use for online shopping as an option, maybe he/she won’t try to look at other options and will leave the website. So, clearly state the payment options you’re offering and that’s all you can do about it.

Shopping cart abandonment needs to be fought every day by e-commerce companies. Every customer will have a different reason for leaving, but they are not unique. The seven reasons in this article are the most common ones.

To summarize, you can combat shopping cart abandonment with these tips, below:

1. Show shipping costs and other fees,
2. Use remarketing campaigns to target the “cart abandoners”,
3. Offer a guest checkout,
4. Show that your customers’ information is safe,
5. Have a simple checkout process,
6. Make your website functional,
7. Offer as many payment methods as you can.

Have you ever left a full online cart at the checkout? Don’t be afraid to admit it down in the comments. We’ve all done it.