Online shopping has taken over in recent years or so. E-commerce businesses have flourished with the rise of online shopping. People love exploring and shopping online in the comfort of their residences. The reality is that many explore products from several sites but do not necessarily purchase from all or most of them.
Add to cart does not necessarily guarantee a purchase. Cart abandonment is a common existence in the E-commerce business. The lesser it is, the more the business profits.
What Is Shopping Cart Abandonment And What Does It Indicate?
Online shopping cart abandonment is the act of adding a product (or several) to a shopping cart, but later leaving the page without checking out. One of the important performance metrics for an E-Commerce company is the rate of shopping cart abandonment. The percentage of these instances is shown by the shopping cart abandonment rate.
The number of shopping carts generated indicates how interested customers are in the goods and services you provide. Users are drawn in by your marketing efforts and enjoy the look and feel of your website. They are about to submit an order. However, something prompts them to reconsider and depart just before they become clients.
A high rate of abandonment may indicate issues customers encounter during the customer journey. These may include usability problems, software bugs, ambiguous layouts, etc. You can increase sales and client retention by addressing the issues that are causing them dissatisfaction.
How To Calculate Cart Abandonment Rate
Divide the total number of completed purchases by the number of carts created to calculate the cart abandonment rate. Subtract one and multiply by 100.
For example, if you create 200 carts and complete 100 purchases, your cart abandonment rate is 50%.
Healthy Abandonment Rate
Owners of e-commerce businesses are interested in learning what constitutes a good and bad shopping cart abandonment rate. Understanding that everything depends on the specifics and scope of your business, the competition, your online goals, etc. will help you get a precise response.
The rate of online shopping cart abandonment that E-commerce stores experience on average is another factor. Therefore, if your abandonment rate is between 67% and 70%, you are in line with the general trend.
To end up at a 0% cart abandonment rate is impossible. Cart abandonment is sometimes correlated with service quality. Some customers might abandon their shopping carts for no other reason than that they use them to compare prices, estimate the cost of their wish list, and other factors that are beyond their control.
There are many factors, though, that you can influence. There’s never a “too low” shopping cart abandonment rate because there’s always room for improvement.
Payment Concerns
Problem: Understandably, most customers are extremely wary of making purchases online. They won’t complete their purchase if they don’t feel secure giving their personal information, or if they worry that their payment information won’t be handled securely.
Online buyers want to finish their transactions using the payment option that best suits their needs. Some customers may be content with the default selection, but others may decide to leave your site entirely if you don’t accept their preferred payment method, whether it’s Paytm, Apple Pay, or a buy now, pay later option.
Bottom Line: Payment options can make or break a purchase. Offering options allows retailers to appeal to a wide range of customer preferences.
Reduction solution: Although debit and credit card payments remain popular, several alternatives have recently emerged. Furthermore, payment habits differ greatly between markets. Offering a single payment method or too few options can create unnecessary barriers between you and your customers. Shoppers today have a variety of payment options, including direct bank transfers, digital wallets, and credit cards.
Offering support for the most popular payment methods, particularly those most commonly used by your target audience, helps ensure that you are not losing good customers. Allowing customers to purchase using customer financing options will be appropriate for products with particularly high AOV (average order value).
Trust seals from well-known brands can boost customer confidence on a marketing website, especially for users who might not be familiar with your brand. You can portray trust marks which in turn ensure potential customers are not concerned regarding payment and feel secure.
Sparse Offers And Unacceptable Extra Charges
Problem: Customers can quickly compare their options when shopping online because of the internet and the growth of mobile commerce. Deal-seeking customers frequently add items to carts before making their final purchase from a different store with a better offer.
Also, there is a case of hefty shipping charges being applied. The shock of unanticipated costs typically hits a customer after they’ve entered their shipping information and discover they’ve been hit with unforeseen fees. Once they see those fees, customers might reconsider their purchase and, if their expectations aren’t met, they might even abandon their cart.
Bottom Line: Everyone enjoys learning that a price has been reduced. Nobody enjoys learning that the price has risen. Businesses would be wise to surprise their customers with limited-time offers.
Reduction Solution: A retailer can’t always avoid tacking on extra fees. For instance, taxes are legally required to be paid, and failing to do so will result in a loss of your own funds. The best approach is to upfront disclose any additional costs to a client. One thing you can always do is come up with eye-catching offers regularly to make up for extra fees of any sort. Offers attract customers to your site and if they find it eye-catchy indeed, they are most likely to purchase it.
Most people will abandon their carts if they reach the end of the checkout process only to discover that an additional shipping fee has been added. Shipping fees for any product can sometimes exceed the cost of the product itself. Why would a savvy online shopper choose that store? You can either mention free shipping on your product pages or send an abandoned cart email to customers who have abandoned your cart. If you have a shipping policy, make sure to include it on your website. It is critical to be completely transparent about what customers must do to qualify for free shipping.
Technical Performance Glitches
Problem: A glitchy or unstable e-commerce site can make customers lose faith in your checkout process or just give up and leave out of frustration. After an unexpected crash or lengthy page load, customers are less likely to enter their payment information for fear of being charged twice for the purchase or having their payment failed.
For instance, users who access your website through a mobile device might run into issues, whereas users who access it through a laptop might not. However, regardless of the device, the typical client response to a website that has crashed is to just leave it. Additionally, users leave the page if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Bottom Line: Customers are more likely to purchase in a site or medium that offers stability and has a very good processing speed.
Reduction Solution: The last thing you want is for a customer to wonder if their order was successful. A fast-loading page can meet your customers’ desire for a quick checkout experience. Customers will be happier, and they will be more likely to purchase additional products from your website because they will not have to wait as long.
Collecting client feedback and conducting client research is one means of understanding technical glitches and solving them. Reach out to your customers and inquire about their shopping experience. This will allow you to better understand the data you’ve collected and improve your eCommerce store as a result.
You can also enhance the user journey and ensure a faster experience with intuitive and simple UI and UX e-commerce design. Make sure the appearance of your website encourages buyers to place an order. Avoid jarring color schemes and seek out reliable UI/UX design services to express your company’s identity in the digital realm.
Frustrating Checkout Procedures
Problem: Shoppers want to complete their purchases as quickly and easily as possible. A lengthy checkout process with multiple forms fills and steps can cause friction and slow down your customers. This not only detracts from the current checkout experience on your site, but it may also permanently discourage them from ever purchasing on your site again.
Bottom Line: From a business point of view, you have only a matter of seconds to convince and guide customers to make a purchase.
Reduction Solution: A sensible solution would be to offer guest checkout. Making customers register and create an account before entering the checkout process can be a barrier to purchase. It appears to be an extra effort for shoppers, and as a result, it can be a point at which customers decide it’s too much trouble to proceed with the purchase. When not absolutely necessary, it makes sense to avoid this barrier and instead provide guest checkout options. Optimizing your checkout pages for a faster and simpler checkout process can help improve revenue generation significantly.
Strive To Improve Purchase Journey!
Even though each customer segment is unique, many consumers share some of the same preferences and buying habits. It is undeniable that limited payment options and frustrating checkout procedures increase the likelihood that customers will back out of their purchases.
Online retailers must continue to prioritize providing excellent purchase experiences if they want to succeed in today’s experience-driven world and turn browsers into paying customers.