Online Shopping Cart Abandonment: The Latest Stats & Breakdowns
‘Tis the holiday season. The air is cooler, families are making plans, shoppers are gearing up to spend big...but you’re losing money.
For merchants around the globe, an influx of traffic can also mean a spike in shopping cart abandonment. This is a serious issue; in fact, roughly 75% of all orders are abandoned before completion. That translates to a shocking $705 billion in revenue lost by US retailers in 2021 alone.
What could cause a well-intentioned shopper to cancel a purchase at the last second? How can you entice them to stick around? In this article, we’ll delve into some of the causes behind this phenomenon, the digital shopping cart abandonment effects, and how best to combat the practice.
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What is Shopping Cart Abandonment?
- Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment is a term used in eCommerce referring to when cardholders place items in their cart, but fail to complete a purchase.
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An abandoned shopping cart occurs when a shopper selects and adds an item to their cart, but never completes the purchasing process. For whatever reason, they liked your product enough to select it from your listings, but just couldn’t seem to cross that final threshold to full sale.
There are a variety of factors that could lead consumers to abandon shopping carts. It could be that the buyer is simply doing some comparative shopping, and never intended to continue on through checkout. Or, it might be because of a faulty mobile app interface, shipping costs, or even hidden fees. We’ll get into some of these details a little later.
Shopping Cart Abandonment: Crunching the Numbers
So, what’s the real scale of the problem? Let’s have a look at the numbers.
Knowing the devices which the consumer uses matters. Understanding how customers access your shop can help you determine best practices to improve your user experience and decrease the likelihood of abandoned shopping carts.
For example, although smartphones are now the most frequently used devices for browsing, sales are still much more likely to come through desktops. You can try and boost mobile conversions, though, by making your mobile platform appealing and easy to use, and by offering features that streamline mobile checkout.
It’s also important to know why customers abandon shopping carts. Take a look at the figures below:
As we see, most shopping cart abandonment occurs before customers even make it to checkout. So, one of the best ways to snag that final sale is to give shoppers a reason to finalize their purchase. ‘On the fence’ popups and special offers are just two methods that may encourage a customer to complete a purchase. You can also use targeted emails to try and recapture abandoned sales.
Again, by paying close attention to the stats, you can better steer your business practices away from pitfalls that could impact future customers. In fact, you can increase conversion rates by 35% by optimizing your site with simple tweaks like these.
Recovering Sales at the Point of Checkout
So, we can see that most buyers who abandon shopping carts don’t have a specific intent to buy. But, what about those that do?
Reason for Abandoning Past Transaction | % of respondents |
Shipping, taxes, and other additional fees were too high | 61% |
The site mandated creating an account | 35% |
Checkout process was too long or overly-complicated | 27% |
Couldn’t calculate the final order cost up-front | 24% |
Website crashed / had other errors | 22% |
Site didn’t seem trustworthy | 18% |
Delivery timeframe was too long | 16% |
Unsatisfactory return policy | 10% |
Not enough payment method options | 8% |
Payment card was declined | 5% |
There are two consistent themes among customers’ complaints here: transparency and usability. You may believe that your platform is easy to use, and that all information is explained clearly. There’s no guarantee that your customers see it the same way, though.
In eCommerce, there is always the possibility for unintentional mistakes, oversights, or inefficiencies buried in your process. Here are just a few of the most commonly-given reasons why customers with purchase intent abandon orders:
We can reduce all these claims down to five common issues that cause shopping cart abandonment. From there, we can offer tips about how to resolve those problems:
How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
So, we’ve touched on how to alleviate some of the most common problems. Now, what can you do going forward to try and mitigate digital shopping cart abandonment effects? How can you protect your business in the long term?
The key is to have a plan. So, now that we’ve discussed why customers may abandon shopping carts on your site, let’s dive into some strategies to prevent the phenomenon from happening in the future.
Become an eCommerce Retention Pro
Perhaps the most important thing to note when considering the phenomenon of shopping cart abandonment is a simple concept: provide excellent customer service.
If you’re experiencing a high number of abandoned shopping carts, there is usually a reason. While many consumers might simply be browsing, that still leaves a hefty percentage of abandoned carts that you can convert to sales with a few tweaks.
There is no need to reinvent your business to fight the dreaded abandoned cart syndrome. Nothing you do will get rid of abandonment entirely, but you can increase your final sales figures and improve your bottom line by paying close attention to your user experience.
Remember, though: mitigating online shopping cart abandonment is just one part of an overall strategy. Click below to learn more about creating a comprehensive strategy to grow your revenue and your business.