Ecommerce businesses spend billions of dollars each year in an attempt to drive traffic to their e-commerce website, yet the conversion rate is approximately 2.68%. Despite investments to target potential consumers, the majority of site visitors leave empty-handed.
High shopping cart abandonment rates are a contributor to low conversion rates. In this article, we will identify the reasons shoppers abandon their carts and provide robust strategies to improve the average conversion rates for retailers.
How to Calculate the Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate for an Ecommerce Business
There is a simple formula to help you calculate your abandonment rate. Divide the total number of completed purchases by the number of created carts. Then subtract that number from 1 to get the average abandonment rate. For instance, if you have 100 completed purchases and 1,000 created carts, your abandonment rate is 90%.
Understanding the cart abandonment rate is a crucial business metric for online retailers to monitor. A high cart abandonment rate is a warning signal that there is a problem with the customer experience or the checkout process.
What is Shopping Cart Abandonment
Potential customers visit your site, find items that they like, add them to a cart, but leave before finishing their purchase. The metrics can be used to monitor other types of abandonment as well, such as booking abandonment and forms for services or quotes abandonment.
Identifying and addressing cart abandonment causes can significantly boost conversion rates and help increase revenue for online retailers.
10 Ways to Decrease Cart Abandonment
Understanding your target audience and customizing the experience you offer to best address your potential customers’ needs is solid business advice that will help reduce the number of abandoned carts. Problems with cart abandonment occur for many of the reasons discussed below.
1. Issues with shipping, returns, or payment options
These details are often crucial to shoppers. If they were shopping for items intended to use for the weekend and discover that the product will not be shipped for two weeks, then they will abandon the cart. If customers are unfamiliar with the payment options offered, that may be enough to justify abandoning the purchase.
Today’s online shoppers have high expectations for shipping. A streamlined shipping process that gives customers control over their shipping experience will help drive sales conversions. Some customers are willing to wait for slower shipping if it is free or deeply reduced. Other shoppers are willing to pay a premium for expedited shipping.
2. Consumers expect clear and easy return policies
A complicated or limited return policy can cause potential customers to flee before making a purchase. Online shopping, especially with a new e-commerce business, is a bit of a gamble for consumers. A straightforward and painless return process encourages customers to go ahead and make the purchase because they know they can return the item if needed.
3. A long or confusing checkout process
Consumers value their time, and overly difficult checkout processes can easily discourage them from buying. Multiple steps, or having to re-enter information more than once, creates unease and can easily lead to cart abandonment and serve to deter them from visiting your site in the future.
If you use Shopify, check out these fast checkout plugins to use for your Shopify store in 2021.
4. A lack of shop abandonment follow-up emails
Customers shopping online can easily have life interfere with their shopping expedition. A phone call comes in, an errand must be taken care of, or anything else requires their attention and pulls them away from their shopping cart. Many will never remember the cart they abandoned without a series of well-crafted reminder emails to incentivize them to return to their carts.
If you are interested in learning more, here are 6 abandoned cart email best practices in 2021 to increase conversion rates.
5. The shopping experience is not mobile-friendly
Half of all, online shopping takes place from a mobile device. A site that is not optimized for mobile devices can cause frustration and lead to cart abandonment. A mobile optimization strategy is crucial to boost conversion rates and create a sense of customer loyalty. Even if a customer does not abandon their cart, they are unlikely to return to a site that is difficult to use from a mobile device.
6. Slow site speed or poor performance issues
An e-commerce site that is slow, buggy, or unstable will cause a lack of confidence for shoppers. Many will leave because they no longer trust your site, and others will become frustrated and abandon their carts. Shoppers will have legitimate concerns about entering their payment information after a crash or slow page load times, fearing they will be double-charged or that their information is not secure. Site optimization efforts pay off in the long-run.
7. Shoppers have come to expect coupons or promo codes
Today’s online consumers are inundated with a wealth of offers from multiple retailers. Everyone likes to think they are getting a good deal, and if your site doesn’t offer any special discounts, they may leave and go somewhere that does. Even if your products are priced competitively, adding special promotions as an incentive to finish a sale will increase your conversion rates.
8. Restrictions on quantity
Shoppers will be easily frustrated when they add items to their cart, only to discover later that there are restrictions on the quantity each person can order. If you must limit quantities, make sure that information is available upfront to reduce frustration.
9. Comparison shopping
As the e-commerce sector continues to grow, consumers have more choices than ever. Most consumers do comparison shopping before completing a purchase. If they can easily find a comparable item at a lower price or with better shipping, they will likely abandon the cart.
Offering incentives to make your e-commerce business more attractive is one way to combat losing clients to the competition. Free shipping, fast shipping, or rewards programs are all efficient ways to boost conversions.
10. Mandatory account creation
Requiring shoppers to create an account before checkout is an unnecessary hurdle to a purchase. It raises a red flag for privacy concerns, slows down the order completion process, and may cost you a sale. Allowing customers to complete purchases as a guest allows them to decide whether they want to create an account or not, giving them a feeling of control over the shopping experience.
To boost conversions, and reduce the abandoned cart rate, implement time-tested strategies to get more customers to complete the check-out process. Include a progress bar during the check-out process to let clients know how much more time or information will be required, be transparent about all costs, and update your site so that it works well and is mobile-friendly.