Shopping cart abandonment is unavoidable for e-commerce websites, as no online ecommerce websites will ever achieve a 100% conversion rate. Most common causes for abandonment of ecommerce shopping carts are high shipping costs and forced registration, but often customers are simply just browsing for ideas.
Understanding what causes website visitors to abandon a checkout process before completing a purchase, can significantly reduce the losses. In most cases, it is a matter of website design and development of ecommerce pages and functions. Making adjustments in design can often improve conversion.
Shopping cart abandonment is estimated to cost online retailers over 18 billion dollars per year.
Research and surveys conducted has shown that 45% of online shoppers abandoned at least one online shopping transaction recently having become frustrated with the length and complexity of certain older forms of identity verification. A quarter (25%) said that being forced to register would cause them to abandon a purchase.
Further research has found that 75% of online shoppers would abandon a purchase due to high delivery charges, while 55% would drop out if they experienced any technical difficulties.
When asked specifically about the checkout process of an ecommerce website, the most popular reason for abandonment were hidden charges at 70%, concerns about payment security came in second at 58%, and technical issues or slow website pages at 45%.
What Would Encourage Online Shoppers To Complete Purchases?
When online consumers were asked would encourage them to complete their purchase, 73% of respondents said free shipping, followed by a guaranteed delivery date (60%), a variety of payment options (55%) and a login option to save purchasing preferences (50%).
Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
There are several reasons behind that incomplete deal with any online shop. It can be the hidden costs involved, comparison-shopping, poor functionality, unreliability, and lacking simple checkout. Regardless of reasons for the cart abandonments, there are several steps that website operators and marketers can take to reduce the number of shoppers who bail on purchases.
– Website design and architecture should avoid unnecessary barriers.
– Make the checkout process as easy as possible, reducing clicks necessary.
– Remove compulsory registration. Allowing customers to use a guest checkout.
– Clearly display prices and delivery charges.
– Provide several alternative payment methods.
– Use only straightforward call-to-action messages.
These are just few ways to reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate of an ecommerce store. Focus the usability and functionality of your ecommerce store and remove any hurdles that could hamper the shopping experience of the website visitor. Much has to do with the design of the home page, navigation, and general functionality and architecture.
Experienced graphic designers and programmers who work well with certain ecommerce software applications such as Magento, can apply design methods and best practices to ensure proper setup for a reduced shopping cart abandonment. As stated in the beginning, it is not possible to have 100% converting ecommerce websites. The most companies can hope for is reducing the percentage of the abandonment of the checkout process.
For entrepreneurs and companies that want to get help, marketing consulting services are always available to have an expert review the website, checkout process, and abandonment rates. Conversion Optimization services also addresses some of these issues and could be utilized by ecommerce websites to improve conversion rates.
