The most common reasons for cart abandonment
Why do users abandon the shopping cart?
Knowing the reasons for shopping cart abandonment is key for every e-commerce site manager and marketing manager. Baymard has been tracking the global average cart abandonment rate for 12 years, which currently stands at 69.8%. Why is this figure so high? And what exactly can online retailers do to improve this sad situation?
By eliminating the causes, we can improve the efficiency of our website and thus maximise our revenues. But what are these causes? What is on the minds of shoppers? Where do most people make the biggest mistakes? Read the following article to find out the answers to these questions.
Reasons for shopping cart abandonment and check-out (2022 data)
According to a quantitative study conducted earlier this year in the US, 58.6% of US online shoppers abandoned their cart because they were “just browsing / not ready to buy”. The majority of these shoppers abandoned the cart before they had even started the checkout/payment process. However, if we exclude this segment and instead look at the other reasons for abandonment, we get the following distribution:
- 48% Extra costs (e.g. delivery charges) are too high.
- 24% You must create a user account to log out.
- 22% Long delivery time.
- 18% Loss of trust in the site when entering credit card details.
- 17% Too long/complicated checkout process.
- 16% Unable to know/calculate total cost of order.
- 13% Website was broken/crashed.
- 12% Returns were unsatisfactory.
- 9% There were not enough payment methods.
- 4% Credit card was declined.
It is not difficult to see that most of these problems can be solved. If we look at the overly long checkout process, we can say, based on the checkout usability tests, that the ideal checkout process would require 12-14 form elements to be completed. In contrast, surveys show that the average checkout process contains 23.48 form elements. So almost double.
Let’s look at what, in addition to the reasons mentioned above, further increase the shopping cart abandonment rate.
Passwords
Research shows that 82% of websites impose unnecessarily complex password requirements on users. Have you ever encountered the requirement that “Passwords must be at least 12 characters long, contain upper and lower case letters, at least one number and special characters”?
This results in fewer users creating their own accounts and thus not sharing their data with us, as long and complex passwords are difficult to remember. Yet 82% of the sites in our benchmark require unnecessarily complex passwords. These overly strict password rules can drastically affect payment completion rates, discouraging legitimate returning users as much or more than would-be hackers.
Research has shown that up to 18% of users of existing accounts on retail sites have abandoned their checkout solely due to password reset issues.
In short, the real risk of overly strict password requirements is that users cannot easily log in later.
CAPTCHA
According to Baymard research, 16% of e-commerce sites use CAPTCHA at some point in the checkout process or display it to users while they are performing tasks related to their account. (It is mainly used as an extra security measure during password resets or when a large number of login attempts are made.)
While there are good reasons to implement CAPTCHAs, as they keep robots away, they frustrate almost all users as they are often difficult to read when typing, with around 8.66% of users typing away on their first attempt (this is 29.45% if the CAPTCHA is case sensitive).
So think carefully about using CAPTCHA, as it’s likely to frustrate nearly 100% of our site users from the start, with around 8% of them having to enter the code twice, and it can lead to abandonment even for those who are really desperate.
Login / Registration / Password reset
Surprisingly, after completing the above 3 steps, 34% of websites do not direct their customers to the right page. Users log into their own account on our site from a variety of starting points. For example, some users log in immediately, others only when they find the products they are looking for, and others only at checkout.
Wherever and whenever users log in, it’s crucial that once they have successfully logged in, their current path is preserved.
A very common reason for cart abandonment is that after logging in, the user cannot find their way back to the same product page.
This is only complicated if the user does not remember his password during the login process, so he receives a password reminder email, generates a new password to re-enter the site and at the end of this long process he is not back to the process he left off, but to the home page.
Performing the above processes on mobile is even more problematic, as the mobile view provides less transparency than a desktop.
It is not difficult to see, therefore, that it is critical that users return to where they were before logging in, registering or resetting their password during checkout.
Missed purchase – How can I reduce the rate?
According to research by the Baymard Institute, 69.82% of online shopping baskets are “abandoned”, i.e. a purchase started but not completed. Think about it. Out of 10 shoppers who add something to their shopping cart, 7 end up leaving without making a purchase.
How can we reduce this rate? Firstly, we should use Google Analytics to identify the main ‘exit points’, the most important ‘exit pages’, and then examine how they work and fix any errors.
Here are some tips to consider as a webshop owner:
1. Can I shop as a guest in my online shop?
Almost ¼ of customers abandon the shopping cart because of the obligation to create an account. Experience has shown that customers do not like to give their personal details to sites for their first purchase, only after they have established a trust after the first delivery.
2. Are small product photos visible in the shopping cart?
Sometimes customers add several products to their shopping cart, then forget what they have purchased at the end of the process, often deleting the product from the cart, returning to the product page to check the specifications again, and never completing the purchase. A small photo of the product they are about to buy and a summary of the key product features is reassuring to the customer.
4. Only 3 left in stock.
Show the availability of the stock, because if there are only a few of the selected product in stock, the user will try to get it as soon as possible, and on the other hand, we give the impression that this product has been chosen by many people, so it is certainly suitable.
5. Can you see the next steps in the payment process?
Progress bars are a very useful UI tool, as they indicate to users how many steps are left in the checkout process, so we can reduce the likelihood of someone abandoning a purchase due to an unnecessarily lengthy checkout process.
6. Are all other costs displayed immediately?
We show users any extra costs, such as delivery (and free delivery above a certain amount) or extra charges for cash on delivery, right from the very first step.
7. Can you see how much the user has saved on their purchase?
If customers use a promotional code or get a quantity discount, or buy a product on special offer, show how much they have saved and how much they have saved compared to the original price.
8. Is it possible to use multiple payment methods?
Electronic payment is becoming more and more popular with shoppers, but many are still wary of giving their credit card details, so it is a good idea to offer a cash on delivery option.
9. Free delivery?
Delivery costs add value to the overall purchase, so offering free delivery for purchases above a certain threshold, for example, increases the likelihood of a purchase, especially if it is an impulse purchase.
10. Expected delivery time?
Display the estimated delivery date in the process. Everyone wants to know when they will receive the products they have ordered. Providing clear information about this will reduce anxiety in the customer and increase conversions.
11. Billing and shipping address?
Make sure that if these two are the same, you don’t have to enter 2x the information, but a simple tick box allows the user to proceed.
12. Can customers easily go back from the shopping cart to the webshop and from there back to the shopping cart?
Users should be able to switch between the shopping cart and the store with a single click, e.g. if they want to add more products to their cart or if they want to check the specifications of an item again before checking out. The products in your shopping cart should have a clickable URL.
13. Delete vs. Add to Wishlist.
We offer our customers the option to not only delete the item they want to purchase at a later date from their current cart, but instead move it to their wishlist so that they can easily find those items when they return later.
14. Do you have interoperability between mobile and desktop devices?
Many customers start shopping on one device and finish on another. For example, they may be travelling and find a product on their smartphone and then finish the purchase on their desktop computer at home. Let’s face it, if they have to restart the whole process on their desktop computer because the products they’ve previously added to their shopping cart don’t show up there, you can expect a pretty big drop-off.
15. Do we display the frequent shopper discounts?
If your online store offers reward points or other loyalty schemes after purchases, make sure you promote them during the checkout process. Make customers aware of how many loyalty points they would have earned if they were a “club member”, which would mean X % discount or Y HUF savings on their next purchase.
16. Return options?
We try to make the return conditions as easy and favourable as possible for our users.
17. Live chat feature?
If customers have questions, they want a quick solution. Live chat support allows them to get an immediate answer to their question, so they can be sure they’ve chosen the right product and are more likely to complete the process.
BUT. Live chat requires almost immediate responses from the user side, so we only offer this feature if we have the capacity to do so.
+1 PRO tip
Use retargeting for cart abandoners.
Retargeting ads remind shoppers to finish their purchase. Let’s take a look at the top reasons for cart abandonment and personalize your ads based on them. With personalised content, consumers are 40% more likely to click on ads and make a purchase.
Personalised emails can remind the customer that they forgot products in their basket, show product offers or encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter, where they can receive first-hand information about new products and promotions.
Statistics on cart abandonment
- 57% of shoppers will not complete their purchase if they have to wait more than three seconds for the page to load. Of these shoppers, 80 percent never return.
- According to Statista’s survey, 30 per cent of shoppers leave if they have to re-enter their credit card details as a returning shopper, and 25 per cent leave if they have to re-enter their delivery details.
- 46 percent of shoppers abandon a purchase because the discount code does not work, 75 percent now expect brands to offer them this option as a matter of policy.
- 39% of mobile users abandoned the website because they find it difficult to enter their personal details: buttons are too small, too many form fields, steps are not visible.
- Retargeting helps us bring 26% of customers back to our site.
- Personalising your retargeted ads can result in an ROI of over 1300%.
Conclusions
Shopping cart abandonment is a real problem that every online shop has to deal with if it wants to increase its sales. The good news is that this phenomenon can be prevented to some extent. Website optimisation, a simple checkout process, a variety of marketing tools and providing the options described above will all improve the shopping experience and therefore reduce the likelihood of abandonment.
To reduce cart abandonment, we need to look at our conversion funnel, accurately measuring each step of the checkout process to pinpoint the pain points we need to focus on. If you need expert help with your analysis and e-commerce strategy, contact the WebMa team, our senior colleagues with years of e-commerce experience have “seen it all”
If you have a webshop, you can read more articles from us on this topic:
If you need professional support for your digital marketing activities, do not hesitate to contact us!
Sources:
baymard.com
bigcommerce.com
optimonk.com
drip.com
statista.com
barilliance.com