Common Reasons Why Online Shoppers Abandon Their Shopping Carts (Steven Snell)
Sep 6, 2009
If you run an e-commerce website and you are interested in maximizing revenue and profit (who isn't?), one of the areas that you will want to focus on is minimizing the number of customers that leave your site when they have items in their carts. If they added the items to the cart in the first place they must have had intention to buy, but something changed their mind.
One of the reasons that shoppers commonly abandon carts is that online shopping is easy and convenient. Likewise, it's also easy and convenient to move on to the next site and look for something else. Here we will look at the most common reasons that shoppers change their mind.
1. Unpleasant surprises
Unpleasant surprises are a leading contributor to abandoned carts. When the visitor puts an item into the cart they may not be aware of hidden fees or other details that they find out about during the checkout process. You can minimize the impact of this by including the relevant information up front to avoid surprises.
2. High shipping charges and taxes
As a seller, there is not much you can do about taxes, but shipping charges often will discourage purchasers. Of course you will have to cover the costs of shipping, but buyers should know what to expect before they get to the final step of checkout. Many online shops offer free shipping for purchases over a specific dollar amount, which can encourage add-on purchases.
3. Time
Online shoppers prefer shopping online because of its convenience and speed. If a checkout process is cumbersome or confusing, the benefits of shopping from your site are minimal. Cut out any unnecessary steps and do whatever you can to make the process as quick and painless as possible.
4. They choose to check some other sites first
The internet is great for comparison shopping, which means some of your would-be buyers may decide to put off the purchase while they look around a little bit. This can be a difficult challenge to overcome. One method is to offer a low price guarantee where you will refund the price difference if they find it cheaper somewhere else.
5. Missing products
Because almost all items that are bought online will require some kind of shipping charges, many buyers will prefer to bundle their purchases so that they are getting multiple items at once, rather than paying for shipping several different times. If this is the case, they may abandon their cart if some of the products that they want are not available at your site. This could apply to products that you do not carry or that are out of stock.
6. Buyer's remore
Sometimes there is nothing more to it than just a hesitance to buy, especially with higher-priced items.
7. Confusion
If a shopper is unsure about what they are supposed to do during the checkout process they will likely leave the site. Keep the checkout process as simple and clear as possible and provide help and answers to common questions for those who might get stuck.
8. Lack of payment options
There are a lot of different ways to accept money online. However, this is something that you should give a lot of thought to because some of your visitors will have a preferred method of payment and if it is not accepted at your site they will go somewhere else.
About the AuthorSteven Snell is a web designer and has experience with e-commerce website design. He runs CartFrenzy, a gallery that showcases the best e-commerce websites..