Shopping cart abandonment is one of the largest obstacles that eCommerce stores and online retailers face today. Even if you have an excellent, user-optimized site with great product descriptions, it’s still possible that you miss out on the conversion during the checkout process.
For many online retailers, shopping cart abandonment is one of the leading causes of missed sales and could indicate some issues with your checkout flow, user experience or overall site.
Although it’s one of the common issues, eCommerce retailers and business owners either aren’t aware of what it is or don’t know how to mitigate it. Despite their best intentions, users can still visit your site, add multiple products into their cart and abandon it completely once they get to the checkout page.
While this isn’t an ideal outcome, it’s one of the most likely ones. If you’re not sure what your shopping cart abandonment rate is or how to reduce it, here’s some information that you may find useful.
What is Shopping Cart Abandonment?
Shopping cart abandonment is expressed as the rate at which a potential customer starts the checkout process but abandoned their cart before they have a chance to complete their purchase. Business owners can calculate their cart abandonment statistics by taking the total number of the completed purchases and dividing that number by the total number of created carts, subtracting that number by 1 and calculating the percentage.
For example, for an online store that has 500 created carts but only 200 completed purchases, the average cart abandonment rate will be 60%. Research conducted in 2019 by the Baymard Institute places the average cart abandonment rate at 69.57%.
You might be surprised to see that the average abandonment rates are so high. Your own abandonment rates are likely to be lower than the average, but these statistics nevertheless provide an effective point of comparison for how likely shoppers abandon carts.
What Causes Shopping Cart Abandonment?
Cart abandonment can happen for a variety of issues. Here are a few of the most common ones.
Long and/or Confusing Checkout Process
Online stores and eCommerce platforms do a lot to replicate the retail experience. However, try as they might, the online shopping experience is fundamentally different from a retail one.
As with retail shopping, online shoppers want to make their purchases as quickly and efficiently as possible. A long, drawn-out confusing process can extend this process and can make shoppers abandon their carts.
The checkout experience, just like your customer experience, should be optimized for your visitors. If there are multiple forms or boxes that your customers have to fill out before they can even choose their payment options, you might just have a complicated checkout process.
Forced Account Creation
Another element of a poorly optimized checkout process is forced account creation. While user accounts are immensely important for collecting user data and optimizing your store’s experience, they extend the check-out process and draw it out even further.
Being forced to create an account instead of letting users use guest checkout will increase the chances that your users will abandon their shopping and leave your site.
Security Concerns
Online payments are areas of concern for many digital customers. Sometimes, not including enough payment methods or the option of using a preferred credit card is all it takes to create an abandoned cart.
If users don’t feel comfortable providing their personal information, have access to multiple payment options or simply don’t feel safe filling out form fields, it’s likely that they’ll abandon their cart.
Long Shipping Durations
Today, same-day delivery isn’t just an advantage; it’s an expectation. An overwhelming 80% of shoppers already expect same-day shipping, with 61% of that number expecting their packages within 1 to 3 hours of placing their orders.
Shoppers don’t want to land on the checkout page, fill out their personal information and enter their payment method just to discover that it’ll take a week or more to receive their products.
Expensive Shipping Costs
Customers want fast shipping, but they also want free shipping, too. In addition to long shipping times, high shipping costs are an additional barrier to conversion that many eCommerce when customers are completing a purchase. If shoppers can’t get access to fast, inexpensive shipping, they won’t want the product at all.
How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
While it might seem cart abandoners have many reasons to ditch their online shopping cart, there are many ways you can reduce cart abandonment for your store while still remaining competitive. Here are a few cart and checkout optimization tips that you can implement to secure the sale and reduce your cart abandonment rates.
Simplified Checkouts
Your checkout process has to be optimized for your customers. When customers make a purchase, they expect fast load times, auto-fill forms and simplicity. If you’re including any questionnaire, surveys or any unnecessary steps, you’re likely to cause friction in the checkout process and increase your lost sales.
Guest Checkout
Shopper data and information is vital, but collecting it isn’t always as easy as we’d like it to be. Offering shoppers the option to checkout as a guest instead of forcing them to make an account reduces friction during checkout and makes it easier for the customer to complete their purchase.
Transparent Pricing
Surprising shoppers with expensive delivery fees and hidden expenses after they’ve entered their preferred payment information will lead to shoppers abandoning their carts. By providing shoppers with all the necessary costs upfront, they’ll have a better idea of what to expect and you’ll be able to increase the likelihood that they’ll complete the purchase.
Flexible Shipping Times
People lead busy lives. Forcing customers to miss work or an appointment in order to receive their package can lead to hesitancy when it comes time to complete a purchase. With package thieves increasing year-over-year, shoppers expect security and flexibility when it comes to receiving their orders.
Offering flex delivery is one way you can increase the confidence of your shoppers and ensure that they’ll finish making a purchase.
Offer Same-Day Delivery
According to data from UPS, 77% of online shoppers are willing to pay more for faster delivery. Offering your visitors the option to expedite a package or receive their order the same day they deliver it can be the last little push they need to convert and make a purchase.
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment with Cantec Couriers
With Cantec Couriers, it has never been easier to reduce your cart abandonment rates with one easy plugin. Cantec Couriers is a same-day delivery service that integrates seamlessly into your online store’s checkout page or your retail store’s POS.
During checkout, our plugin helps you offer your customers flex delivery by letting them choose exactly when and where they’d like to receive their orders.
Our native iOs and Android apps make managing your deliveries and orders simple and easy. Whether you decide to use our fleet of drivers or onboard your own, the Cantec Couriers apps and dashboard is designed to help you implement a comprehensive, same-day shipping strategy for you and your business in minutes.
Increase your conversion rate, lower your cart abandonment rates and give your customers the same-day convenience they crave while giving your business the cost savings and profits you need with Cantec Couriers.
Sign up today and experience the Cantec difference!
