Driven to Distraction

As a new study demonstrates how often online shoppers abandon their carts, we offer tips on getting those sales completed

Imagine a shopper in a store, pushing a cart full of items. She’s walking down the aisle, heading for the checkstand when…poof! She disappears!

In the real world they’d call this magic, but online retailers call it “business as usual.” According to an e-tailing group survey, nearly 60% of U.S. online retailers experience cart abandonment rates of over 20%. Whereas most shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores fill their carts with the intention of actually checking out and paying, people abandon a shopping cart in cyberspace all the time by figuratively walking away from it (and heading for Facebook, or wherever).

Leaving in droves
The sheer number of shoppers who walk away from their carts might just astound you. According to a study conducted by PayPal and comScore, 45% of U.S. online shoppers had abandoned shopping carts multiple times in a three-week period. And the average value of abandoned goods in those shopping carts was $109. Add up all those lost sales and you begin to see just how costly shopping cart abandonment really is.

So the question is: Why do they leave? In the Paypal/comScore study, 46% of online shoppers cited high shipping costs as a “very important reason” for abandoning their carts. Other reasons included wanting to comparison shop (37%), lack of money (36%), wanting to find coupons (27%), wanting to shop offline (26%), sites not offering their preferred payment choice (24%), items being unavailable at checkout (23%), unable to find customer support (22%), and security concerns (21%).

Fighting back
Clearly, online shoppers are far more likely to quietly sneak away from a full cart than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. As such, merchants should think about what they can do to keep shoppers on the right path, i.e., the one that leads to the checkout aisle.

As we’ve mentioned many times before, nothing appeals to online shoppers more than a good deal. And not just low prices, but anything that can help them save money, like discounts, coupons, free shipping and other incentives that will make shoppers think twice before abandoning their carts.

These sort of competitive advantages are powerful tools in the war against cart abandonment. Shoppers who feel they’re getting a great deal are more likely to complete their transaction, rather than let that bargain get away. So if you’ve got deals, be sure to call them out in your ads, because they make the difference between a shopper visiting your site and moving on to what they consider greener pastures. And if you don’t have deals, consider offering whatever you can that might turn heads. After all, in this day and age, even a small savings can make a big difference.

The battle to stop shopping cart abandonment may not be won overnight, but I’m confident that with the right tools and a little time, we can work toward the goal of “no shopping cart left behind.”

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst

Photo courtesy DrPantzo on Flickr.