As everyone in the world of e-commerce knows, not all browsers on your site will make a transaction, and even the ones who have filled their cart with items may frustratingly abandon it without completing payment. In fact, the Baymard Institute estimates that nearly 70% of carts are abandoned! And this is based on metrics from 33 different commerce websites.
While can be a very tough problem to overcome for e-commerce experience designers, it helps to know why your customers might be abandoning their carts in order to better address your underlying problems.
Here are some of the top reasons potential customers don’t go through with a transaction and abandon their cart, and our top tips on how to fix it:
1. Customers might see that shipping and other costs added at the end of an order became more expensive than expected. Or they may not have ever intended to buy, and were just trying to estimate the total costs.
TIP: be clear about shipping, and all costs for that matter, up front. If GST is excluded from your list price, show them the price including GST!
Also, offering a first-time discount at the shopping cart with a time limit can help to convert browsers into buyers.
2. Customers feel: I wasn’t ready to buy, or maybe want to save the product for later.
TIP: Follow-up emails can be effective after cart abandonment, especially when offered with a discount or a sense of urgency. In other words, our products aren’t reserved, so buy now to avoid disappointment!
Having a wish list or option for customers to “save for later” will also help.
3. Process was taking too long, or was too complicated.
TIP: Simplify the process. Customers shop online for convenience and speed. Incorporating some user testing or feedback on your website will give valuable insight as to where your bottlenecks are.
4. The customer did not want to create an account.
TIP: offer guest checkout, and only ask customers to register – autofill the categories if possible – after completion of a purchase.
5. Their preferred payment option was not available.
TIP: There are so many online payment methods now that you should be able to offer the option to pay with any type of credit card, as well as online services like PayPal, Braintree, or Square.
If you're wondering why many of your users are abandoning their carts without purchasing, Salt & Fuessel can help. Salt & Fuessel is a digital agency with a proven track record in web strategy and e-commerce, and can help you better understand when and why your users are not making purchases.
Check out Salt & Fuessel's past client projects, which span a diverse range of industries, and get in touch to see how we can make your site a success.
Hopefully these tips will help you recognise why your users aren’t completing purchases, so that you can craft the right solutions!
