The online shopping experience has become much easier, but even with this convenient process, one major obstacle remains: cart abandonment. Research shows that nearly 70% of customers leave their cart without checking out. This rate is a huge loss for businesses. The question is, why does this happen? And what can you do as a business owner?
Table of Contents:
- Why do customers abandon their carts
- Additional costs and surprise fees
- Complicated or lengthy checkout processes
- Required account creation
- Slow website and lack of mobile optimization
- Lack of credibility
- No effective email reminders or retargeting
- What can you do
- Conclusion
Why do customers abandon their carts
There are many reasons behind cart abandonment, but there is a common psychological factor behind all of them: indecision. A customer may have chosen a product with interest, but when they get to the final step and decide to buy, they are no longer as eager as before. Many times they just put the product in the cart to “observe” it, not to buy it. Also, sometimes they don’t checkout in the hope of getting a better deal on another website. This type of behavior is often caused by errors in the design, UX or marketing strategy of the e-commerce store.
Extra costs and surprise fees
Customers often find that after adding a product to their cart, they see that in addition to the product price, taxes, delivery charges or hidden fees have been added. This suddenly disappoints them and they leave the website. People shop online mainly for convenience and transparency. And if that transparency is broken, trust is lost. So you have to be honest when setting prices. All costs should be made clear from the beginning, so that the customer is not shocked at the last step.
Image idea: A screenshot mockup where “Extra charges” are highlighted on the cart page and it is implied that the customer is leaving the website.
Complicated or long checkout process
If the checkout form is too large, or is divided into many steps, the customer can get annoyed. Sometimes, customers leave your website if the loading time is too long or if they want unnecessary information. The easier and simpler your checkout is, the higher your conversions will be.
Image Idea: Comparison of two checkout forms: a simple one-step form and a complex three-step form.
Mandatory account creation
Most customers come to buy a product once. If they are forced to create an account, they can easily leave your website. Not having a guest checkout option means you are losing customers. So, you should offer a guest checkout option and if you want, you can give them the opportunity to create an account later.
Slow website and lack of mobile optimization
People are shopping more on mobile these days. If your website doesn’t work properly on mobile or loads slowly, you can lose more than half of your customers. An SME owner who has launched online ordering for his paint shop, if the images don’t display properly on mobile or the page takes more than 5 seconds to load, his customers won’t wait any longer. Therefore, performance testing and mobile responsive design must be ensured.
Lack of trust
If customers do not trust the website, they will never pay with card details. To build trust, you need to have customer reviews, trust badges, SSL certificates, and clean design. Not only a beautiful look, but the UX design should give the customer confidence.
Lack of effective email reminders or re-targeting
Many times, customers want to buy later, but if you do not remind them, they forget. If you send a smart email within 24 hours of someone putting a product in their cart, the chances of returning that product double. At the same time, re-targeting on social media or Google allows that customer to see your brand again, and make a decision.
What you can do
Track cart abandonment rates
Turn on abandoned cart email automation
Enable guest checkout
Make all costs clear up front
Verify website performance and mobile responsiveness
Add reviews and security badges to build customer trust
Analyze conversion funnels and fix weak spots
Conclusion
It is possible to prevent customers from abandoning products in cart if you focus on the right places. This does not require a big budget or complex technology. It requires understanding customer behavior and building websites and processes accordingly. To be successful in online business, it is not enough to just bring in traffic, but the real task is to convert that traffic into customers. And if you can solve the cart abandonment problem correctly, you can win a large share of that conversion.
