Abandoned Carts: One of the biggest problems faced by e-commerce is the high rate of abandonment during the purchase process. It is common to find situations in which, despite having managed to develop a good marketing strategy – with which the traffic flows through your channels, you are receiving visits, including getting users – the final results are not as expected, and the proper functioning is not translated into as many sales as you would expect.
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What Is Happening?
If your product is of quality and the price is competitive, it is most likely that you are having problems with the final part of the purchase process: the decisive moment in which the user completes the payment process and the sale materializes.
The Abandoned Carts
The loss of customers in the final phase of the purchase process is recorded thanks to abandoned shopping carts. When a customer visits your website, and adds items to the cart, but then does not complete the payment process, what we call an abandoned cart is generated.
How Do Analyze Abandoned Carts?
The main indicator we have is the abandonment rate, which shows us the percentage of customers who add items to the virtual cart but then abandon the process. It is calculated by dividing the total number of carts successfully completed by the number of total carts created and multiplying the result by 100:
(Carts that end in purchase/total carts) *100= Rate of abandoned shopping carts.
With this rate we obtain a general indicator of the performance of the purchase process on the site, however, if we want to obtain a clearer image of what is really happening, we will need to take into account more variables.
Abandonment Rate Segmentation
It is difficult to get direct feedback on the reasons that lead customers to abandon a cart, but if you segment the abandonment rate and analyze it based on different variables, such as country, device, the channel through which the process was initiated, etc. You can gain valuable insight by uncovering patterns that indicate where the problem may lie.
Average Time To Fulfill Orders
The time customers typically need from when they start looking for items to when they complete their purchase.
- Transaction Path Length: The number of steps or pages customers have to go through to complete the checkout process.
- Traffic Source: The traffic source from which customers have come to your site.
Causes And Solutions For Abandoned Carts
1. ADDITIONAL HIDDEN COSTS (SHIPPING, TAXES, EXTRA FEES)
Up to 50% of shopping cart abandonments occur due to the extra expenses that customers find to be able to buy the products. These expenses, even if they are justified, suppose an increase in the cost that they did not count on while they were making the purchase and choosing the products, for which the clients receive with great frustration, and it is possible that they even perceive them as a deception, although it is not.
2. OBLIGATION TO CREATE A USER ACCOUNT
Time is money for users, when they have chosen the products and are ready to pay they find themselves having to fill out a form with a lot of personal data, confirm registration, write down the password, etc. the safest thing is that the process causes them laziness and generates frustration.
3. AVOID LONG PROCESSES AND KEEP IT SIMPLE
The shopping experience should be pleasant, however, with some ecommerce, it gives the impression that we are facing an exam to be able to complete the entire process.
4. DO NOT HIDE THE FINAL PRICE OF THE PRODUCTS
Abandoned carts. There are some e-commerce that adopts bad marketing strategies to attract customers, such as misleading the product price by showing only part of the cost, or matching a product image with a price that does not correspond.
5. LACK OF AGILITY IN DELIVERY
We live in a world of fast consumption, for customers, it is important to be able to have products in a short time, so offering a delivery service that takes too long can mean losing a sale.
6. SECURITY CONCERNS
Security is one of the main concerns for customers shopping online. Make sure you offer them the best guarantees and also make them visible: inform them of the security measures that your e-commerce has, show the trust badges in the shopping cart and in the payment process, and offer them a form of direct contact in case a problem arises.
7. NAVIGATION PROBLEMS
Browsing problems, slow loading times, broken links… all these experiences are unpleasant for users, and also generate distrust in them regarding the ability to manage sales in a professional and secure manner.
8. UNSATISFACTORY RETURN POLICIES
abandoned carts online purchases always carry the risk that the purchased product does not correspond exactly to how we had imagined it, and customers know it. That is why customers attach great importance to product return and exchange policies.
9. OFFER PAYMENT ALTERNATIVES
Another reason why a customer may withdraw from the purchase at the last moment is the lack of payment options. Users have their individual preferences when choosing a payment method, if they are used to using a certain system but your website does not offer it, they may not be willing to try something new.
10. LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
Unlike what happens in the offline world, in the digital environment, you can make purchases without having to interact with anyone. This peculiarity, which can be an advantage in some cases, can also become a weak point when customers have a question or problem during the purchase process, and if they cannot be attended to, they are likely to abandon the cart and miss a sale.
