In case you haven’t heard yet, the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is above 70%. That means that for every 10 shoppers who reach your checkout page, seven leave without completing the purchase.
Revenue that you almost had is still revenue lost. Fortunately, you can bring those shoppers back in line with on-page improvements and a follow-up strategy.
Shoppers who have abandoned their carts have already moved past getting to know your brand and are wondering which products to buy. They were ready to pay you. As such, monitoring your checkout abandonment rate is a valuable part of an ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy. That rate tells you how many people didn’t finish what they started, which pushes you to figure out why.
So, why do shoppers close their browsers during checkout? Here are five common reasons.
When shopping, you always check the price first. Then, you decide whether you are comfortable paying it. So when you reach checkout and find out you have to pay more than you'd planned, you’ll take a step back.
Sometimes, brands pull shoppers farther away from the finish line by requiring them to create an account first. Another password and verification email are real extra tasks.
Online shoppers shop online because they don’t want to go to a store and browse. So if you make them wait for your page to load on their laptops or make it hard to buy on their phones, they’ll leave.
If a checkout page looks outdated, you won’t enter your card details. Even a tiny hesitation when providing sensitive information can be enough to make someone change their mind.
It only makes sense to ask shoppers for their shipping, billing, and payment information. If you ask them to complete more steps, like verifying their email addresses and phone numbers, they might forget how much they want your product.
More often than not, a high checkout abandonment rate points toward on-page issues. Here are some must-haves in your checkout process.
If checkout takes several steps, tell shoppers where they are. For example: Shipping > Payment > Review.
Also, review your form fields and decide whether you really need every one. Small changes, like using a single “Full Name” field instead of separate “First Name” and “Last Name” fields, can make the process feel faster.
Show your shoppers that they can trust you. Include recognizable payment logos, security indicators, and HTTPS to reassure them. Make your return and refund policies easy to find.
Give shoppers the option to buy your products even if they don’t have an account with your brand. Then ensure they know they can check out as guests or with their existing social media accounts.
Reveal shipping, taxes, and other fees before checkout so that shoppers can prepare for them, too. Show estimates instead of surprising them after they’ve already spent several minutes filling out their information.
When a shopper leaves, hold on to their intent to buy and work on cart abandonment recovery. Here are three ways to do that.
Set up an automated sequence that starts relatively soon after abandonment. The first message can be a simple reminder. If they still don’t return, follow up about a day later.
Make the email feel personal, and take your shoppers straight back to their saved cart. You want them where they left off, not farther back to the beginning of their journey with you. Incentives such as discounts might also encourage them.
If you’ve collected phone numbers with proper opt-in consent, send short messages that include a link back to their cart. Texting feels more personal and intrusive than email, though. Do it sparingly and respect consent.
When you create ad audiences based on what people actually did on your site, someone who added a specific product to their cart can see a reminder to return. Remember, they’re very different from someone seeing your company for the first time.
Session recordings allow you to replay someone’s journey through your website. These tools show you where they hovered their mouse, clicked, and stopped scrolling.
Install an autocapture system and leverage behavioral information. If a shopper repeatedly clicked a button before leaving, that button may not be working. If they stayed on the payment page for a long time, it might’ve taken a long time to load. Learn where you could do better.
During cart abandonment recovery, you shouldn’t just check how many shoppers you’ve recovered through your efforts. Here are some more useful metrics to watch:
Ultimately, checkout abandonment is lost revenue that is already halfway home. For an effective conversion rate optimization e-commerce strategy, connect with Connection Model. We can pinpoint exactly where shoppers drop off and bring them back. Contact us for a free consultation.