Seventy percent of online shoppers abandon their carts during checkout (this represents an astounding amount of lost sales!). This from a recent study of more than 1,000 consumers by Splitit, an installment payment solution, and Google Consumer Surveys, which revealed findings that should be directional for retailers struggling with cart abandonment. Retailers should pay close attention to cart abandonment to better capitalize on the surging eCommerce market, expected to see nearly 60% growth in sales by 2022.
The survey found further that 87% will abandon if the process is too long and/or complicated, and 55% will abandon their cart and not return. Abandonment rates don’t vary greatly between two closely looked at groups – Millennials and Baby Boomers – and neither do rates of return, as just 12% of Millennials return and only 7% of those 55+ will return.
Considering this data, retailers across the spectrum should evaluate their checkout process. For those who are especially challenged with high rates of cart abandonment, here are a few suggestions for what they can do to push the cart all the way through the checkout line:
- Apply the KISS principle. Keep it simple for customers. To make checkout seamless, customer and payment related entries should be on one page.
- Use email to their advantage. Remind customers that they have an active cart.
- Offer incentives if needed. A special offer may be exactly the thing to entice a customer back to the site to complete the purchase. A small discount here and there will cost a lot less in the long run than if the customer abandons their cart, or worse yet, finds a better shopping experience elsewhere.
Retailers also need to take note that a customer’s cart experience online can even affect brick-and-mortar. In a separate study conducted by Optimizely, 39% of consumers said that a bad online experience would even affect their likelihood of purchasing from the brand in a physical store. This is significant… retailers may be feeling the pain in-store because of an online experience that leaves a bad taste in the customer’s mouth.
Taking all this into account, retailers have the opportunity reclaim lost carts, and lost sales, with just a few tweaks to their checkout process, which will make the customer experience more seamless.
