Cart abandonment is a serious problem for online retailers. There are literally hundreds of studies surrounding cart abandonment and its statistics. Some have reported that cart abandonment was as high as 80% while others have reported being as low as 55%.
Barilliance conducted a study and found that the average cart abandonment rate to be 77.24% in 2016 and it then rose in 2017 to 78.65%. The bottom line is that three-quarters of shoppers routinely leave e-Commerce sites without completing their purchases.
Size Of Screen Determines Cart Abandonment
Of all types of traffic, mobile makes up well over half of all traffic in e-Commerce. In a research study conducted by Barilliance in 2015, they discovered a direct correlation between small screens and increased cart abandonment.
Here were the results:
- Desktop – Average online shopping cart abandonment rate 73.07%
- Tablet – Average online shopping cart abandonment rate 80.74%
- Mobile – Average online shopping cart abandonment rate 85.65%
The growing trend is that smaller screens are not necessarily better. In fact, smaller screens mean that the customer is less likely to purchase. This is especially troublesome as more consumers are beginning to use their smartphones to shop instead of their laptops.
Why This Trend?
The reason why this is happening can be best explained by RetailDrive. In their observation, e-Commerce shops are still not optimized for use on a mobile device. There are slow load times to contend with. Countless e-Commerce stores remain unresponsive. Customers have no choice but to zoom in and out just to navigate the page. Pop-ops are notoriously used. They work just fine on a desktop, while on a mobile, not so much.
Worse, with all the inconveniences tied to cart abandonment on desktops such as required registrations and lengthy checkout processes, they are only magnified on smartphones.
Top Reasons For Shopping Cart Abandonment
According to a study by Baymard in 2017, some of the top reasons by customers abandon their shopping cart were the following:
- Shipping costs, taxes, and fees were too high – 60%
- The site required to create an account – 37%
- Long, complicated checkout process – 28%
- Couldn’t get total cost up-front – 23%
- Website had errors/crashed – 20%
- Didn’t trust the website with card information – 19%
Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions
Despite the reasons listed above, solutions to reduce cart abandonment have been developed. Let’s explore some below:
- Create multi-step cart abandonment campaigns
After a cart is abandoned, e-mails can be sent, each focusing on “product discovery” or product recommendations based on the abandoned session. Later emails can then focus on specific items, price reductions, and a sense of urgency.
- Feature a welcome campaign
A welcome campaign serves as a way to remove barriers from a prospective customer’s first purchase. One example could be that the business could encourage prospects to sign up to the newsletter to get exclusive news, discounts, gifts, and more.
- Messenger Marketing
Messenger marketing has proved to be one of the biggest tactics to reduce cart abandonment. In just the last ten years, messenger use has grown at an astounding rate. It is estimated that more than 1.3 billion people use FB Messenger. Over 2 billion people use WhatsApp. There is also proof that the customer experience is more enhanced by engaging through these apps.
Everything Has A Solution
And online shopping abandoned carts are no different. Knowing that there are solutions as presented previously, the next step would be to determine the best cart abandonment strategy that would suit your business. Coupling that with an effective marketing campaign and you’ve got what it takes to tackle cart abandonment head-on.