According to research provided by companies specializing in e-commerce, about 59% of buyers abandon their orders during checkout process. Here are the most common reasons for this.
The shipping cost was too high
Often people add products to their cart to see the shipping cost. Some of them haven’t decided to purchase something at all: they just want to know what it would cost if they purchased the product.
Another group of customers are the people who really want to purchase a product, but found the shipping cost unexpectedly high. A good suggestion is to add free shipping for orders over a certain amount. That way, if the customer’s order cost is too low to qualify for free shipping, they can simply add a cheap product to their cart. This will also increase your sales.
I only wanted to compare products and prices
Customers often said they didn’t plan to purchase anything – they only wanted to learn the prices for future reference. They only plan to purchase once they find the online store that suits them best.
This is your chance to try and draw their attention to your store. If you offer subscriptions, invite the customer to subscribe. That way you’ll have their email, giving you the opportunity to send them an email asking whether they had trouble placing their order. If this is their first order from your store, give them a discount off their first purchase.
I was not ready to purchase at the time
Sometimes people browse products and can’t decide which one to buy.
I know a woman who often abandons her orders. This is what she has to say:
“Most of all I like to order clothes online for my child. When I open a store and see lots of beautiful clothes, I want to buy them all at once. But I don’t have that kind of money. So I add a product to my cart, then another one, then a third. Then I look at the order price to see whether it’s too expensive for me. I replace an expensive item with something cheaper. Then I decide I can afford this once in my life and add the deleted product once again. I change the products in my order several times. Eventually, I get tired of the process and decide I will think about it for a day and analyze what I need most. The next day I start with a reasonable selection of products, but soon I repeat yesterday’s process. I put off ordering for one more day. In the end, the order I place may be completely different from my initial cart. Once I spent a week trying to order clothes on sale! Only after a week of terrible indecision did I finally place my order.”
I didn’t have enough time to finish my order
If the checkout asks for a lot of details, if customers have to fill in long forms and
they experience a slow checkout, they can lose patience and close the browser. To make checking out simpler, remove all unnecessary fields from the checkout. Host your store on a fast server.
I was uncomfortable with the buying process
If customers feel something is unclear with your checkout, they can’t find the “Next” button hidden in the content, or the button that opens the confirmation page says “Place order” and there is no note stating that the next page will display the final order details, they may afraid to place the order.
The price was too high
Sometimes people want a product that is too expensive for them. They add a product to their cart just to dream about getting it. You can help such customers a bit if you provide quantity discounts for your products. The customer can organize his friends to purchase the product together.
Shopping cart technical problems, payment and shipping issues
You should place test orders with your store to check whether everything works properly. It may happen that your payment or shipping provider has changed their API or the cart won’t work with an updated browser. Of course you’ll get emails from your customers about the problem, but you would rather be the first (and last) person to notice it.
The product wasn’t what I wanted
If a customer opens the product details page and can’t get a clear product description, or the images are not legible, he’ll be afraid to purchase the product because he doesn’t know what it is. A good idea is to write a detailed description and add several images for each of your products.
The general recommendation for all these situations is to contact customers that abandon their orders. If you have their email address, send them one email asking if they experienced problems and how you can help. Integrate a live chat with your store. You can see your visitors, see what pages they are on, and offer your assistance.
