Cart abandonment is a revenue-killing factor that affects all brands. I’ve seen rates get as high as 70% for certain brands. As an ecommerce business owner, those abandoned carts directly hit your bottom line. Here’s some good news – with some strategic tweaks you can turn those exit clicks into sales.
Why Online Shoppers Abandon Carts
Before we dive into solutions, it’s crucial to understand the root causes.
An interesting thing to note: a large portion of cart abandonments are due to customers just ‘window shopping’ and have zero intent to buy, so it isn’t related to your site. If you want to try and convert them to buyers, consider leveraging exit popups to incentivize the purchase.
Tip: If you want to try to convert your window shoppers into buyers, consider providing incentives such as discounts in exit popups.
That aside, what I’ve seen working with large ecommerce brands, the main reasons shoppers bail are:
- Unexpected extra costs like high shipping fees or taxes
- Being forced to create an account
- Super slow delivery timelines
- Not trusting the site to handle their payment info
- Long, confusing checkout processes
Now that you know the biggest contributing factors to cart abandonment that you can control, here’s what I’d recommend to fix them.
Quick Wins to Convert More Cart Starters
Luckily many of the top cart abandonment culprits are easy to address:
- Show total costs upfront so there are no surprise fees later
- Streamline checkout process to as few steps as possible, and eliminate unnecessary form fields
- Offer guest checkout options
- Clearly display return/exchange policies
- Provide multiple payment methods
Regaining Shopper Trust
Beyond convenience factors, building trust will further minimize abandoned checkouts:
- Ensure visible site security features
- Display third-party trust badges like Norton Verified or Better Business Bureau grading
- State strict privacy/payment security guarantees
By understanding the main drivers of abandonment and addressing those pain points, you’ll turn more window shopping site visitors into loyal, repeat customers.
Take Action
The easier you make that first purchase, the more buyers will come back for more later. Review your site analytics to uncover conversion friction points, run tests with some of the above fixes, then watch your average order value grow.