Abandoned shopping carts: why do customers abandon purchases?

Failure at the last stage of the sales funnel - what could be more offensive? However, such situations happen quite often in online retail. Both large retailers and small shops face them. According to analysts from the Western company SaleCycle, the number of "abandoned baskets" is growing every year. 

Even if you have perfectly tuned advertising campaigns for your store, you are present on Google map and Google shopping, customers are satisfied with the service... no one is immune from bad transaction statistics. Why does it happen that customers do not reach the final stage of the checkout process - making a purchase?

There are several possible reasons why customers may abandon shopping carts. 

Let's analyse the main demotivators that cause people not to pay for the selected products in order of their influence on the purchase decision.

If customers believe they have received poor service, or that the sales manager has provided insufficient information or their expectations of service have not been met, they may express their dissatisfaction in their next order by abandoning the basket. This can be a way of expressing their frustration or a form of protest.

Customers are quite sensitive to financial issues. This is especially true when the shopping cart suddenly contains amounts other than what the customer expected: a different price for the product, no stated discount, or unexpected additional costs. For example, a significant delivery fee, a fee for transferring funds through a certain bank, or other surprises. 

This situation can arise due to incomplete disclosure of the terms of purchase on the website or incorrect price labelling, which leads to at least customer disappointment with the service and at most negative online reviews about your store.

Nothing spoils a customer's mood more than an unexpected surcharge, even if the amount is small. The user may suspect you of tricks and even fraud. Therefore, transparency in finance is the most important starting point in building a long-term relationship with a customer.

Sometimes customers can simply be in a bad mood, have a fight with their spouse, or have their attention distracted at the moment of completing a purchase: they received a call from work, need to respond to a message immediately, explain their son's homework, etc. 

After solving the problem, the person should return to the basket and click the "Pay" button. However, people are prone to distraction and procrastination, especially now, in times of information overload and stress. Re-tuning to the buying process requires mental effort and time, which is always in short supply. Therefore, the likelihood of paying for added products often depends on the level of interest in them.

The guarantee of a quick return and exchange of goods after receiving an order is a strong argument for completing the purchase. This is especially important for clothing and footwear stores, where the share of returns is higher than in other stores. 

Every commercial website should have return, exchange, and post-warranty service terms and conditions, as well as guarantees for the protection of personal information. Trust in business is expensive, so don't neglect these things.

The customer may like everything: the online store, the product, the prices, the manager's service, but all this is meaningless if the website has problems with the protection of confidential user data. 

If a bug appears at the moment of payment in the form of an insecure connection to the website or online payment service, or the message "Login is not secure" or "Payment is not secure" pops up, in more than 60% of cases, the customer will refuse the dubious transaction and the transaction will be cancelled.

Up to 25% of customers who have already decided to make a purchase may "fall off" due to a long and complicated "user journey" on your website. A lot of additional questions that a customer needs to enter during the checkout process negatively affects conversions. The best form of checkout is in 2-3 clicks, when the user enters a minimum of data.

For example, a quick checkout by phone number without registration works great for spontaneous purchases. Buying a product that doesn't require a lot of research in a few seconds is the norm today. Take care of this option on your website, in particular.  

Create a simple registration form on your website, without a large number of fields for entering personal data. Take care of the automatic input of information, for example, when a user enters a city or region from a list. The easiest way is to add the option to register via a Google account or social media.

Statistics show that the option of logging in through a Google account or social networks significantly reduces the number of suspended sales.

8. Technical problems

How to reach out to customers who abandoned their shopping carts