If you have an online store, chances are that your end goal is sales, meaning that your digital checkout is the final stage of this process.
You would assume that when customers reach the checkout that they have already decided to make a purchase but that isn’t necessarily the case. Cart abandonment occurs for a number of reasons, resulting in customers changing their mind at the final stage of purchase and abandoning their cart.
How do you prevent this from happening?
We’ve compiled a list of the top reasons that customers abandon their cart and luckily for e-tailers they can all be fixed!
HIDDEN COSTS
A study by the Baymard Institute reveal that 61% of shoppers exit the checkout without making a purchase due to hidden costs that were not aware of which basically increase the cost of their purchase. A good example of this is hidden taxes or shipping costs. The easiest way to avoid this type of cart abandonment is to ensure total transparency with consumers throughout their shopping process, such as a visible shipping costs page, or taxes included in the product price prior to checkout.
CREATE AN ACCOUNT
Another common reason that customers are exiting the checkout is compulsory account creation, where you cannot make a purchase unless signing up with the business. According to the study, 35% of shoppers exit as a result of this additional step, making their shopping more tedious. An easy way to avoid this is to provide customers with a ‘Guest Checkout’ option as well as a ‘Create an Account’ option.
LONG CHECKOUT
Complicating the checkout process, whether its unnecessary information fields to fill out, indirect paths to checkout or creating an account are the reason that 27% of shoppers abandon their cart. Providing a direct, easy to use checkout process in which customers can make their purchases reduces this form of cart abandonment as shoppers are likely to complete their purchase with simple checkout process.
While there are a number of other reasons for cart abandonment, these are the most common and easiest to fix for e-tailers to keep their customers making and returning for purchases.