Why Customers Leave Their Carts Behind and (How to Stop It!)

Why Customers Leave Their Carts Behind- How to Stop It

Have you considered why a potential customer added an item to the cart but didn’t purchase, while at other times, they made a successful purchase? Well, cart abandonment is a challenging issue for online sellers, but it’s not so uncommon, either.

A recent study suggests that more than 70% of customers leave their carts behind. This number clearly shows that there is something that customers don’t like or find it hard to make a purchase.

As every sale counts for your business, customers leaving the cart is an issue that needs immediate attention.

That’s why, in this article, we talk about the reasons for cart abandonment, how to fix it, and the tools needed to stop it.

What is Cart Abandonment?

Cart abandonment is the scenario when a potential customer selects an item and adds it to a cart but leaves it without making a successful purchase. For example, when customers add a sports shoe to their cart but exit without making the purchase.

There are different reasons why customers leave their carts behind.

Cart Abandonment Rates Across Industries

The cart abandonment rates vary from 68 to 81% across different industries. Abandonment rates across prominent industries are:

• Luxury and Jewelry- 83.19%%
• Apparel – 77%
• Food and beverage – 53% – 82%

Common Reasons for Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment affects the revenue of your online business. So, it’s crucial to identify the reasons for cart abandonment. It will help you work these issues to reduce the instances of cart abandonment in your store.

Some of the common reasons for cart abandonment are:

1. Unexpected Costs

When a customer finalizes and is about to make the purchase, then they come across extra chargers. It could be anything from the platform fees, handling charges, taxes, or other added charges.

These surprises can influence the customer to abandon the cart altogether. More often, online sellers aren’t transparent about these charges.

2. Complex Checkout Process

A complex purchase interface leads to unsuccessful checkouts. Customers seek smooth and easy steps when making an online purchase.

Too many steps can make them leave their cart behind.

3. Lack of Payment Options

Customers like it when an online platform provides multiple payment options so they can choose accordingly.

Payment options like bank transfer, cash on delivery, digital wallet, UPI, and various credit cards make it easier for customers to go through with the payment.

4. Poor Mobile Optimization

The majority of the customers make purchases from mobile. So, optimize your e-commerce store for mobile.

You can optimize your product listing, navigation, interface, and more. It makes it easy for customers to search and buy products quickly.

5. No Clear Return Policy

When a customer checks for a product, they go through all the details, and the return policy is among the top ones.

Hence, mention your return policy so that customers can find it easily.

And if customers need to return/exchange products, they can quickly find the details. Hence, it is essential to mention the product’s return policy.

6. Slow Website Performance

When a website takes time or shows any glitches during purchase, the chances of customers leaving it out of frustration are higher.

Hence, ensure your website loads faster on both mobile and desktop devices.

How to Fix Cart Abandonment

Since cart abandonment is an online operation, customers can’t be helped. However, the cart abandonment insights can be an excellent source for optimizing the online platform.

Following are the practical steps to fix cart abandonment:

1. Be Transparent about the Cost

As a seller, always be transparent about the product cost. Don’t show different prices in the listing and purchase phase. When you are transparent, it helps build trust among customers and leads to successful purchases.

2. Simplify the Checkout Process

Make the buying operation simple and easy so that all users find it easy to understand and navigate for purchase. You can decrease the number of steps, allow guest access, and provide an autofill feature to improve and simplify the checkout process.

3. Offer Multiple Payment Options

Always make sure to integrate multiple payment options. Flexibility in payment methods gives freedom and comfort to your customers. This plays a vital role in fixing cart abandonment.

4. Optimize for Mobile

The majority of customers use mobile to buy, keep testing website performance on different mobile devices, and make responsive designs on the website for customers. So, optimizing for it is very crucial. It plays an immense role in higher purchases.

5. Provide a Clear Return Policy

A clear return policy builds customer trust in the platform. You can offer a frictionless return policy according to the products. This leads prospects to make a cart purchase without any second thought.

6. Improve Website Speed

Hire a professional to optimize the website speed. Google suggests an ideal e-commerce website should fully load within 2.5 seconds. It should be highly responsive since dealy loading can easily annoy customers, which leads to leaving the cart.

7. Use Cart Abandonment Emails

Cart abandonment emails work well since customers are halfway into making the purchase. Sending personalized emails within 24 hours of abandonment, offering free shipping, and product discounts are the best practices.

8. Add Exit-Intent Popups

When customers exit, they are highly attentive, and this is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of. You can use exit popups to offer discounts and limited deals backed by past purchase proof.

Tools to Combat Cart Abandonment

Losing over-cart products isn’t a good deal, but there are tools to cope with this issue.

These tools are effective in re-engaging with customers and increasing sales via different approaches.

Some of the best tools to combat cart abandonment are:

1. Klaviyo

It’s a powerful tool created especially for e-commerce. It identifies customer behavior based on their search, navigation, and engagement. Based on these data, Klaviyo prepares personalized emails for the customers, which gives higher conversion for abandoned carts.

It also leverages visuals to attract customers by adding product images, discount prices, and more.

2. OptionMonster

It’s also known as an exit intent tool. OptionMaster grabs the customer’s attention via popups, timecount offers, and discounts. This makes customers stay motivated for the purchase.

It is also highly proficient in lead capturing for further email campaigns, all thanks to its customizable feature.

3. Shopify Apps

Shopify offers some of the best tools for cart abandonment in the market. They can be integrated with social media platforms like Facebook Messenger. With this feature, follow-up emails or messages are directly sent to the cart to abandoned customers.

4. Analytics Tools

Analytics tools are essential in whole cart abandonment operations. It gives the exact insights about why customers leave the products in the cart. With the help of these data, the changes made helped to decrease cart abandonment rates.

Google Analytics and Hotjar are promising cart abandonment tools. They do complete customer analysis like:

• Where customers engage and where they bounce back.
• Give overall funnel visualization reports.
• Track where customers click and scroll.
• Offers actionable suggestions based on customer behavior and the products.

Conclusion

Cart abandonment is a challenge most e-commerce businesses face. When customers leave the products in a cart, it means there is something that stops them from buying. So, tracking these issues and addressing them is vital to ensure continuous sales and generate revenue.

One of the best ways to take care of these issues is to use tools designed to reduce cart abandonment rate. At the same time, you can also work with an e-commerce development company to implement them successfully.

If you are looking for such a business, Dolphin Web Solution is a great choice. With a team of expert ecommerce developers and designers, we can help you improve your store’s performance and reduce cart abandonment rates.

Contact us now for a free consultation.