Abandon That Trolley

Marketing Sherpa and Webcredible surveys recently released stats on shopping cart abandonment. It's estimated some 60% people abandon their baskets, with 48% of that happening at the point of checkout.

Problems with the checkout process constitute the single biggest loss of revenue for many e-commerce sites, suggesting that there is much room for improvement for etailers.

Here are the top 6 reasons for leaving a basket.

Hidden charges at checkout - 36%
Be clear about all your pricing, the consumer is very aware if you are trying to hide it!

Register before buying - 31%
Keep registration down to a minimum, afterall people tend to shop online to save time.

Comparison shopper - 30%
This is probably more applicable to electronics or high price items. Think about adding in a comparison element to highlight your price V competitors. Remember if competitors charge delivery and you don't - add those into the comparison.

Shipping cost too high - 27%
Think about free delivery incentives. Consumers do not think about operational costs of online, therefore presume delivery charges are lower if not free than making a trip to their local highstreet/mall.

Product out of stock 16%
Consumers should only ever be able to put items in their basket which are instock, so be sure you only promote those. Figleaves is a great example of intelligent selection where by they track your size and very quickly tell you if a product is unavailable in your size.

No clear delivery details - 13% & No phone number provided 9%
Creating a brand online relys on more trust than your highstreet counterparts. Be upfront about all your details.

The other reasons were;

Checkout process to long - 9%
Uncomfortable with buying process - 8%
Shopping cart technical problems - 8%
Price was too high 6%
Product wasn't what i wanted - 4%
Payment issue/ Site didn't take my sort of card - 2%
Other - 7%


All the above are about usability, so we recommending employing a good usability company to test your site and checkout process to highlight issues. Don't just rely on your technical team, sometimes you can get too close to a website and be blinkered to problems.