Reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon

What are the reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon? There are reasons why the buyer abandons the shopping cart at the last moment of making the purchase decision. In today’s article, we will explain these reasons and provide solutions for those reasons. In the following lines, we will mention the reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon.

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What does cart abandonment mean?

1. Shopping cart abandonment occurs shopping basket When a buyer browses the online store and chooses the products he wants to buy.
2. But he does not complete the purchase, leaves the basket, stores and leaves immediately.
3. This phenomenon is a common phenomenon in the world of e-commerce, as it exists in all areas of commerce, regardless of the type of products you sell.
4. Whether it's clothes or even digital products or travel tickets.
5. This is very frustrating for online store owners, especially because it often comes at the last minute.
6. That is, after attracting the buyer to the online store, after a very great marketing effort, and after browsing the site and choosing the products he wants.
7. This means that he liked the products and was going to buy them, but for one reason or another he decided to abandon the cart and leave without purchasing.

How is the shopping cart abandonment rate measured?

To measure this phenomenon, marketers calculate what is called the basket abandonment rate, or bin rate.

If they calculate this rate by dividing the number of sales by the number of shopping carts created, then multiplying it by 100, then subtracting the result from 100.

What are the reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon?

• The phenomenon of shopping cart abandonment has preoccupied marketers a lot, and they have tried to understand its causes and searched for solutions.
• This research has given rise to new marketing techniques called purchase optimization.
• These techniques have shown to be very effective, with some research showing that optimizing purchasing processes can raise conversion rates by 35.26%.

Shipping costs and additional fees

1. The first reason is due to additional expenses such as: shipping cost, taxes, etc., which causes buyers to abandon the shopping baskets they wanted to purchase.
2. Statistics showed that 60% of abandoned shopping carts are due to additional expenses added to the shopping cart amount.
3. This is due to the fact that many online stores do not display additional charges except on the checkout page.
4. When a buyer enters the shopping cart page to find out the final amount, they are surprised that the total cost is much higher than they expected due to shipping costs, taxes and other consequences.

Solve the problem of shipping costs and additional expenses

• You should be transparent with buyers and explain additional fees to them whenever possible.
• It is true that this is not always easy, especially with shipping costs, which often cannot be calculated until after the buyer has selected all the products he wants.
• Only then can the shipping cost be calculated. However, you should try as much as possible to show the shipping fees to the buyers.

Force the buyer to create an account

1. Some online stores require the buyer to create an account before completing the purchase.
2. It's annoying, unnecessary, and the second most common reason people abandon their shopping cart and leave the site.
3. Studies estimate that about 37% of buyers have abandoned their shopping cart precisely because of this.

Solve the problem of forcing the buyer to create an account

• Don't force buyers to create an account, because many people have accounts on dozens of sites.
• Creating a new account, although it seems easy and does not take much time, can cause a lot of inconvenience.
• Especially since they have to remember the account data, for example: the password, which must be different for each site so that it is not used to hack their accounts later.

The complexity of the payment process - reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon

1. The payment process is the most complex aspect of e-commerce.
2. If required, you must enter personal information and have financial accounts on electronic payment platforms.
3. Some online stores introduce great complexity to the payment process, as they impose many steps on the buyer in order to complete the payment process, such as requiring him to fill out many fields.
4. Some statistics show that the average number of fields on checkout pages is 14.88, which is twice the number needed to complete a purchase.
5. This makes the checkout process cumbersome and lengthy, and it is estimated that about 21% of buyers abandon their cart due to complicated, annoying and long checkout processes.

Solving the payment problem - the reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon

• You should only ask buyers for the minimum data you need to complete the purchase process at shopping cart.
• Such as: email address, name, shipping address and necessary information.
• There is no problem adding some unnecessary fields.
• Provided that you explain to the buyer that it is completely optional, and that he can complete the purchase without it.

Read also: The future of e-commerce

Here are some tips that can help you optimize your checkout page:

1. Use geo-recognition technologies to know the buyer's location and automatically populate the fields.
2. Do not divide the exit into several pages, make it only one page.
3. If the buyer has a store account, use the registered data to be able to fill in the fields automatically.

Website errors - reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and how to reduce this phenomenon

• 20% of shopping carts were abandoned due to errors or even malfunctions in the online store.
• If buyers see that your online store has errors, glitches and interruptions, it will cause anxiety in them and make them feel that the site is unprofessional and unserious.
• They may suspect online store owners to be scammers or even scammers.

Solve the problem of errors on the site

1. It is to verify that your online store is free of defects.
2. Before launching the site, try it out and test all the features it has.
3. Starting from registering on the site, choosing products, and completing the payment process.
4. If you notice problems or even glitches with your online store.
5. Hurry to fix it immediately yourself if you have knowledge in the field of programming, or by hiring an independent expert to fix the error quickly.