$18 billion is the amount of revenue eCommerce brands loses every year due to shopping cart abandonment. Meanwhile, $4 trillion worth of merchandise is predicted to be abandoned in digital carts in the next year. These figures show that cart abandonment is becoming a concern that every eCommerce business makes. To understand what the cart abandonment rate is and what leads to a high cart abandonment rate, take a deep dive into today’s article.
What is cart abandonment rate?
Understanding cart abandonment rate correctly
It is the percentage of shoppers who add items to their shopping cart but leave before completing the purchase.
This rate is different from browse abandonment rate and checkout abandonment rate.
- Browse abandonment rate: The percentage of shoppers who view a product but never add it to their shopping cart.
- Checkout abandonment rate: The percentage of shoppers who add an item to their cart, start down the checkout path, but then stop purchasing before submitting their order and payment.
How to calculate cart abandonment rate
It will show the number of customers who are interested in your products through your efforts from marketing to design, product management, etc.
A high cart abandonment rate is a problem for e-tailers because it means that their online businesses are having problems with a website or customer experience.
Cart abandonment rate varies from industry to industry:
Top five common reasons for a high cart abandonment rate
Extra costs
Extra costs tacked on at checkout are the leading cause of a high drop rate. 49% of shoppers abandoned their shopping cart as the additional costs at the checkout were too high. Extra costs such as shipping, taxes, etc. are added to each product price making shoppers stop purchasing.
Lack of payment methods
A lack of preferred payment methods hurt shoppers. They are discouraged from completing an online purchase if the payment methods are limited such as only debit or credit card. Every time they can’t pay with their preferred payment method, they abandon the purchase.
A long time of delivery
36% of shoppers said they would give up on an order when the delivery period was too long. Although some products are expected to ship slowly, most online shoppers demand a fast shipping time.
Complicated checkout
A long and complicated checkout process is the reason behind 18% shopping cart abandonment. Customers want a simple and convenient process. Thus, a requirement for registration or a complex information entry will make them leave their cart and go somewhere else.
Stockout
An unexpected stock-out event leads customers to stop the transaction and leave the site. This happens more often with eCommerce businesses that don’t allow backorder in their online store. As a result, they experience a high cart abandonment rate.
How to rescue abandonment carts for your BigCommerce stores
Reducing cart abandonment rates needs to be planned and implemented from the beginning. However, when you fail with your strategy, you are still able to rescue your revenue from abandoned carts. The key is abandoned cart emails.
Abandoned cart emails reduce 6,5% cart abandonment and increase 20% online sales for businesses.
Similar to retargeting ads, you can make use of the information such as the products a customer added to her cart, the size, color, the brand, and so on to deliver an email reminder to continue the purchase.
If you are running your store on BigCommerce, use the Abandoned Cart Saver. Abandoned Cart Saver is a built-in tool of BigCommerce platform that sends an email to customers who added items to their cart but left before completing checkout. You may customize the emails and combine them with discounts or coupons to entice the customers to continue their transactions.
Otherwise, you can offer your customers a discount or coupon for the next purchase they make, which increases customer loyalty and a long relationship with your brand. In this case, Atom8 automation platform is a great choice. If a customer returns his shopping cart and purchases successfully, Atom8 will automatically send him an email offering a discount to encourage more purchases in the future. It’s totally automatic, so you needn’t manually check and send emails.
Moreover, Atom8 also provides other various useful automation solutions for your online stores, improving your performance and productivity. Try the app here:
Conclusion
A high cart abandonment rate indicates that eCommerce businesses need to address arising problems and make a strategy to recapture the sales. We hope that by understanding the reasons for cart abandonment, you will deal with it or prepare in advance to grow your online business effectively.
