The average shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.63% according to the Baymard Institute. This means that almost 70% of shop visitors who have already got as far as adding products to their basket have nevertheless never become your customers.
How could you prevent this? We have collected some of the most valued tips. Here are our top 7 on how you can significantly reduce the abandonment rate of your customer’s shopping carts.
1. Show progress
This may seem like a small thing, but it definitely has a big impact on the customer: Showing progress means nothing more than showing your customers how long it takes to complete their purchase using a small line, dots or whatever you decide to use. This way the customer sees that there are only a few steps to complete until the payment process.
2. Simple and easy checkout
The magazine “Smashing” took a close look at 100 e-commerce websites and found out that it takes an average of 5.08 steps for a customer to get through the entire purchase process. These are clearly too many. The checkout process should be short and pleasant and not risk losing potential customers. If you are wondering how many steps a customer should go through, the answer is: as few as possible. So, during the purchasing process, only ask for the most relevant information, such as name, email address, delivery address and payment method – and make sure your customers don’t have to provide the same information twice.
3. Loading time
Every second you make your customers wait reduces your conversions. In addition to this, even a two (!) second delay in the check-out process causes cart abandonment rates to skyrocket to 87%, which is 20% above average. So yes, literally every second counts.
4. Free shipping
Shipping fees are still very efficient conversion killers. Nowadays, customers take free shipping for granted. 61% of Shopify customers say they will not complete a purchase if they have to pay for shipping.
Even more impressive, a study by Compete finds that 93% of online shoppers feel encouraged by free shipping to continue shopping and purchase even more products.
5. Own currencies
If you operate internationally, make sure your international customers can pay in their own currency – or at least allow for adequate currency conversion.
6. Be quick, even with deliveries
If a customer has to wait three weeks for their order, even when it gets shipped from their home country, you certainly don’t leave a good impression.
A survey by Dropoff, a 1-day delivery service from the US, says that slow delivery times correlate directly with high shopping cart abandonment. In fact, 60% of customers choose not to buy if shipping times are too slow and 46% of respondents expect companies to deliver faster today than they did just one year ago.
7. Reviews
People often make decisions based on the opinions of others. Zalando or Galaxus, for example, set a good example here. Customers can give their personal feedback on the bought products. This leads to trust among potential new customers and gives them a kind of “social proof” and you give customers a feeling of “security”.
As you can see, the fight against shopping cart abandonment is worth it. However, we are dealing with a never ending story here. Therefore, you should constantly review your procedures from adding products to the shopping cart to prompt and reliable deliveries as well as carry out tests and experiments. Stay on the ball and let’s avoid these lingering shopping carts.