It can be confusing when only a fraction of your online store traffic converts into purchases. Been there? You’re not alone. A lot of online stores are plagued with high shopping cart abandonment rates, with an average shopping cart abandonment rate of 69.57% across all eCommerce industries.

But there’s good news! You can significantly reduce your online store’s shopping cart abandonment rate by identifying its root cause and tweaking your website as required. Pretty straightforward, right? You bet. Let’s take a look at the reasons why your customers might be abandoning their shopping carts.

Confusing Checkout Process

An effortless checkout experience is crucial when it comes to making sure that your potential customer completes the checkout process. Not having a linear checkout process can easily confuse the customer and increase the chances of them abandoning their shopping cart. To avoid that from happening, make sure that your online shop doesn't have unnecessary pop-ups or signup prompts in the process of checkout.

Limited Payment Methods

If you have a limited set of payment methods on your online store, you must consider adding major payment methods right away. The lack of preferred payment methods is one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment. Visit any successful online store and you will find that they all have multiple secure payment methods available.

Having the option to pay from a familiar payment method instantly increases user satisfaction and a great overall experience for the customer. This would make it more likely for them to return to your e-store in the future. Here are some common payment methods:

• Prepaid card payments
• Credit/Debit card payments
• Bank transfers
• E-Wallets
• Cash on delivery (CoD)
• Mobile payments
• Cryptocurrencies

Hidden Charges

With so many options available in the eCommerce market today, being sneaky is not the road you want to take. Imagine that you browse for a good looking top and stumble upon an online store that has an adorable collection of tops with a huge variety to choose from. You find yourself a top for $30 and decide to buy it. Tax plus shipping charges and “service charges” bump your grand total to an insane $55! What would you do? Let us guess - like most people, you would abandon the cart. Paying $25 extra for a $30 product makes little sense.

Such hidden charges will give your brand a bad name. Make sure that your selling process doesn’t have hidden charges, it will only drive potential customers away and the chances of them returning are thin.

Slow Website Speed

In this day and age where short attention spans are the norm, expecting people to be patient won’t be wise. A slow website can become frustrating for customers who like to spend time on the website and compare different products before making a purchase. If your website takes a long time to load, think of ways to improve its speed.

We’d recommend you to check out our recent article about 6 Highly Effective Steps to a Successful Online Store where we talk about ways you can improve the loading speed of your website.

Mandatory Signup

Getting customers to create an account on your online store is a great way to share your latest offers with them. It also boosts the chances of them returning to your e-store. But if you make account creation a mandatory step, you can lose a potential customer for no good reason. When a customer buys from your online store and has a great experience, their chances of signing up to your webshop increase. When you provide a hassle-free shopping experience, it is likely that your customers would prefer to buy from you in the future as well. They will keep track of your latest offers too and at that point, you've found yourself a loyal customer.

That’s why never make it a mandatory step for users to sign up. Prompt them for a quick signup where they can refuse and checkout as a guest if they want.

Unclear Return/Refund Policy

Consider adding a clear return/refund policy if your checkout process doesn’t include one. Being unsure of the return/refund policy is another big reason that leads to cart abandonment. Customers tend to be more comfortable in buying from a store they can trust and the best way to gain their trust is by being transparent.

Have a clear return/refund policy because it can bring down your cart abandonment rate drastically.

Unexpected Delivery Times

Nobody likes to wait and your customers aren’t any different. If they see that they will have to wait for their order for 20 days, they will make that purchase from another buyer. You can’t blame them for it either, that’s a very long delivery time.

If your current shipping methods take a long time to deliver packages, it’s time to find a better way to ship. There are plenty of great shipping partners that you can find to make this process swift.

Conclusion

Even though shopping cart abandonment has troubled the world of eCommerce since its inception, it is not rocket science to bring down the cart abandonment rate of your online store. The process is straightforward and is all about identifying the reason why customers aren’t completing their purchases. It’s highly likely that one or all of these 7 reasons are causing this problem and working on it will help you reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Your reason not listed above? Catch up with our eCommerce expert right away to get feedback on your online shop for FREE.