The Top 10 reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment and Top 10 rules for eRetail success

February 4th, 2002
Vividence corporation released a "Holiday Readiness 2001" report aimed at eRetail.

Among the findings of this report:

The 10 top Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

1. High shipping prices (72%)
2. Comparison shopping or browsing (61%)
3. Changed mind (56%)
4. Saving items for later purchase (51%)
5. Total cost of items is too high (43%)
6. Checkout process is too long (41%)
7. Checkout requires too much personal information (35%)
8. Site requires registration before purchase (34%)
9. Site is unstable or unreliable (31%)
10. Checkout process is confusing (27%)

The Top 10 Rules for eRetail Success

1. Save customer shopping carts for later visits.

Customers do return later to purchase items "abandoned" in their cart. Make it easy for them by keeping their cart items for 30 days or more.

2. Offer a promotion or incentive to purchase.

Promotions or deals act as a differentiator between sites. Offering free shipping will address the most common purchase influencer.

3. Show shipping prices early.

Customers prefer choosing shipping options and seeing shipping prices in the shopping cart (82%).

4. Make site registration optional.

Customers are more likely to abandon their cart if registration is required (52%).

5. Consider a charitable donation tie-in.

Customers are increasingly interested in donating to charity (69%). Sites that contribute in some way will engender customer good will.

6. Keep products in stock.

Out of stock products are frustrating to customers, especially when notification is delayed until the user places the item into their shopping cart.

7. Provide order tracking.

Customers want to reduce uncertainty about delivery time by tracking their orders. This will also reduce calls to customer service.

8. Shorten the checkout process.

Customers prefer entry fields on one screen vs. multiple screens (60%).

9. Be clear about delivery time.

Customers want to know when their items will arrive.

10. Provide paper gift certificates.

Gift certificates can influence purchase (34%) and customers tend to prefer paper to email gift certificates (36%).

Source: Vividence