You don’t see abandoned shopping carts in the aisles of your local grocery store, so what is it about the.
online shopping experience that leads to cart abandonment?
Answering this question is the holy grail of e-commerce conversion rates. To help our clients get a little
closer to the answer, we surveyed 753 frequent online consumers from both Canada and the US who recently
proceeded to the checkout stage but failed to complete the transaction.
We’ve summarized three of the major findings from our survey below, and coupled them with some recommendations
on how you might improve your online customer experience.
1 Not Enough Information
Shoppers often visit a website to get information about a product or service they are
considering purchasing. This includes everything from product specifications to prices to
delivery times. And when they can’t find the information they need to make an informed
purchase decision, they don’t buy.
Getting hit with a shipping charge at the end of a shopping experience is a very significant
stumbling block when it comes to completing online transactions. Almost 60% of
respondents said that higher than anticipated shipping costs were “very important” or
“important” reasons for not completing their transactions, with over 24% reporting that
higher than expected shipping costs were directly responsible for abandonment.
But the quest for information may impact shopping cart abandonment in a way you may not have
considered.
When asked what the primary reason for clicking the “checkout” button in a purchase that wasn’t
completed, an astounding 45.9% of respondents said they did it to gather information that was not
provided previously.

What to Do

So how do you prevent shoppers from using their carts as a research tool? By being as transparent as
possible. It is critical to provide information like the total cost of the order, shipping costs, and estimated
delivery date before the checkout process begins.

2 Higher Than Expected Shipping Costs.
Getting hit with a shipping charge at the end of a shopping experience is a very significant
stumbling block when it comes to completing online transactions. Almost 60% of
respondents said that higher than anticipated shipping costs were “very important” or
“important” reasons for not completing their transactions, with over 24% reporting that
higher than expected shipping costs were directly responsible for abandonment.

What to Do
Identifying what the shipping charges are before the checkout process begins is critical for online
consumers. In fact, 43% of those we talked to cited this as the number one service online businesses
could add to facilitate purchases. You may want to consider the following:
• present various shipping options and let your customers choose how they wish to have the
product shipped, select the speed of the shipping service and ultimately decide what price
they are willing to pay,
–or–
• test free or special shipping offers such as “free shipping if you spend $50” for a short
period of time and determine if a lift in your sales offsets the shipping costs that you
would absorb.

3 Not the Right Payment Method
If your customers can’t pay for items you have for sale using a payment method they feel
comfortable with, or if they don’t feel that their payment transaction is safe and secure,
they aren’t going to buy. Almost 18% of those consumers we spoke to told us that providing
payment methods other than credit cards would be the single biggest thing they could
do to facilitate purchase. In fact, 17% of respondents said that not having their preferred method of
payment available was directly responsible for abandonment. On top of that, 32.5% of those surveyed
said that they simply weren’t comfortable giving out their credit or debit card numbers over the Internet.
What to Do
Offer your customers a range of payment options, including those that don’t require entering credit
card or bank account information. It is also critical to create a secure payment environment for your
customers and communicate the steps you have taken to protect them. Furthermore, ensure that
you adhere to international PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards. This is one of the best ways to
reassure your customers that you are protecting their privacy and their sensitive financial information.