6 reasons for cart abandonment and how to avoid them

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Leonardo is a physical education teacher looking for some sports equipment for his classes. The equipment needs to be durable, have a good quality/price ratio, and meet the necessary technical requirements. It's not an easy purchase, is it?

But that's not a problem. He searches the main websites, asks friends for suggestions, visits physical stores, analyzes prices and brands. Everything is ready. He finally found the best store, with the best benefit. Now all he has to do is pay!

Just pay? Big mistake. After putting his purchases in the cart, Leonardo realized that the products would take TWO MONTHS to arrive at his home. He left. New search. Leonardo was left without his products and the store without another sale.

Cart abandonment
Leonardo may be just one case, but have you ever canada phone number database thought about how many consumers go through the same dilemma every day? And over the course of a year? More importantly, have you ever calculated how much this cancellation impacts your revenue?

This is just one example of how cart abandonment is a problem for an online store. Delayed delivery, however, is not the only reason for cart abandonment.

If you want to find out what the main causes of abandonment are and how to avoid them, just keep reading the article. Always remember: small actions can bring valuable improvements to your business. Shall we continue?

Uncovering the market
Before we talk about the reasons for cart abandonment and how to avoid them, it is necessary to understand a little more about the e-commerce market and what this abandonment can represent in the revenue of an online store.

There are between 12 and 24 million ecommerce sites in the world. In Brazil alone, there are more than 675 thousand active online stores . When we talk about revenue, the number is even more surprising – and the forecasts are increasingly optimistic.

E-commerce will see an increase of at least 3x in total sales in the next seven years. The estimate is that the value will increase from R$50 billion to around R$150 billion per year, and this is just from e-commerce stores.

Regarding online sales, the growth forecast is even greater. By 2040, 95% of all purchases are expected to be made online. To give you an idea, according to PWC, 7 out of 10 Brazilians regularly buy online. Do you realize how much of an opportunity there still is for growth?

While the numbers regarding online sales continue to grow, another number is starting to become worrying for entrepreneurs around the world: cart abandonment.

Cart abandonment by the numbers
According to a survey by Barilliance, the average cart abandonment rate is approximately 70%, which represents almost 4.6 trillion dollars less in revenue every year. In practice, this means that 7 out of every 10 orders in your store are not billed.

When we talk about the number of visitors and conversions, this number is even more frightening. On average, only 2.86% of visits to ecommerce sites are converted into sales.

Cart abandonment and page conversions are closely related. The higher the cart abandonment rate, the lower the conversion rate. As a result, the lower the conversion rate, the lower the revenue. The math seems simple and obvious, doesn’t it? But what are you doing to reduce this number?

Therefore, preventing customers from abandoning a purchase is one of the biggest challenges faced by retailers around the world. And what better way to overcome this problem than by constantly seeking to understand the reasons why consumers do not complete a purchase?

Below, we list the main reasons for purchase abandonment and how to avoid them.

#1 Time to rethink your shopping cart
This point may seem a bit controversial, but the shopping cart can be a conversion villain. When we think about online sales, the image of the shopping cart is the first thing that comes to mind, right? What we forget is that the shopping cart is just the first step in the conventional checkout process!

It works like this: when a customer accesses your website, they first see the offers (or the storefront), go to the shopping cart, and then are directed to the payment area. This means that they have to go through at least 3 different steps before they can complete a purchase.
In an era where speed is a key factor when making a purchase, this high number of steps can be a risk factor. In fact, it can even mean shooting yourself in the foot. And worst of all: if we analyze the numbers, the shopping cart may not even have a reason to exist. Some research on e-commerce in Brazil shows that customers consume on average 1 to 2 items per purchase – this is a behavior that you can confirm by analyzing your own store.

If your average purchase is just one product at a time, have you ever wondered if a shopping cart is really essential? In this article, we talk a little about how a shopping cart can hinder your conversion.

#2 Navigation problems
You've probably visited a website and, when you were directed to checkout, you ended up in a practically Jurassic environment. A website that's very slow to load, pages that show an error message or gigantic checkouts where you can't tell how many steps are left are just a few examples.

With so many barriers and challenges, it’s not hard to see why customers might give up on a purchase, right?

To change this scenario, invest in a payment link that is agile and has few steps to complete the purchase. More than that, always remember to indicate the remaining steps. It is also important to be concerned about the amount of information requested: simple forms filled out only with really necessary information are much more assertive.

Still have questions? In this article, we talk a little about Guru's payment link and how it can boost your conversion rate!

#3 Too many distractions at checkout
You’re filling out the checkout information when suddenly… Poof! A pop-up offering another product. A banner. A drop-down menu. A never-ending timer. These distractions may seem small, but they can make your customer click on an ad or be redirected to another page. And voila! In just a few seconds, you’ve made them forget about their purchase.

To overcome this problem, you must minimize (if possible, eliminate) all possible distractions from your checkout. During the process, simplify the steps as much as possible and remove all points that could make your customer leave the page – the focus is on conversion!

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#4 Inaccurate or incomplete information
The worst thing when making a purchase is putting your products in the cart, spending a few minutes filling in all the information and then realizing that the price, delivery time or shipping cost were not exactly what you wanted.

Think about it for a moment: wouldn’t your conversions increase if your customer could see the full summary of the purchase before completing it? That way, they would know exactly what the costs and deadlines involved during the process were.

Therefore, it is essential that basic information such as delivery, shipping costs and discounts, for example, are clearly displayed at the time of purchase. Hiding this information will not increase your conversions; on the contrary, it will generate more dissatisfaction and antipathy on the part of your potential customers.

#5 Lots of options, little conversion
Many consumers start the buying process on impulse. They visit your page, put a product in their cart, and then, like magic, five more recommended options appear. You already know what happens, don't you? They put all the products in their cart and, when they get to the checkout and check the price, their conscience calls them back to reality and issues the famous warning: "Do I really need this?" Yet another abandoned cart.

You know that saying that checkout is the perfect time to increase the average purchase ticket? Forget that! If your customer accessed the website to buy a single product, they will probably only buy that item.

What usually happens when you offer more options is that your customer is tempted by the offer, but when they put all the items in the cart and see the total price….they GIVE UP ON EVERYTHING!

To try to get around this problem, invest in single-product pages with few options for action other than the purchase button itself. The faster the customer finds the purchase button, the greater the chance of conversion. Not familiar with single-product? In this article, we talk about how this model can be a great ally in your conversions.

#6 Few payment options
There is no shortage of payment options when it comes to online shopping! Nowadays, there is no shortage of options for credit and debit cards, bank slips, integration with banks or even intermediaries such as PayPal and PagSeguro, among others.

If your e-commerce site offers few payment solutions or if the consumer cannot find their preferred one, they may end up choosing to make the purchase in another store. Therefore, opt for a complete payment solution that is flexible and offers several payment options.

In this article , you will learn how to integrate your checkout with Guru to ensure more payment options for your customers as well as a unified view of your sales.