In a previous post, Common Reasons for eCommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment, we pointed out that shopping cart abandonment averages as high 78 percent. However, a recent study by McAfee has found that nearly two-thirds (65%) of online shoppers who abandon their carts come back within a day or more to complete the purchase.
McAfee’s study of more than 150 million online transactions indentified the following reasons why online shoppers often delay purchases after placing items in their shopping carts:
- Brand Recognition: Well-known brands experience shorter purchase delays than lesser-known brands since shoppers will often research lesser-known brands before making a purchase.
- Competition: If items being sold are in a highly competitive market, it will take more time for shoppers to come back and complete the purchase since they want to shop around before finalizing their order. On the other hand, items that are unique or harder to find will experience quicker order completions.
- Information Gathering: Online shoppers often add items to the shopping cart so they can easily purchase them later if they want and also to find out what’s required from them in the checkout process.
- Price: Higher priced items will usually take longer to lead to a completed order since shoppers will often want to think more before committing to making an expensive online purchase.
Although the information found by McAfee is highly insightful, online retailers should study their own abandonment and conversion numbers very closely – and not simply hope shoppers that abandon their carts will come back. In other words, you should always be looking for improvements to your site’s content and offerings to reduce your cart abandonment rate.
When was the last time you analyzed your site’s cart abandonment and conversion rates? With the holiday shopping season literally around the corner, this is information you should be looking at and taking action on immediately.
EPORIA eCommerce Solutions 