Why 68% of Users Abandon their Cart (2023/24 data) 

 According to Baymard Institute the average cart abandonment rate currently sits at 68.8%. A large portion of cart abandonments, 42.5%, are simply a natural consequence of how users browse e-commerce sites and are largely unavoidable for example, “I was just browsing / not ready to buy”. However more than half of the shoppers in the study listed reasons and issues that can be easily resolved as we can see in the table below.

We have taken a look at some of these issues the Baymard Institute identified and offer a few simple suggestions to prevent cart abandonment.

1.   “Seamless and Easy” - use fewer forms fields and mark clearly both the required fields and the optional fields. The study revealed the ideal checkout should contain about 12 form elements (7 form fields, 2 checkboxes, 2 drop-downs, and 1 radio button interface). 

 2.   Trust signals - such as SSL certificates - users tend to rely on a gut feeling on   security so make sure security is visually clear.

 3.  User reviews -  are an essential part of the decision making process. In Baymard’s product rating research studies up to 95% of subjects relied on reviews to evaluate or learn more about the product. 

4. Optimise for mobile -  check the user experience, layout, good image quality (but optimise load times) and the ability to zoom-in is important. The form should fit all on one page on mobile. Streamline mobile payment - too many choices on a mobile device leads to confusion

 5.  Delivery options - users need to know how and when their purchase will be delivered  at the beginning of the payment process

6.  Offer a Guest check out - this is a personal must !

7. Poorly performing autocomplete fields -  causing frustration

8. Creating clear product descriptions; product format and dimensions, short description, book reviews, genre categories, choose keywords that resonate with your audience.

9. Beware of coupon fields as it may make some purchasers believe they are overpaying. Collapse the Promo code field.

‍

‍

10. Have the shipping Info and Return Policy in the footer of your site. 11% of buyers have told us they’ve abandoned orders within because they weren’t happy with the return policy of the site. 

11. Must have features - ‘Back button’, ‘Continue shopping’, ‘Easy to remove item(s) from basket’

12. Creating an account - We all want to collect as much customer data as possible to build an active engaged community. However it can be off-putting to some customers to be required to sign up to an account. You might offer an account sign up after the purchase or offer a reward to sign up or show some of the benefits of being part of your community.

13. Website features to drive conversions: 

1. Product details pages with a sampler, enriched book information, author bios, series information.
2. Website search & general navigation with a full set of categories, genres, formats for easy browsing as well as multiple search result formats to refine and optimise search results. This is particularly important on mobile, when people are dealing with smaller screens and often want to see a smaller subset of product options

In summary Baymard found 22% of US online shoppers left their cart in the past quarter due to a “too long / complicated checkout process”. Following the tips noted here and some UX/design improvements to the checkout process, including page layout, addition of simple form features, and improving microcopy are some low cost fixes that will help publishers achieve more sales. 

‍

Please contact us for more information - info@supadu.com

You can learn more about getting full access to the study at: baymard.com/research/checkout-usability

‍