How to reduce the number of abandoned baskets in online shop

opuštěné internetové objednávky

Abandoned carts are unfinished transactions. It’s not a rare situation where customer was going to pay for the purchase, but eventually changed his/her mind or something prevented him/her from doing so. This phenomenon is not an exception: it occurs in every shop – statistically, it is almost 2/3 of online purchases! If the number of abandoned baskets is this high, or even higher, it’s worth taking a closer look at this phenomenon and considering how to change it.

Why are customers abandoning their purchases?

First it’s worth calculating what percentage of people interested in the offer end up completing their purchases, and what percentage abandon their baskets. If this figure exceeds 60%, it’s best to analyse the situation. Shoppers are most likely to abandon their purchases for the following reasons:

  • High delivery charges – when the cost of the order is not too high, customers are usually discouraged by the high delivery charges. Also, customers don’t like hidden costs that they find out about just before they make the transfer. Everything about costs should be simple and straightforward. It is worth cooperating with several courier companies that offer different costs and different delivery speeds. Fast last-minute delivery is also a good idea for people who will be able to pay more to receive their parcel the next day;
  • the need to register an account – many customers do not want to create an account with online shops because it involves spending more time, activating a new account, providing confidential data and receiving future advertising and newsletters that are irrelevant. For this reason, customers should be allowed to make purchases without registering an account;
  • mistrust – if the website looks unprofessional, there are no product reviews from existing customers and the company cannot be found in a search engine – potential customers smell fraud. For this reason, it is worth investing in a professional, responsive website or solutions such as e-commerce advertising;
  • complicated buying process – it has been proven that if it takes more than five steps to complete an order, the customer gets angry;
  • inability to edit the shopping cart – if customers add the wrong number of items to the cart and can’t change it quickly, they are likely to abandon the cart or not order in the future.
Abandoned shopping cart

What changes should I make to my online shop?

Now that you know what might be causing abandonment, it is worth considering what you could change in your shop so that users stop abandoning their shopping carts. It is worthwhile using marketing reports or programs to track customers’ actions on your site (where they stay longer, what interests them the most, etc.).

It is important to determine at what point users abandon their purchases. If the price of the product is very high, it would be a good idea to introduce free shipping or free delivery from a certain amount. It is also worth offering discounts, including for the first order – it is more likely that the customer will not abandon the cart and will come back for more products in the future.

You should also analyse how the website works – products may be difficult to find, there are no more precise categories, or subpages are not linked to the main menu. The operation of the online shop should be intuitive. Additionally, it is worth introducing several payment methods and working with at least a few courier companies.

The website should have an SSL certificate, which protects customer data and inspires trust. It is not possible to recover abandoned shopping carts, but this can be prevented in the future by using several solutions, for example by preparing an FAQ, a hotline and chatbots, so that the customer can quickly find a solution to their problem rather than abandoning their purchases.