« The Mindless PR Tweets of the Twitterati and the Baseless Response by Michael Arrington | Main | AutoTrader.com Sees Another Record Month While American Cars Top Most-Viewed List »
July 6, 2009
High Shipping Costs Top List of Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment
PayPal has released new survey data showing why online consumers leave their shopping carts behind. Survey participants were asked to tell which reasons were "very important" in abandoning their purchases.
- High shipping charges: 46%
- Wanted to comparison shop: 37%
- Lack of money: 36 percent
- Wanted to look for a coupon: 27%
- Wanted to shop offline: 26%
- Couldn't find preferred pay option: 24%
- Item was unavailable at checkout: 23%
- Couldn't find customer support: 22%
- Concerned about security of credit card data: 21%
The price tag associated with the average abandoned shopping cart was $109. That's a number merchants should be concerned about.
"Merchants who don't welcome back abandoners with open arms are leaving hundreds of dollars per shopper on the table," added Davis. "Merchants need to remember the items that customers abandon and make it easy for them to buy when they return. Sweetening the deal with free shipping, coupons and special discounts is also a great way to encourage online shoppers to complete their purchases."
I can attest that exorbitant shipping costs. I was recently shopping online for a certain type of single cup coffee packs. While I found a great price, the shipping costs made the total cost higher than purchasing offline.
You have to make shopping online more appealing than offline if you want shoppers to complete the purchase process. Since shopping online requires people to wait for delivery, price is where you must be competitive.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 6, 2009 4:08 PM
Comments
Shopping Comparison July 7, 2009 12:38 PM
Interesting list... I am surprised – I would have thought the last reason (Concerned about security of credit card data) would be higher. Maybe that’s a positive indicator that online merchants are employing higher levels of security encryption, such as extended validation SSL. Customers certainly respond well to a sites adoption and display of the green url bar.
Jane July 7, 2009 2:42 PM
I think shipping being #1 is correct and comparsion shopping is a big reason people abandon carts. See Ebay (Worlds largest e-commerce site) forces seller to offer free shipping now or pay higher listing and ending value fees. People most likely will go to ebay to comparsion shop. With the sellers giving things way besides free shipping lets say buy this and get free shipping and 10 free batteries makes for a joke. Ebay sellers compete against one another and practically give things away for a sale. This mentality of people making a part time income say 100.00 a month X 25,000 people kills the market. It's way to easy all you need is basic computer skills. Websites take time, HTML and lots of Effort + SEO skills. We earn our money the hard way and feel we deserve to be paid for the products we supply.
Kevin July 21, 2009 5:43 PM
I think about the thing about their concern about security leaks on credit card data is at the bottom of the l;east is because a lot of people still haven't realized the seriousness of credit card disadvantages.
Amanda Rush August 25, 2009 9:15 AM
Q:The top reasons customers are abandoning online shopping carts? Zoomerang did a big online survey. Check the results
Anonymous November 27, 2009 10:15 AM
Q:The top reasons customers are abandoning online shopping carts? Zoomerang did a big online survey. Check the results
Anuruddha November 27, 2009 10:17 AM
Q:The top reasons customers are abandoning online shopping carts? Zoomerang did a big online survey. Check the results
Anuruddha November 27, 2009 10:20 AM
Shopping carts aren't feasible today. Even Ebay is facing problems from store owners. The stability and best price and product option that comparison shopping provides is hard for anyone to resist.