“How these little abandonments seem to sting so easily,” singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette sang back in 2005, as if to predict the bane of marketers’ feelings about shopping cart abandonment today. According to website development firm, Growcode, nearly seven out of ten online shoppers place a product in a shopping cart but end up going to another site to make their purchase.
The actual percentage is 68 percent for PC users and climbs to 78 percent on mobile devices according to Growcode. The reason for abandonment? The primary one cited is usability. One of the biggest culprits lies in the fact that many sites are still designed for user laptops. Mobile users’ fingers aren’t as agile as a laptop mouse and lead to unfinished transactions.
Navigational challenges also ranked high on the list of user frustration. Consumers who have to repeatedly tap a button or search for the checkout aren’t likely to remain long on a site even after intending to make a purchase.
Growcode also noted that many users wish to complete their purchases quickly and become frustrated when they get hung up on a site. They also said sites where correcting shopping errors becomes tedious also cause lots of angst and bailouts.
Other reasons cited for abandonment included concerns about payment security, slowness or delays in the checkout process, the absence of coupons or discounts, and the lack of shipping information before checking out.
What to do
Clearly, a main goal would be to ensure that sites are mobile friendly. But, this also includes creating a checkout form that’s mobile-friendly. Keep in mind that mobile users can lose up to half their screen while completing forms compared to laptops. Fields must be developed with mobile in mind.
For that same reason, progress bars are extremely handy for mobile users. Mobile users who are aware of how many more steps are needed generally display more patience and complete the sale. Three-quarters of those surveyed by Growcode said they would welcome some form of progress bar.
According to a survey by Kissmetrics, a delay of even one second can reduce conversions by 7 percent. Mobile users expect even more speed than they receive on their laptops. As many as 40 percent will bail out if it takes more than three seconds for a page to load, said the data analytics firm. Marketers must ensure that their platforms operate efficiently and speedily. Improve the checkout journey by reducing or removing unnecessary parts like social scripts and graphic elements. Photos of brands are critical to consumers but can consume lots of time loading so utilize web-ready compression for photos.
Also be sure to check out Google’s PageSpeedInsights. Not only will it test load times for both laptop and mobile, it will also recommend remedies to improve load issues and page speeds.
Consider this
For sites generating $100,000 in daily sales, annual sales revenue could experience a loss of $2.5 million because of just a one second loading delay according to Kissmetrics.
