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High levels of e-commerce shopping cart abandonment revealed

Friday, July 5, 2013 - 10:20 by Graham Miller

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Although retailers are constantly attempting to improve conversion rates, it seems that British consumers are a difficult group to coerce into making a purchase.

The latest report from Cloud.IQ, has found that 70 per cent of people abandon their online shopping cart before completing a transaction, with a variety of explanations given for this significant rate.

Two thousand people were questioned and almost a quarter said that the main reason for their cart abandonment was the lack of an avenue to communicate with the retailer, before committing to a sale.

In fact, many suggested that when they were going to spend a decent amount of money on a product via safe shopping online, they would like to have the option of getting a call from the retailer to discuss any questions they might have.

For transactions worth over  50, this is an increasing expectation and, interestingly, it is amongst younger audiences that this call back option is seen as even more valuable.

Report spokesperson, James Critchley, said that e-commerce outlets needed to improve their channels for consumer communication or else face losing out on sales which would be soaked up by better prepared competitors.

The report found that there is a slight difference between the genders when it comes to card abandonment rates in safe shopping online. The likelihood that a consumer will give up before going through the checkout process is seven per cent higher if they are female.

Other reports have found that consumers are particularly sensitive to the checkout process itself and will be encouraged to purchase products from a particular site, if this is easy and secure.

Brits still spend billions of pounds online, but reducing card abandonment is all about retailers winning customers, not growth in this sector.