Shopping Cart Abandonment in Ecommerce

An article by Octane Research states that the ‘best in class’ rate for cart abandonment in India is 70-75%. This number indicates the sheer volume of money that businesses are losing out on. Many people who add products to their shopping carts don’t even make it to the payment gateway for ecommerce. Consequently, businesses are losing money from potential sales that are getting abandoned due to technical snags, payment failures, lack of customer interest, and more such reasons. Zaakpay is an innovative solution that reduces the transaction time and increases the transaction rate to bring the cart abandonment rate down. All in all a great payment gateway for ecommerce websites!

What is Shopping Cart Abandonment?

Shopping Cart Abandonment is an issue where a customer is interested in a product on an ecommerce website yet does not purchase it. They add it to their digital shopping cart since they like the product but eventually abandon the purchase. 

Simply put, the customer quits the shopping process before making the payment or completing the purchase. Moreover, it is essential to note that shopping cart abandonment is very different from bounce-offs. Bounce-off is when a customer lands on an online store and leaves the page without browsing. With cart abandonment, shoppers are genuinely interested in but leave the process due to multiple reasons.

Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

Here are the top reasons that drive a customer to abandon their carts while shopping online.

• Mandatory account creation: If the customer is forced to create an account right before the ecommerce payment gateway loads, they are more likely to abandon the shopping. The lack of easy logins through Google or Facebook makes the process more tedious.

• Lack of diversity in payment mode: Customers are likely to get frustrated when the ecommerce payment gateway does not support their preferred mode of payment. For instance, if a person wants to make a payment using their credit card, they will look for businesses that allow credit card payments on their payment gateway. As a result, they start looking for alternate businesses to purchase the product from. 

• Security issues in the payment gateway: When ecommerce websites do not integrate with trusted payment gateways with the latest security certifications, it creates a trust deficit for the customer. Absolute transparency in payment security encourages more transactions.

• Comparing with other businesses: This is the biggest deal-breaker of all time for nearly all businesses. Customers tend to reach the product across several brands to purchase the one that offers the best deal. Most of the time, they add the product to the digital cart of all the businesses for easy comparison with other websites or apps.

• Delay in shipping: The transit time for the product impacts the customer’s decision of purchasing. The customer begins anticipating the product delivery right after making the payment. A faster delivery option, like one or two-day delivery, attracts customers and leads to an increase in impulsive purchases.

• Unclear shipping charges: Most customers are hit with the reality of shipping charges after they add a product to their shopping carts. High shipping costs and a lack of clarity make shoppers move on to other platforms.

• Return policy: The return policy of a business influences the decisions of many customers. When businesses do not endorse a return policy or have unclear rules, customers doubt their shopping decision.

• Higher cost at checkout: If the product’s listed price increases during checkout, customers are likely to abandon the purchase. This usually happens when the businesses hide additional costs like taxes, packaging, and shipping costs and add them up during check out.

How to reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment?

• Exit popups: An exit popup comes up on the screen when a customer attempts to exit out of the website or application instead of proceeding to the ecommerce payment gateway. This recaptures the attention of the user and pushes them to place an order immediately. A well-designed popup can convert a potential sale into a purchase.

• Reminder notifications: While making any purchase, the customer might receive another vital text or call and get busy completely forgetting the products in the cart. Hence, customers can be sent a notification reminding them of the products they were shopping for. However, these reminders should not be too frequent. 

• Offer multiple payment modes: Use a payment gateway that supports all payment modes, giving the customer various options to choose from. Zaakpay offers payment gateway for ecommerce websites and other businesses which is supported with 100+ payment modes to ensure each customer gets to pick a payment option of their choice. 

• Auto-apply discounts: Customers love discounts or rewards while spending online. It makes them see more value for the amount they are spending than shopping offline. Auto-applying the discount coupons or offering free shipping or reward/cashback on the checkout page is a great strategy to direct the users to the ecommerce payment page.

• Create urgency: Customers are more likely to make an immediate purchase if they see an offer expiring in some time. A countdown timer can be put up on the website that reminds the customer about the little time left within which they can get a good discount. A similar strategy can be used to inform the customers about low inventory. 

• Using trusted payment gateways: Customers value security, and lack of it is one of the primary reasons for cart abandonment. Resorting to a trusted payment gateway for ecommerce websites is the key to making customers rely on the business. For all types of businesses, Zaakpay is one such gateway.

• Guest checkouts: Allow customers to make payments and place an order without creating an account or a profile. Thus, customers will not have to go through a long-drawn process of creating a profile to buy a product.

Start Optimizing your store to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

Using payment solutions like a payment gateway is one of the best ways to reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate. Merchants can optimize their websites to have a seamless transition from the ‘Add-to-Cart’ page to the checkout page, followed by the ecommerce payment portal, without redirecting to third-party carriers. 

Zaakpay is one of the best payment gateways for ecommerce websites. It supports all major payment modes, has a high transaction success rate, and easily integrates into any website/app. Once integrated, the merchant account can be activated within one day.

Conclusion

Online cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses. Boosting online conversion rates has been the focus of several businesses. Zaakpay’s online payment gateway can help tackle this problem by allowing instant payments and driving the conversion rate in a cost-effective manner. Zaakpay’s payment gateway is not just a platform that enables accepting payments; it also increases sales by persuading customers to make a purchase.