Add. Leave. Repeat.

The majority of people in today’s economy have window shopped online at one time or another. Whether for price comparison or something specific, they can’t find it locally. But, have you ever placed items in your cart and then left, and did that over and over again – and never go back to purchase the item?

E-commerce Companies Call This Shopping Cart Abandonment

E-Commerce Shopping Cart Facts

This is a common problem with E-commerce websites all over the world. Many systems will hold the product for a specific time frame, others won’t, and if they are sold out when you come back, you are out of luck. When you refresh that page, the price will refresh, as will the availability. It is said by 10 various companies that shopping cart abandonment can range from 50% -73%…That is a huge percentage of customers leaving their goods behind. Why?

The reason behind it? They want to save it for later, so they don’t have to search the site when they come back – if they come back. But I am guilty of this practice as well. Who wants to go through and find the product when you’ve already done all of the research? It is easy just to add it to the cart and come back when it is convenient. Either way, this can affect statistics and stock management for companies that have that option.

For anyone who has ordered concert tickets and wants to get the perfect seat, you are given a timer because they only hold tickets for a very limited time, normally under 10 minutes or less.

Other Common Reasons that Carts get Abandoned

Complex Checkout Process
- If the process takes too long to make the purchase, most people will abandon the cart due to it being too time consuming. Always make sure that your e-commerce site has a simple checkout without too many hoops to jump through to avoid this.
The item or Shipping Cost is too High.
- If users get to the checkout and get hit with more fees than they were expecting, they tend to abandon the cart. They might be waiting for a coupon or a sale, but that’s not always something that you remember to get back to, or they may just get it from another online store. You can send out coupons or offer deals if this seems to be a common occurrence, or take a look at your competitor’s pricing.
Technical Issues
- It could be something small, like a long load time, or it could be that there is a bug and the checkout doesn’t work as it should. These issues will make people jump ship and find another platform to buy from. Be sure to keep an eye on that if you notice that shopping carts are getting abandoned more than usual.

If you start seeing that a lot of people have been abandoning their carts go through your site with an outside perspective to see what the issue could be. You don’t want your site to have an issue that you are unaware of for too long.