Written by Cart abandonment! This happens when visitors to an e-commerce website (or online store) add products to their shopping cart but don’t complete the purchase and leave the site abruptly.
Can you guess what’s the average cart abandonment rate in the e-commerce sector? 10 percent? 20 percent? 30 percent? As per a Baymard Institute study, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19 percent!
It’s distressing, isn’t it? Distressing would be an understatement. Be it a convenience store or a supermarket, nowhere else you will find that seven out of every ten visitors abandoning their carts and walking out of stores so casually.
But why does that happen in e-commerce websites? Is it because online shoppers often end up adding products to their cart and find that they’re getting better deals elsewhere? Or are there some other factors involved?
The former situation is not untenable, but it’s extremely rare. If visitors to different e-commerce websites are on lookout for the best deals, why would they select items and put those in their carts before finding the best deals?
But those who leave before making a purchase do so because they face genuine problems and couldn’t find the right assistance at the right time.
“Right assistance at the right time.” That’s what makes all the difference between a successful sale and an unsuccessful one. It also makes the difference between a delighted customer who’s more likely to return and a frustrated prospect who’s never ever going to visit the website.
In this blog post we will try to understand the different reasons behind cart abandonment and how omnichannel communication can reduce it by providing the right assistance in the nick of time.
Why Cart Abandonment Happens in E-commerce Companies
Cart abandonment is a real issue in the e-commerce sector. It happens due to several reasons such as:
1. Unclear Communication
Unclear communication alludes to anything that keeps visitors in the dark without giving them the crucial information at the outset.
For instance, high shipping charges, high delivery charges, taxes, and other miscellaneous fees are examples of unclear communication. As per Baymard Institute study, it’s the most common reason behind cart abandonment.
2. Lack of Proper Assistance
As discussed earlier, right assistance at the right time can be a game changer for e-commerce companies.
Unlike their brick-and-mortar counterparts, online stores cannot employ live staff to help visitors. That becomes a problem during critical situations. When visitors don’t get the right assistance at the right time, they abandon their carts.
3. Extra Costs
As per Baymard Institute study, 48 percent of visitors who abandoned their carts did so due to high extra costs in the form of delivery charge, taxes, and other fees. Additional costs can be a real deal breaker in the e-commerce sector.
When customers add some products thinking they are getting the best deals and find out later that they will eventually have to pay a higher price on their purchase, they don’t hesitate to leave the site at the drop of a hat.
4. Billing and Payment Issues
As per the study conducted by Baymard Institute, one in every five visitors abandoned their carts because they couldn’t view or calculate their total order cost up-front.
Apart from that, 13 percent of visitors abandoned their carts due to inadequate payment methods while nine percent of respondents left due to declined credit cards.
5. Complex Checkout Processes
Just imagine you have loaded your online shopping cart with your choicest products and you can wait to make the payment and checkout.
But the checkout process is so complex that you cannot make any progress. What would you do? That’s right, you will have no option other than leaving without completing the purchase.
6. Website Issues and Poor UX
It’s not uncommon to find some e-commerce websites crash or show errors just as visitors are about to make the payment. That can be extremely frustrating!
It will cause many visitors to leave without them bothering to reload the page. Poor user experience is another major culprit behind cart abandonment.
7. Failure to Remember Passwords
Yes, some customers abandon their carts because after filling it and going to payment, the website or app asks for their passwords even if they are logged in and they no longer remember it.
As per a study, a third of respondents had to abandon their carts because they forgot their password. In such cases, the option to change their passwords must be available.
Role of Omnichannel Communication in Reducing Cart Abandonment
As discussed above, the lack of proper communication as well as the lack of right assistance at the right time can be a major reason behind cart abandonment. However, by streamlining communication and providing the much needed help just at the nick of time, omnichannel communication can be a panacea for high cart abandonment rate by the following ways:
1. 100% Calls Answered, Anytime of Day
Just put yourself in the shoes of a customer who faces difficulty with checkout or wants to get billing and payment issues sorted. You call the customer care number and if your call is answered promptly and the agent provides you with the right solutions, then you will have no problem completing the purchase.
That’s the beauty of omnichannel communication! Omnichannel solutions are adept at receiving all incoming calls irrespective of the time.
2. AI-Powered Chatbots
Won’t it be better for e-commerce companies to provide live chat support on their website itself so that whenever visitors face any issue, they can get those sorted without leaving the site? It certainly would.
Besides, finding the customer care number, typing it on the phone and waiting for the call to be picked up by a live agent could be time consuming. AI-driven chatbots can prove to be extremely useful in providing timely support.
3. SMS and Email Support
Short Messaging Service (SMS) and emails are extremely important in e-commerce. We have already discussed how failure to remember passwords is one of the major reasons behind cart abandonment.
Customers who fail to remember their passwords can request for new passwords, which are sent to them via their email id or text messages. They can reset their passwords after opening the email or text message. SMS and emails can also be used to send reminder messages.
4. Self-Service Options
Omnichannel communication systems also offer a wide array of self-service options to visitors to e-commerce websites.
When visitors face any minor issues, they can easily resolve those by themselves without having to speak with a customer service representative. They can access various resources such as frequently asked questions (FAQs) and more.
Summing Up,
With high cart abandonment rate becoming a major cause of concern for so many e-commerce companies, transparent communication and seamless customer service is the only solution.
Online retailers can prevent their customers and website visitors from abandoning their carts by leveraging sophisticated omnichannel communication systems.
If you are an e-commerce website owner or you work in an online store as a senior professional, you must do whatever it takes to handpick the right omnichannel contact center solutions for your organization.
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