Shopping Cart Abandonment Due To Hidden Surprises
from the increasing-transaction-costs dept
E-commerce companies like to hide the “bad news” about shipping costs or time to delivery, so they don’t tell you until the very end of the process. Either that, or they’re so focused on getting all your personal info into a marketing database that they suddenly bombard you with page after page of questions about yourself before you can actually buy. These types of last minute “surprises” are the biggest contributing factor to online shoppers abandoning their virtual shopping cart and buying the product somewhere else. They’re all pretty short-sighted moves by the e-commerce providers. Getting someone to purchase successfully is the only way to make a good impression that will bring people back to your site. By making that process harder, they’re doing more harm to themselves. At the same time, I do have one nitpick on the study’s findings. They claim that abandoned shopping carts represent “$63 billion in losses”. These aren’t losses – since the person never actually bought anything. Also, in most cases, if the buyer really wants the product, they probably went elsewhere and bought it. It’s not a “loss”, but a shift in where the money goes.
Comments on “Shopping Cart Abandonment Due To Hidden Surprises”
Losses vs Lost Sale
At the same time, I do have one nitpick on the study’s findings. They claim that abandoned shopping carts represent “$63 billion in losses”. These aren’t losses – since the person never actually bought anything.
I agree, but to nitpick your nitpick, I think it would have been better for them to say “lost sale.” As much as I hate that phrase (because it is treated as though it is a bad thing, when in fact, it may be a good thing,) the sale was lost as the person decided to go elsewhere, and that is $63 million that they could have made if they didn’t turn the customers away.
Losses are due to theft, damage, and misplacement, and they are taken out of taxes a company has to pay the government. A lost sale, on the other hand, doesn’t get taken out of taxes (though I am sure most of the unethical business folks would love to claim them as losses against the company, but the IRS would disagree.)
No Subject Given
I agree completly – if I can’t get a shipping and tax inclusive price before entering my credit card details, I’m outta there!
I especially hate sites where you have to register before you can even add stuff to your cart!
Office Depot has the worst shopping cart – you don’t even get a price or stock level until you enter your Zip (Amazon does this sometimes too).
Re: They honestly don't know
Office Depot and similar stores ship from local warehouses. Sometimes prices are set regionally. They really can’t tell you a stock status, or sometimes a price, until they know where you are. They are not going to ship something across the country free if it’s in one warehouse but not another.
fictitious loss figures
They claim that abandoned shopping carts represent “$63 billion in losses”.
I’m guessing that they’re counting the same users multiple times, because people try several times before giving up in disgust. They may also be counting users who check multiple sites for competitive prices. Even if these people do end up buying from one of the sites, this study may count all the others as “losses”.
Re: fictitious loss figures
I’m guessing that they’re counting the same users multiple times, because people try several times before giving up in disgust.
According to the article, the survey was of consumers, not of the companies they purchased from, so the multiple times and competitive prices aren’t even part of the scope of the survey.
Apparently 35% of those asked as to whether they stopped using a site because it had these added surprises said that they would. The article, however, seems to have a flaw as they say that 17% said there wasn’t enough information to buy online, and 14% said they gave up and went to a brick-and-mortor store…this is the confusing part as there is nothing said as to whether the 17% and 14% were of the original 35%, or whether they were an additional 31% who stopped shopping online…
My reasons...
1. Shipping / handling price is ridiculously high.
2. Adding up several items to see how much it would all cost together by using a cart (too much, OK, just forget it).
3. Amazon makes you add items to a cart just to see the price. I’ve left Amazon carts abandoned a lot.