Will Ramos· Author
There’s nothing more disappointing for an ecommerce business than experiencing online shopper abandonment. And it’s frustrating because there can be so many potential reasons for high abandonment rates.
Keep reading to learn about the four types of online shopper abandonment, why they’re happening, and how to lower them.
Website Abandonment Rate
Website abandonment is when visitors go to a website and leave without doing the desired action of the website owner. This can occur at any point within the customer journey.
How to Calculate Website Abandonment Rate
To calculate your website abandonment rate, take the number of visitors who abandoned and divide it by the total number of website visitors. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
Website Abandonment Rate (%) = [(Number of Visitors Who Abandoned) / (Total Number of Website Visitors)] x 100
While there isn’t any hard data that determines what a good website abandonment rate is, the lower the better! This metric is most helpful when used as a benchmark.
Why Website Abandonment Happens and How to Prevent It
The top three reasons a person will abandon a website are:
- Slow load times
- Poor site design
- Difficult navigation
Improve Load Times
Load times are crucial for any ecommerce site — 40% of people will quit a site if it hasn’t loaded after three seconds.
You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to get a better idea of your website’s speed. If you do have slow speeds, here are a few easy ways to improve load times:
- Compress images
- Reduce redirects
- Cache web pages
- Minimize plug-ins
Create Better Site Design
First impressions matter, and it’s no different for websites. Around 38% of web designers believe people leave a website due to outdated designs.
You can improve the look of your website by:
- Utilizing white space
- Implementing buttons for CTAs
- Choosing colors carefully
- Breaking up text through bullet points
- Using images
- Being consistent with colors, fonts, and images
Make Navigation Easier
No one wants to spend time on a website that’s hard to use, which is why 42% of people surveyed about website design said they “would leave a website because of poor functionality.” To make your website easier to use, you could:
- Use visuals to help visitors through their journey
- Have a search feature
- Offer categories for visitors to choose from
- Ensure your site is mobile-friendly
2. Webpage Abandonment Rate
Page abandonment occurs when people arrive on a specific page within a website yet leave before performing a desired action.
How to Calculate Webpage Abandonment Rate
Take the number of visitors who abandoned the webpage and divide it by the total number of visitors. Then, multiply that number by 100 to acquire the abandonment rate.
Webpage Abandonment Rate (%) = [(Number of Visitors Who Abandoned) / (Total Number of Webpage Visitors)] x 100
While there isn’t any hard data that determines what a good website abandonment rate is, the lower the better! This metric is most helpful when used as a benchmark.
Why Webpage Abandonment Happens, and How to Fix
Visitors may leave a page because it doesn’t meet their expectations, has no value proposition, or is too disorganized.
You can lower webpage abandonment:
- Make your messaging clear. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Bullet points are your friend.
- Offer reviews and clear pictures of products. Ensure reviews are genuine and photos are high quality.
- Keep the page simple but beautiful. No one wants to spend time on a disorganized, cluttered page.
3. Web Form Abandonment Rate
Web form abandonment happens when someone starts a form but leaves before finishing it. It’s sadly common — 67% of people abandon a form if they come across any type of complication.
How to Calculate Web Form Abandonment Rate
To find your web form abandonment rate, divide the number of visitors who abandoned the form by the total number of visitors. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
Web Form Abandonment Rate (%) = [(Number of Visitors Who Abandoned) / (Total Number of Web from Visitors)] x 100
What a good web form abandonment rate is varies by industry, but 40% is a worthy goal.
Why Web Form Abandonment Happens, and How to Prevent It
There are many reasons why web form abandonment happens, but the main three ones are:
- Complicated or lengthy forms
- Privacy concerns
- Lack of value
Simplify Web Forms
No one wants to spend a lot of time filling out forms. Whether it’s a form with too many pages or full of confusing or redundant questions, you’re going to see a lot of form abandonment.
But there is a way to fix that — by keeping your forms short and simple. Before having a form go live, ask someone you trust to look over the form to ensure it’s easy to understand.
Preemptively Address Privacy Concerns
Trust is crucial with web forms because people are concerned about data breaches, which makes people hesitant to share information with ecommerce companies.
Add an SSL certificate to your site to show visitors you can be trusted. You should also display your privacy policy in simple terms on your forms.
Provide Value Quickly
Why should someone spend their precious time filling out your form? To keep people from abandoning halfway through, you need to provide a reason for them to finish it. This can be something as simple as a discount.
4. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
Shopping cart abandonment is when someone puts products in their cart and then walks away before purchasing.
How to Calculate Cart Abandonment Rate
To calculate shopping cart abandonment rate, take the number of completed purchases and divide it by the total number of carts made. Then, multiply that number by 100 to acquire the percentage.
Cart Abandonment Rate (%) = [(Number of Completed Purchases) / (Total Number of Carts Made)] x 100
The average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%.
Why Shopping Cart Abandonment Happens, and How to Prevent It
There are many reasons a person abandons their cart, but the top three reasons people abandon their cart during checkout are:
- Extra costs too high (47%)
- Need to create an account (25%)
- Delivery too slow (24%)
Other reasons include:
- Adding things to the cart just to calculate total costs
- Changed their mind
- Lack of shipping options
- Lack of payment options
- Poor return policy
You can reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate by taking these steps to improve and augment the checkout process:
Offer Free Shipping
As an ecommerce business, there are margins to consider — yet there is a way to offer free shipping without losing profits. You can offer free shipping if the person spends a specific amount of money. Not only will this help with margins, but it may encourage customers to buy more because they dislike shipping costs.
You could also focus exclusively on customers who left their cart, and send them a follow-up email with a free shipping promo code. This will limit the amount of free shipping you offer while reducing cart abandonment.
Provide Multiple Payment Options
Everyone has preferred payment methods. It’s important to cater to those preferences. Having the most popular payment methods available adds subconscious credibility to your store.
Popular payment methods include:
- Amazon Pay
- Apple Pay
- Square
- Google Pay
- PayPal
- Stripe
Create a Guest Checkout Option
If someone is buying from you for the first time, they may not be interested in creating an account with you. Adding time to the checkout process by forcing customers to create an account might cause you to lose customers. Consider offering Guest Checkout.
Conducting Surveys to Analyze Abandonment Rates
While there are many reasons for various abandonment rates, how will you know the reason(s) your particular customers are leaving? Are your customers more concerned about user experience or how your site looks? Is free shipping more important than payment methods?
Easy customer surveys are a great way to get your customers’ thoughts. Creating a survey with questions about specific aspects of your website will help you refine it for the future and decrease abandonment rates.
Let Bizrate Insights Help You Understand Your Customers
We understand the value of learning what customers think about businesses — so we’ve created a platform that allows easy, continuous monitoring. Learn where and why people abandon your site with the Bizrate Insights platform.
If you’re curious about what we can do, contact our team or read a case study about one of our clients who had site abandonment rate problems.
