Fighting Cart Abandonment: Is Price The Big Problem?

Online retailers, mobile and otherwise, have long had a problem with shopping cart abandonment. Trying to fix this problem is easily one of the top priorities of any online retailer.

A new report, meanwhile, suggests that the problem could be simpler—and more difficult to fix—than anyone expected: the cart’s contents may be too expensive by the time it’s all said and done.

It’s not just a matter of the items in the cart being too expensive, reports note—although that is a component of what’s wrong—it’s also a matter of the whole order being too expensive thanks in part to shipping costs. Eighty-six percent of respondents noted that the cost of shipping was the problem that led to an abandoned cart, while 72 percent considered the total order just too expensive to carry on.

Naturally, other reasons were involved; the difficulty of returns, issues of security in the payment system, and lack of payment options. Further study from BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s analyst arm, discovered that the lion’s share of cart abandonments—46.1 percent—take place at the payment portion.

Checkout login accounts for the next largest, at 37.4 percent, followed by the point where shipping costs become clear. Meanwhile, 20.9 percent left the process at the point of entering the billing address, and another 20 percent left at the entry point for shipping and delivery addresses.

That’s led to a lot of abandonment; around $4 trillion in merchandise was straight-up abandoned just in 2014, and most of that abandonment came down to price. I know I’ve been on that end of things more than once; I’ve ordered a pack of used DVDs only to discover that the price almost doubles by the time shipping is factored in unless I shop at specific vendors. It’s a point that makes the used DVD store not too far from my house look much more attractive, which may help other brick-and-mortar vendors.

Shipping costs are hard to beat; they’re generally decided by other firms and thus out of the shipper’s control. If drone delivery systems ever get out of the FAA’s clutches, maybe we can see some improvement on that front. Until then, $4 trillion in goods may be left hostage to cart abandonment every year.