The Top 3 Reasons Why Visitors Abandon Without Purchase

It is a misconception in the e-commerce industry that if the website’s design is good, then customers will buy their products. We are not saying that a good design won’t attract customers, but it is definitely not ‘the only reason for customers to buy products. Because if it is, then how can one explain that 69.57 percent of customers abandon their cart at the last minute (Source: Baymard Institute)? In fact, according to Forrester Research, the e-commerce industry loses nearly 18 billion every year due to card abandonment. So, let us look at the top 3 reasons visitors abandon shopping without any purchase and the solution to avoid it. 

Reasons Why Visitors Abandon Without Purchase

1. Difficulty in Finding the Right Product

Every organization tries its best to sell as many products as it can. For this, they keep including new products every day on their website in the hope that customers will find what they are looking for. But, if the data is not synchronized, then more often than not, customers find it challenging to come across the product they were looking for. Sometimes, the customers have to scroll through tens of pages to find the product they are looking for. 

To avoid this, an organization should use the new AI tools such as a recommendation engine that clusters all the products together and makes it easier for any customer to find the product they were looking for. The recommendation engine uses the metadata of products such as ‘classification’, ‘color’, and ‘price’. Apart from this, recommendation engines also store the information of customers on the website and analyze their likes and dislikes and their browsing history to recommend them the relevant products. This makes it easier for the customers to find the right product and also helps in increasing the revenue of organizations. 

2. Unexpected Shipping Charges

A lot of times, customers face the issue of hidden charges at the time of checkout, which is why they opt for abandoning the cart. Shipping charges are hidden charges that customers face while buying some product. If the shipping charge is a reasonable amount, then no customers mind paying it; but there are some organizations that charge a lot for shipping charges. 

This can be avoided by letting the customer know beforehand what the shipping charges are, for example, showing the cart after every product the customer adds. Also, organizations can also opt for ‘no shipping charges with X amount’ – shipping charges are necessary, but there is a way to waive it off by luring customers with discounts and coupons. A lot of existing e-commerce companies follow this method of waiving shipping charges if the customers shop for an ‘x’ amount. 

3. Conducting Research

It is a sad reality for the e-commerce sector that a lot of times, customers only browse through the website to do research. It is only rare that a customer will buy anything at one go. Usually, customers will browse through various e-commerce websites to check and compare the prices of a product. They also sometimes wait for discounts during the festival season. 

The best way to avoid this is by integrating a recommendation engine with e-commerce websites. So, even if a customer is doing some research, you can track their whereabouts and then offer them relevant discounts or simply help them in saving their search for later use. In both cases, the customer is more likely to stick with your website rather than shift to something else. 

Conclusion

There are many reasons that a customer abandons the cart at the last moment. However, the above three are the most common reasons to do so. And as it can be clearly seen, using a recommendation engine can help in tackling such problems. So, if you are an e-commerce platform owner, then start exploring how you can leverage the recommendation engine. Start with Alie – an AI-based recommendation engine that offers multiple algorithms that has smart record-keeping and can be integrated with any website in an instant. Take the 14-day free trial of Alie now.