Top 5 reasons for WooCommerce cart abandonment with historical data

WooCommerce cart abandonment is a major challenge for e-commerce business owners around the world which they find hard to overcome. The average WooCommerce store loses over 75% of its sales because of cart abandonment. The average percentage of cart abundance is as high as 83.6% for some online shopping sectors.

The most common reasons for WooCommerce cart abandonment are the long checkout process, additional shipping fees, taxes, etc. Fixing these issues can incredibly lower the rate of cart abundance leading to increased sales. Predicting the exact reason for your eCommerce cart abundance is difficult but lots of surveys and research have been conducted in this regard and we have compiled them to make a list in this article. Keeping those in mind, you can improve your sales by recovering the abandoned carts on your WooCommerce site. Though this list comprises the reasons for overall eCommerce cart abandonment, it is very true for WooCommerce as well.

Here’s a chart of online shopping cart abandonment rates worldwide from 2006 to 2020:

According to this stat, the average percentage of digital shopping carts abandoned is 69.57% and on 2012 it was as high as 71.98%. From 2014 to 2019 it was steady ( around 69%) but in March 2020, it broke all records and reached a whopping 88.05%. The COVID-19 pandemic played a role here. Though the cart abandonment rate for essential items ( i.e. groceries etc) dropped significantly as people could not get outside due to lockdown, the rate for non-essential and luxury items increased sharply.

The following chart shows that the eCommerce shopping cart abandonment rate in automotive industries was astonishingly 96.88% among all other sectors in March 2020.

When you look at these statistics, you’ll understand that the impact of the abandoned cart is really huge. It varies according to different sectors and the reasons are also quite diverse. WooCommerce store owners face cart abandonment as one of the major issues that hold them down from a successful online business.

What is WooCommerce cart abandonment?

WooCommerce cart abandonment occurs when a potential customer starts the checkout process to make a purchase on your site but aborts it before completing the purchase.

Cart abandonment stats to know

As a WooCommerce store owner, it’s important for you to know some general shopping cart abandonment statistics –

• The average cart abandonment rate among all industries is about 69.57%.
• Mobile users have the highest abandonment rate of 85.65%
• E-commerce businesses lose approximately 18 billion USD in sales revenue every year because of cart abandonment.
• Checkout process optimization can improve conversions by nearly 35.62%.
• The extra cost is one of the top reasons for cart abandonment.
• New account creation while making a purchase is the second top reason why shoppers abandon carts.
• Almost 57% of customers abandon a cart if the page doesn’t load quickly and properly.
• A long and complicated checkout process causes around 18% of cart abandonment.
• Around 55% of shoppers abandon carts if they’re asked to re-enter their details.
• 46% of shoppers abandon carts because the discount coupon does not work.
• Almost 39% of mobile users abandon carts because they don’t feel secure entering their personal information.

Top reasons for WooCommerce cart abandonment

Here are some of the most common reasons for WooCommerce cart abandonment-

1. Mandatory account creation and no option for guest checkout

When WooCommerce store owners make it mandatory for the customers to register before making any purchase the customers don’t feel comfortable providing personal information.

2. Additional high shipping and delivery costs

Many WooCommerce stores include surprisingly high shipping costs. This shipping cost is expensive to the customers who are making a single purchase. That’s why customers search for a better deal and free shipping on other online shops.

3. Long and confusing checkout process

Customers always look for a simple checkout process that is short and concise. Most customers find it useless to fill out lengthy forms for a single purchase.

4. Site security and payment options are very less

Consumers feel that their personal information is at risk when they see the site doesn’t have SSL and shows a “Not Secure” sign on the address bar. Thus, a lesser percentage of consumers provide their payment details. Also, others have doubts and opt-out of the transaction because of fewer payment options.

5. Customers were expecting an exclusive discount and search for a better price on competitor’s sites

Consumers do research on multiple online shops before purchasing a product. They like to compare prices on different websites before making the purchase. They consistently look for a better price till the last moment.

Solutions to Overcome Cart Abandonment

1. Provide guest checkout option

It’s important to collect visitors’ valuable data. Making the account creation compulsory on the checkout page to capture data may lead to annoyed customers resulting in increased WooCommerce cart abandonment. Visitors think that the process of account creation is unnecessary and time-consuming. Thus, they are not interested in making the purchase if it involves account creation. That’s why you need to make the checkout process short.

This is where you should offer a guest checkout option, even if you have to sacrifice the useful data for it. You can surely make the creation of an account fun by offering loyalty benefits for registration, exclusive access to sales, etc.

2. Be transparent about the costs

You should declare all additional costs on product pages and leave nothing as a surprise cost. Offer a threshold for free shipping and display the exact amount of items customers need to add to the cart in order to qualify. Be clear on EMI schemes. Don’t make your customers go through the entire checkout process and later tell them that you do not offer EMIs on most credit cards. Make sure you specify all requirements and eligibility criteria for EMI on the product pages.

3. Optimize the checkout process

Long checkout processes with unnecessary forms and fields are annoying to customers. This poor experience results in 28% of shoppers abandoning their carts. That’s why you need to minimize form elements and only ask for necessary information. You can use CoDesigner checkout and cart widgets to make your checkout process more concise.

CoDesigner can make the checkout process simple pretty quickly. Also, make sure that your store checkout process is smooth and responsive on all types of devices. A clear idea of all the stages of the checkout process on your WooCommerce store can help you decrease WooCommerce cart abandonment.

4. Ensure site security

As mentioned earlier 39% of the shoppers don’t feel safe if they feel the site has security issues. The most common way they think the site isn’t secure is if they see “Not Secure” status on top. To prevent this issue you need to use an SSL certificate on your site. Also, you should take other measures such as blocking scammers, using payment-verified certification, offering multiple payment options, etc.

5. Provide irresistible offers

Offer special discounts for bulk orders, free shipping, buy one get one, Black Friday, and Christmas sales to attract more customers. These offers, especially the bulk order discounts can keep your WooCommerce shop on top of the shoppers’ choice. Offers like this don’t go in vain as these have been practiced for centuries.

Final thoughts

We hope this article will help you to identify the cart abandonment in your WooCommerce store and lower the cart abandonment rate. Plugins like WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Recovery, YITH WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart, and Abandoned Cart for WooCommerce can help you fight cart abandonment. Also, you can try CoDesigner to create eye-catching shops and make your checkout process more user-friendly.