Shopping Cart Abandonment

Taken on Mare Island. An abandoned toxic waste dump and up and coming residential neighborhood.

Shopping cart abandonment is a new term in online marketing. It’s a big problem that online marketing has to fix. Shopping cart abandonment is when you shop online and click, ADD TO CART, then never check out because you decide you really can’t get that stuff, or your shopping jones is satisfied even though you didn’t really buy. It’s a weird thing when simply putting stuff in your cart is enough to qualify as retail therapy. It’s like retail therapy light. A half-dose.

I have abandoned more shopping carts on the internet than should be legal. It is kind of rude. It’s like just walking away from someone if you’re bored with what they’re saying, instead of jumping through all the polite hoops of excusing yourself and fake smiling to get out of it.

Shopping cart abandonment. What are we ever going to do????

Accordingto the study, the top reasons for shopping cart abandonment, and the percentage of consumers citing each as a reason, are:

1. High shipping prices (72%)
2. Comparison shopping or browsing (61%)
3. Changed mind (56%)
4. Saving items for later purchase (51%)
5. Total cost of items is too high (43%)
6. Checkout process is too long (41%)
7. Checkout requires too much personal information (35%)
8. Site requires registration before purchase (34%)
9. Site is unstable or unreliable (31%)
10. Checkout process is confusing (27%) 

and to that I’d like to add

    11. just fucking around on company time