The rise of ecommerce has enabled businesses to reach customers from all over the world. However, as with any great opportunity, there comes new challenges. While you’re unlikely to see half-full shopping carts strewn around the aisles of your local department store, online shopping carts paint a different picture.

The average ecommerce cart abandonment rate is 69.82%. Nearly seven out of ten online shoppers abandon their purchase before the process is complete. This costs the industry billions of dollars a year in sales revenue. While online giants like Amazon can withstand the occasional missed opportunity, for small online businesses, every sale counts.

By simplifying the checkout process, the average ecommerce site or app can increase conversions by more than 35%. The customers are already in the store. It’s time to close the deal.

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Cart abandonment is when a customer begins an online order, but leaves the webpage before completing the purchase. 

It’s a frustrating phenomenon for online sellers. Customers come within a few clicks of purchasing, but don’t complete the sale. By understanding the reasons for cart abandonment, we can reduce it–leading to more conversions, and higher revenue.

Common Reasons For Abandonment

There are a variety of factors that lead to cart abandonment. Some of those factors are out of the seller's control: Buyers who are just browsing around – shopping with no real intention of actually making a purchase. But businesses can directly address the most common reasons.

These reasons include high shipping costs, slow delivery, hidden fees, lack of trust in the seller, and–most importantly–complicated checkout processes that take too long.

Poor Checkout Process

The checkout process is where sales are made and lost. Imagine a fish on a hook. The more time you spend reeling it in, the more likely it is to wriggle away. According to Baymard Institute, 17% of cart abandonments are due to a complicated checkout process. This includes unnecessary required fields, multiple checkout pages, and redundant information. Sellers must do two things: simplify and accelerate the process.

How To Reduce Abandonment

The easier the checkout process, the better. Each extra step, field to fill, or button to click leads to cart abandonment. Luckily, there are intelligent ways to streamline this process.

Address Autocomplete

One of the best solutions to tedious checkouts is address autocomplete. If this seems like a simple solution, well… that’s the point. Address autocomplete is great for three reasons: Speed, shipping address accuracy, and mobile optimization. 

Speed

Seventeen percent of online shoppers will abandon an order if the checkout process is too long and complicated. But with a tool like address autocomplete, customers can complete their information after entering a few characters.

Businesses can also implement auto-fill on fields like name, email, and credit card number. Instead of having to fill out fifteen to thirty different required fields, websites can cut that number down to single digits.

Shipping Address Accuracy 

The increased accuracy of address autocomplete can avoid human errors and typos. This helps with abandonment, as well as decreasing returns and refunds. When a customer makes a purchase, if the product is shipped to the wrong address, then nobody wins.

Increased accuracy works hand-in-hand with the calculation and clear communication of shipping costs. Shipping prices may change depending on several factors including the address location, whether the address is a business or residence. It’s important to give a buyer clear and accurate options for how and when they will receive their merchandise. 

If shipping prices seem unreasonably high, your business will suffer. High shipping costs and fees account for nearly 50% of cart abandonments. By providing your customer with clarity and options, they’re less likely to jump ship.

Mobile Optimization

In today’s landscape, mobile sales have become increasingly important. According to a SalesCycle Report, mobile phones account for 68% of online ecommerce traffic, but only 54% of sales. This means that conversions are more elusive on mobile. Buyers don’t have the patience for tedious processes on small screens. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to have a high-functioning check-out process for phones. Address auto-complete can bring the level of speed and accuracy that this platform demands.

Mapbox

With precise data and powerful real-time location mapping, Mapbox Retail solutions provide the necessary tools to build a simple and dependable checkout process. 

Address Autofill

Address Autofill is the ideal tool to enable your customers to quickly fill out address information with accuracy. Using accurate location data, it only takes a few taps on the keyboard for the right address to auto-populate. Customers need technology they can depend on, and our Address Autofill tool works as all dependable tech should. So smoothly that the customer barely even notices it.

Receipt map

Written addresses can be complicated. For example, there are 7,644 Main Streets in the USA alone. This is why the receipt map is an essential feature for ecommerce checkouts. It’s a quick and easy way for your customer to get a visual of their chosen address, and ensure accurate delivery. Once they input their address, the checkout page automatically generates a map pinpointing it. One quick glance is all it takes for them to confirm your shipping info is correct.

Receipt maps give buyers peace of mind knowing that their order will reach its destination. A smooth, reliable process will serve to build trust in your app or website, and your business.

Complete Those Purchases

Your online business will never reach a cart abandonment rate of zero percent. But, making smart, data-driven decisions can dramatically increase your sales revenue. When it comes to online shopping, simplicity is the name of the game. With a buyer-friendly checkout page, the checkout process will go from a hedge maze to a water slide. A thirty-second difference may be the difference between a sale and an abandonment.

Get started with Mapbox Retail today.