A customer visits your online store, finds something they like, and adds it to their cart. At this point, you are probably thinking you have made a sale.

Then they disappear.

Sometimes, the reason is simply money. Maybe they changed their mind, decided they could not afford the purchase, or were only comparing prices in the first place. You cannot control every reason a shopper decides not to buy, but what if that is only part of the problem?

What about the things you can absolutely control?

Cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges in e-commerce. Baymard Institute currently puts the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, meaning a significant number of shoppers who add products to their carts never complete the purchase.

If you run an online retail business and people are adding products to their carts without checking out, here are some of the most common reasons why and, more importantly, what you can do about them.

This is one of the biggest problems online stores face.

Imagine a customer sees a product advertised for ₦5,000. They like it, add it to their cart, and proceed to checkout, only to discover an additional ₦1,250 service charge before delivery has even been calculated.

Baymard's research found that 40% of shoppers who abandoned checkout for reasons other than simply browsing did so because additional costs such as shipping, taxes, and fees were too high.

The problem is not always that customers refuse to pay delivery or service charges. Sometimes, it’s just the surprise.

If there are charges customers will need to pay, communicate them as early as possible.

Your customer has already decided that they want your product. Do not make them work unnecessarily hard to give you their money.

A checkout process that requires several pages, unnecessary form fields, and mandatory account creation can turn what should have been a simple transaction into work.

Think about the information you actually need to fulfil an order. Name, contact details, delivery information and payment details may be necessary. Their birthday, a new password, security questions, and several other fields probably are not.

Offer guest checkout where possible, remove unnecessary fields, and make the journey from cart to payment as straightforward as you can.

Imagine finally deciding to buy something only to reach checkout and realise the payment method you planned to use is not available.

That can be enough to end the transaction.

For a Nigerian online business, the solution is not necessarily adding every payment option you can find. It is understanding how your customers prefer to pay and making those methods available.

If your customers regularly ask whether they can pay by card, bank transfer, or another method, that is useful information.

Your customer clicks “Checkout.”

Nothing happens.

They click again.

The page keeps loading.

At this stage, you are competing with impatience, another Instagram notification, and every other distraction around them.

Website performance matters throughout an online store, but it becomes particularly important when someone is trying to complete a purchase. 

Test this process with your developers regularly, especially on mobile devices and slower internet connections.

Not every abandoned cart represents a failed checkout.

Sometimes shoppers use their carts as temporary wish lists. They may add your product, check another store, compare delivery costs, ask a friend for an opinion, or simply decide that they are not ready to buy yet.

You cannot eliminate this. Instead, you can give your customers reasons to choose your store when they compare their options.

That could be compelling reviews, a return policy, or simply a smoother buying experience.

Think about shopping in a physical store and finding the exact sunscreen you came for, only to realise that there are two left on the shelf.

The sense of urgency to buy that sunscreen just increased from a mere want to an urgent buy. 

Your online store can create a similar sense of urgency, but it has to be genuine.

If only three units are actually left, tell customers. If an offer ends on Sunday, make the deadline clear. 

What you should not do is display “ONLY 1 LEFT!!!” on the same product for six consecutive months. False urgency may produce a quick click, but it can also damage trust.

Once you understand why people are leaving, reducing cart abandonment becomes less about finding one magic trick and more about removing unnecessary reasons to leave.

Some abandoned carts are unavoidable.

A customer may change their mind, realise they cannot afford the product, compare your price with another store, or simply decide to come back another day.

But there is a big difference between losing a sale because someone was not ready to buy and losing it because you surprised them with extra charges, forced them through an unnecessarily long checkout, or made them uncomfortable entering their payment details.

Those are problems you can work on.

If people are already visiting your store and adding products to their carts, you have done one of the difficult parts. 

Now make sure your website is not giving them reasons to leave before making a purchase.

Customers may abandon their carts because they are not ready to buy, additional charges appear at checkout, delivery is too expensive or slow, the checkout process is complicated, their preferred payment method is unavailable, or they do not trust the website enough to complete payment.

Cart abandonment happens when someone adds one or more products to an online shopping cart but leaves the website or app without completing the purchase.

Cart abandonment varies by business, device, and industry, so there is no single rate every store should target. Baymard Institute's compilation of 50 studies currently puts the average documented online cart abandonment rate at 70.22%.

The final order total may be considerably higher than the price the customer expected to pay. Showing delivery charges, or at least providing an estimate earlier in the shopping journey, can reduce the surprise at checkout.

Start by making costs clear, simplifying checkout, allowing guest checkout, providing suitable payment options, improving website performance, and building trust. You can then use cart recovery emails, retargeting, and genuine urgency to bring some customers back.

They can help recover shoppers who became distracted or were not ready to complete their purchase immediately. The email should make it easy for the customer to return to the exact cart they left rather than forcing them to start shopping again.

Yes. A confusing checkout, errors, slow performance, unnecessary form fields, and a lack of trust can all create friction between adding a product to the cart and completing payment. Current checkout research shows that a meaningful share of abandonment is related to problems businesses can address through better checkout design.

Till next time,

Team Thrive

_____________________________________________________

A few lines to keep you motivated, going, and on top of the world