Trends Report

Understanding Shopping Cart Abandonment

Customers Are Often Unprepared To Buy And Stunned By Shipping Costs

May 20th, 2010
PH
Peter Hult
With contributors:
Patti Freeman Evans , Brendan McGowan

Summary

Despite improvements in site design and increased consumer comfort with online purchasing, 88% of Web buyers say that they have abandoned an online shopping cart without completing a transaction. This is the same percentage as five years ago, suggesting that retailers have yet to address the primary drivers of cart abandonment: frustration with the amount of shipping costs, unpreparedness to make a purchase, and a desire to comparison-shop for a lower price. Cart abandonment highlights the opportunity for retailers to recover lost sales by clearing the path to purchase, clarifying shipping prices and delivery times up front, as well as testing various checkout scenarios.

Want to read the full report?

Contact us to become a client

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.