15 replies to this topic

[Viejo]

I sincerely hope I am in the right part of the forum. If not, please accept my apologies.

We are an SEO and Internet marketing firm and I have a new client coming to us with an 80% – 85% shopping cart abandonment rate. There are many obvious problems with the content on pages from which abandonment mostly occurs, and also there are many things not on those pages that should be there.

That said: I am looking for authoritative sources for estimating a range of cart abandonment that might be considered acceptable for retail sites dealing in sports clothing and active outdoor gear. My experience and my instincts suggest that a site not yet subjected to serious work to improve conversion might see abandonment as high as my client, but that a more common range would be 50% - 60%, and with decent work could be held to below 40% abandonment or better.

I’d love to have some opinions on this from the forum. I lurk here often and see excellent commentary across the board.

[Randy]

Your best bet is probably to read through some of the case studies over on MarketingExperiments.com Viejo. (requires a free registration)

I don't recall seeing them mention any sort of Industry Average or anything like that, but if you can find a case study or two that is close they'll give you Before and After numbers. You'll also get a ton of ideas of things you can try changing or tweaking and get a good primer on how to test to improve conversions.

Over the years I've seen cart abandonment numbers all over the board. Heck, I've seen supposedly (major emphasis there) solidly researched numbers ranging all the way from 75% down to 25% as an industry average. Like you I suspect, I rather doubt there is any such animal as an industry average.

Edited by Randy, 06 November 2006 - 10:26 PM.

[arlen]

I don't have any figure from my site for you Viejo, but I think your targets are overly optimistic. You might be interested in this quote from Marketing Sherpa

According to MarketingSherpa data, the average ecommerce shopping cart has a 59.8% abandonment rate.

People abandon carts for all kinds of reasons, and I think the typical rates are much higher than most people imagine. I personally will often add items to my cart as bookmarks while shopping further, then return a couple days later and reconsider ... perhaps not buying for a week or even many weeks from my first visit and first "add to cart" action.

The one recommendation I'd give you is make sure your cookies are set for a significant length of time to accommodate erratic shopping habits of visitors. Marketing Experiments had a web clinic on conversion erosion some time back too, you might wish to listen to it and reference their notes to understand their testing, results and recommendations. If I recall correctly, final conversions from their tests were months after the customer's first visit.

<edit>lol, Randy beat me to the MEC recommendation ... again, lol</edit>

[Randy]

OFFTOPIC:

<edit>lol, Randy beat me to the MEC recommendation ... again, lol</edit> Then had to go back and edit my post after realizing I'd not really answered the question.

[arlen]

You know, I'm thinking I cited the wrong web study at Marketing Experiments ... sorry about that, there's a bunch of 'em and they all are worth listening to. I can't remember exactly which one addressed the cookie issue, but I did find this article with a search on their site.

Edited by arlen, 07 November 2006 - 12:01 AM.

[Viejo]

Thank you Arlen and Randy. The MarketingExperiments data are very helpful. I missed that one during my searches. It is very interesting that their study shows a decline overall in stats very similar to a site we manage, and probably for the same reasons, i.e. increased competition and a slow deterioration in the benefits of aggressive optimization over time if not kept on top of. We think cart functionality on older installations is also a major element.

Close to the holidays is NOT when our client needs a high abandonment rate and we'll be working hard to make improvements, fast. If there is interest I'll post comments as things we do make a measurable difference.

[Randy]

Please do. That's what we're all about here.

If nothing else, seeing what worked and what didn't work may help to make others think about their cart and the purchasing process they're making folks go through.

FWIW, the biggest key in my testing seems to be how much friction and buyer anxiety there is in the process. The more of this you can remove, the better conversions tend to be. A very general statement, but worth thinking about.

[ttw]

Another great resource is Jakob Nielsen's usability research. I've taken his seminars and receive his monthly AlertBox newsletters and they are excellent.

I found an e-commerce research report on their website for on e-commerce usability $45: http://www.nngroup.c...e/strategy.html

Rosemary

[arlen]

If there is interest I'll post comments as things we do make a measurable difference.

Yes, please do ... I don't do anything fast, so I'd love to see how your efforts work out and what conclusions you reach. I don't think I'll have the issues I've ID'd on my site resolved by prime Christmas shopping unfortunately.

[Viejo]

Another great resource is Jakob Nielsen's usability research.

I agree on Nielsen's research. His is a newsletter I subscribe to as well. Thank you for the input.

[arlen]

Hey Viejo,

Another of the Marketing Experiments web clinics recordings (and notes) you should definately check out is the subscription pathways clinic. Though the study is for a subscription model, much of what is discussed is quite applicable to retail operations ... it talks a lot about reducing friction per Randy's post above. It's the first of their clinics I ever listened to and I found it very eye opening as it pointed out several ways I could improve my checkout process.

[incrediblehelp]

Oldie but goodie.

http://www.clickz.co...ml?page=2245891

[ttw]

New research on shopping cart abandonment was posted today from Jupiter Research and Akami:


** Akamai and JupiterResearch Identify '4 Seconds' as the New Threshold of Acceptability for Retail Web Page Response Times **


Go to: http://www.akamai.co...ess_110606.html and there's a link at the bottom to download the full report. There's good charts and other data.

Rosemary

[Pianist718]

I've found that an "average" (even though I don't believe in averages on the web) cart abandonment rate is about 45%.

One company I worked with the abandonment rate was around 30% another one is 15%.

Sure way to lower that % is by...

1. Making it easier to purchase
2. Secure seals
3. Less steps to complete the order
4. Tell your shopper what will happen after the place their order. Example .... we'll prepare it, ship in 12 hours, etc)
5. Get rid of any thing on the page that might distract your customer

Another "trick" to use is ........ have your programmer put a code into works that will track any information your customer gave you even if they didn't complete the order. This way you can e-mail them and see if there was a problem or offer a discount code if they finish their order within 48 hours.

Good luck.

[Viejo]

We've gone further into the web analytics on the site that drove my question to the forum. They use Google Analytics and a funnel can be derived to report exits beginning with arrival on the page following additions to the cart, and going through to checkout. The drop off is 85% plus or minus from that first page. No particular product seems to be a particular subject for rejection. Once past that first page and the actual checkout process begins, the drop off is quite low.

We have a list of nearly a dozen things recommended for urgent action to clear up the presentation, i.e. buttons that appear grayed-out and disabled, out-of-stock flags on the default size or color that can easily be interpreted as meaning that the product is out of stock, a cart total window that can clear the items but leave an apparent balance, and etc. All heavy duty stuff in my opinion, and a longer list than the site owner anticipated receiving. We'll see, but I believe there to be enough poor design elements on that critical page to support the cart abandonment rate. The numbers are shocking. Drop 85% to 70%, which is still a high abandonment rate, and revenues should double ..... This is a metric every ecommerce site should be watching intently.