Shopping Cart Abandonment Practices of the Internet Retailer 1000 Companies
By Megan Ouellet, Director of Marketing
October 12, 2011
Shopping cart abandonment rates are on the rise. The average abandonment rate jumped from 71% to 75% during the first six months of 2011. Why? More consumers are using online carts to compare prices before making a purchasing decision, both on their computers and smartphones. For others, carts are abandoned due to high or unexpected shipping costs, simple interruptions, etc. While some customers do return to complete the purchase, many more remained lost.
We keep our finger on the pulse of the eCommerce industry through frequent longitudinal studies and industry quick polls. Our latest research study was on the shopping cart abandonment habits of the Top 1000 Internet Retailers, as identified by the Top 500 and IR Second 500. This whitepaper contains the results of that study along with recommendations.
Methodology
This is our third shopping cart abandonment study. It differs than the first two in that we not only shopped and abandoned Internet Retailer Top 500 sites but the Second 500 as well. The methodology was the same – we shopped 97.3% of the top 1000 sites (97.2% from the Top 500 and 97.4% from the Second 500), excluding sites where a military ID or exclusive membership was required and sites that were no longer functioning.
During the checkout process we noted where each company is requesting the shoppers’ email addresses and whether or not the payment information is on the same page. Items were added to carts, the checkout process was started, and the carts were then abandoned before completing the purchase. The same information was added to each checkout page – first and last name, email address, mailing address, and phone number. We then tracked the cart abandonment campaigns received, noting the time, personalization, dynamic merchandising, offers, and number of emails if a series was sent. Below are the detailed results.
First Name:
Last Name:
Email:
Phone:
Company Name:
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