Shopping cart abandonment is like a nightmare that has come true, for ecommerce websites. It’s a phenomenon that affects most shopping carts or websites that are poorly designed. But, the fact that user’s have abandoned the shopping cart, means they were interested in buying your products and services and participated in the shopping cycle, but left it midway for certain reasons.

It’s estimated that online retailers face almost 50% abandonment rate.  Just imagine the loss of revenue! But to be fair, you can’t ensure that nobody using the checkout process will find faults with it. There is a chance that a section of users will exit the check out process before completing it. But, it’s important that designers and developers leave no stone unturned to implement the kind of shopping cart that is appreciated by a majority of the users. For this to happen, you will first need to identify the different factors that play a role in shopping cart abandonment.

1. A complex buying process

Customers love to spend some time mulling their decision to buy a particular product or service, but once the decision is taken, they don’t want to spend ages trying to buy the product. They want the process of shopping to be over quickly and successfully. But, if this does not happen, and the buying process puts them off because of its complexity, they will not complete it and abandon it midway. This complexity could be a result of faulty design, complex navigation, long check out process, and lack of help features amongst various other reasons.

2. Technical Problems in the Shopping Cart

Say you are in the midst of a check out process and it hangs up on you. It just stops; that’s it. As a customer, you are bound to get irritated, angry and in most cases, will just end the process there and then. Usually this problem occurs if a particular ecommerce shopping cart is incompatible with a particular browser. There is also a chance that the design is taking a toll on the seamless functioning of the shopping cart. If there is a lack of design optimization, it has a marked effect on the shopping cart functionality.

3. Inability to Access Important Information

If your shopping cart users are unable to get important information like shipping charges or can’t access the info about your customer services policies, there is a good chance that they are going to abandon the cart. You need to be able to give your prospective customers all information that encourages an informed buying decision. It’s only if customers think that they are making a well-thought out decision that they will actually go ahead and buy a product or service. Their inability to access such information is an important contributing factor towards shopping cart abandonment.

These are not the only reasons why online shoppers will see a particular shopping cart in a negative light. A bad shopping cart is a result of numerous errors, which result in a confusing, long drawn out and generally unsatisfactory shopping process.