BizRate.com, NPD Joint Survey Reveals 75 Percent of Online
Consumers Are Abandoning Shopping Carts
According to a study released by BizRate.com, a leading e-commerce rating
and marketing research firm, and The NPD Group, Inc., a leading authority in
consumer panel research, the majority of online shoppers abandon their
shopping carts and change their minds before completing a purchasing
transaction. The joint panel survey, which drew more than 10,000 respondents,
revealed that 75 percent of online consumers have abandoned shopping carts in
the past three months. An online shopping cart is a term used to describe how
an e-commerce site keeps track of the items each customer has chosen to
purchase. When the shoppers are ready to pay, they are able to review the
merchandise they have collected in their carts and proceed with the checkout
process.
When asked why they're abandoning online shopping carts, 31 percent of
respondents claimed they simply changed their minds. Another 24 percent
decided that the shipping and handling costs were too expensive. What is
happening to these lost sales?
Thirty-nine percent of the survey respondents did
not purchase the items at all. Another 26 percent purchased the product from a
competitor, while 17 percent went offline to get it. The remaining 18
percent did return to the same site at a later time to complete the
transaction.
Even though consumers regularly abandon shopping carts, they are still
returning to the site to make purchases. In fact, 58 percent of the survey
respondents stated they went back to the online store, and, of those people, 53
percent made purchases during subsequent visits. Furthermore, 74 percent of
online buyers say they are very satisfied with their overall online buying
experience.
Predictably, the study indicated the items most often abandoned are also the
ones online consumers are buying most frequently: books, music, computer
software, computer hardware and apparel.
For more information about the study, visit http://www.bisrate.com/ and
http://www.npd.com/.
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