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Why do 9 out of 10 consumers abandon transactions?

March 26th, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner

Before you all scream ”high shipping fees” which are often the culprit for eTailers, let me go a little further in my definition of “transaction” and how it relates to the Aug 2007 Tealeaf Technology survey I’m referencing…

For the data I’m discussing from Tealeaf, all survey respondents conducted either a shopping (retail), travel, banking or insurance transaction within the prior year.”

Now that we’ve got that straight, a whopping 90% of these consumers experienced an issue that caused them to abandon a transaction. I kid you not! But here’s the good news, even though the issues are serious ranging from nightmare technical problems to mind-numbing functional problems, the issues are also addressable. Take a look at this list:

37% reported difficult navigation
34% received error messages
30% reported login difficulties
29% reported insufficient, incorrect or confusing information
22% reported endless loops blocking transactions
21% reported the search function not working properly
20% were automatically kicked off the page

See what I mean? There is no excuse for this type of stuff. I get especially ticked when I see that almost 1/3 of the lost transactions are the result of “insufficient, incorrect or confusing information”. This is all about understanding the consumers wants and needs…their intent if you will.

After all, every visit to your site is backed by some type of motivation. Since so much traffic arrives via keywords, let’s talk about that for a minute. If someone is kind enough to tell you what they’re looking for via a keyword search, why aren’t the landing pages responding with the right information? Isn’t that marketing 101?

Let’s consider the keyword arrival of a consumer visiting an online store I’ll call Bikinis-R-Us. Now let’s pretend it’s someone searching for a red polka dot bikini. Great now apply this intent for a red polka dot bikini to the walk-in arrival of a consumer visiting one of Bikinis-R-Us brick and mortar locations. In this scenario, it’s kind of like imagining someone walking in to a store with a post-it on their forehead reading “I want a red polka dot bikini”. In this case, a salesperson would instantly respond to the shopper, deliver it and complete the transaction.

But at the e-store, this ability to complete the transaction gets railroaded by site’s that fail to instantly respond and deliver according to every unique visitor’s interest and intent. When you consider that 1 in 3 potential transactions fail because of poor messaging information, it’s alarming. It’s especially alarming considering web personalization can effectively address this very challenge.

Want to get really scared? Consider the business impact of lost transactions. Online competition is fierce and the sites that thrive will be the sites that create positive, personalized online experiences that meet and exceed what we’ve come to expect in the offline world. The bar is high!

Posted in Optimization, Customer Experience, Conversion, Carolyn Gardner, eCommerce, Web Analytics, Personalization |

2 Responses

Patti Says:

March 27th, 2008 at 9:44 am

Carolyn,

You’re timing is perfect! I am just in the testing phase of a cart abandonment program so I was thrilled to see this posting and report. I have a survey incorporated into the program so it will be interesting to see why our customers are abandoning the cart and how it compares to other industries.

Patti

Carolyn Gardner Says:

March 27th, 2008 at 9:51 am

Hey Patti - don’t you just love when that happens! The entire Tealeaf report is actually quite interesting and well worth the read. Good luck with the testing!!