Small Business Center of Excellence

14 Reasons Online Buyers Abandon Their Shopping Cart

Abandonment is when a shopper puts something in their cart, but doesn’t actually purchase. For online retailers, this is a significant bottleneck. Here are 14 common reasons why online buyers abandon their shopping carts:

  1. Unexpected shipping costs.
  2. Forced account creation.
  3. A long or complicated checkout process.
  4. Poor website performance or crashes.
  5. Lack of payment security indicators.
  6. Not enough payment methods offered.
  7. Comparison shopping.
  8. The site asks for too much personal information.
  9. Lack of a clear return policy.
  10. Price is simply too high.
  11. The shipping time estimate is too long.
  12. The website user interface is confusing.
  13. Failure to offer coupons or discounts.
  14. Technical errors or bugs during payment processing.