Cart abandonment is a big problem with up to 70% of carts abandoned before a sale is completed. With traffic becoming more expensive, this is a growing issue for retailers. In this podcast, we talk to Valon Xhafa from Behamics about the major causes of abandonment and how to fix them. Common causes of cart abandonment There are two main causes of abandonment 1. Technical. The website does not function properly, e.g. payment failure, images do not load. This accounts for 30-40% of abandonment 2. Behavioural. The useability of the site impeeds the purchasing process For example, sites can cause users to make too many decisions and overwhelm the user. Common misconceptions about cart abandonment Users want to buy everything in their cart Adding to a cart is not necessarily an indication that the shopper is looking to buy. Many sellers use it as a wish list. Upselling is always good Too much upselling can suffocate users, leading to higher rates of abandonment. The merchant needs to know when to upsell and when to close the user. More options are not always better Having too many options (e.g. payment, product options) forces users to make decisions, suffocating the user. Fewer options mean faster decisions and potentially higher conversion rates. Fixing cart issues Monitor your site for errors Using a tool like Google Analytics, monitor the performance of your site and identify the points at which your site fails. Make it simple, stupid! Simplify the purchase process as much as possible. Valon's Behamicsolution provides a solution for predicting the options which will most appeal to each user Focus on site speed You only have a brief window to make an impression on your user. Benchmark and work to improve your site speed. For example, faster images are one of the biggest reasons why buyers leave a site without buying.