Nearly Half Of Shoppers Abandon Checkout Process Before Completing It

Consumers today turn to retailers’ websites for a variety of reasons, ranging from discovering new products and services to comparing prices.

While retailers have streamlined their online and mobile experience and removed points of friction that lead consumers to abandon their cart, they have continued to overlook a key problem area: checkout abandonment.

According to The Checkout Benchmark from Bold Commerce — which analyzed data from 3 million digital checkout sessions across more than 80 retailers during Q3 2021–48% of shoppers that initiate the checkout process online abandon the process before completing it.

The problem becomes worse on mobile. In fact, 58% of shoppers that initiate the checkout process on their mobile phone end up abandoning their purchase before completing it.

“We see retail brands pouring over details like site merchandising, product images and descriptions, reviews, and other elements that influence whether shoppers make it to checkout, but then forgo customization of the checkout itself,” said Yvan Boisjoli, CEO of Bold Commerce.

“This checkout experience gap is a wake-up call to retailers. If the checkout isn’t optimized, it doesn’t matter whether shoppers add to cart — they simply won’t complete their purchase.”

Solving the checkout abandonment portion of cart abandonment can make a world of a difference for retailers. Case in point: For a retail brand that generates $50M in online revenue with an average checkout completion rate, a 5 point improvement in checkout conversion rate translates to $2 million in incremental revenue.

Reducing friction in the checkout experience is particularly important in today’s environment. Customer loyalty now hinges on seamless shopping and payment experiences, including buy online and pick up in-store (BOPIS) delivery and popular payment methods such as digital wallets and buy now, pay later (BNPL). Moreover, consumers want easy and intuitive checkout experiences that offer features such as pre-filling of stored address and payment credentials, and customization of layout and checkout flow based on the type of device they are shopping on.

While retailers have invested heavily in improving the search and discovery experience online, the time is now to close the checkout experience gap, and the onus is on retailers to offer tailored checkout experiences that turn browsers into buyers and retain them in the long-term.