Abandoned Web Shopping Carts: Customers Didn't Really Bail Out

January 19, 2005

Why do so many online shoppers abandon their shopping carts? This has been a nagging question for online retailers for many years. A new study provides a partial answer:

Retail Websites Are Powerful Drivers of In-Store Sales, Brand Loyalty, and Customer Satisfaction, Says Groundbreaking Study of Multi-Channel Shoppers by ForeSee Results and FGI Research

The study actually covered a whole lot more about Web shopping and its effect on customer satisfaction, but I was especially intrigued by the light shed on the shopping-cart mystery. Consider this excerpt:

"A surprisingly large proportion of multi-channel shoppers -- 86 percent of those surveyed in the study -- prefer to make purchases offline. Yet this statistic dramatically understates the influence of the web channel. Nearly 40% of multi-channel shoppers prefer to use the web for browsing and researching their purchases. Of this group of people who would typically be viewed as unconverted browsers or 'shopping-cart abandoners,' 71 percent complete their purchase in the store."

The study indicates that retailers' Web sites are significant drivers of customer satisfaction, even for customers who actually complete their purchases in the bricks-and-mortar store.

AB -- 1/19/05