Cart abandonment is a problem that affects the vast majority of e-commerce businesses, but many entrepreneurs do not know how to mitigate it. According to a survey conducted by the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate on websites has reached 70%.
This abandonment occurs for several reasons, and the challenge lies in understanding why it happens and how to prevent customers from leaving without completing their purchase. The good news is that there are simple and effective strategies that can significantly reduce these rates and recover sales that, until now, were lost.
To help you reduce abandonment and increase your sales, we at Jivo have prepared this comprehensive guide, where you will understand the main causes of the problem and discover how real-time customer service can be decisive in this process.
Main causes of cart abandonment
To solve this problem, you first need to understand the reasons why a customer gives up on a purchase. Here are the main causes of cart abandonment in e-commerce:
1. Unexpected additional costs
In many cases, customers abandon their purchase when they see the final price increase due to unexpected costs, such as high shipping costs, extra fees, or charges that only appear at checkout. When this happens, consumers feel frustrated or even cheated, which leads to abandonment.
2. Mandatory registration
Another reason that can cause customers to abandon their purchase is being forced to create an account to complete the order. Long registration processes increase friction, take time, and make the journey longer than necessary, leading many users to abandon their cart.
3. Complex checkout
As we highlighted above, long, slow, or overly complex checkout processes generally drive users away. As a rule, the greater the effort required to complete a purchase, the greater the likelihood that the customer will abandon their cart.
4. Lack of payment options
When the payment gateway is not configured correctly or offers few options, the customer may not find the payment method they want, whether it be boleto, Pix, debit, credit, or digital wallets, thus making the purchase unfeasible for them and increasing the chance of abandonment.
5. Lack of trust in the website
Another reason why customers may be abandoning their cart is a lack of trust in your website.
Factors such as the absence of security seals, outdated layout, or lack of clear information about exchanges and returns cause insecurity even before they reach the checkout stage.
6. Unanswered questions at the time of purchase
Finally, some consumers abandon their cart because they have simple questions about factors such as product size, delivery, delivery time, warranty, and are unable to resolve them quickly. This is where offering real-time customer service makes all the difference.
How to calculate the cart abandonment rate
Before devising a strategy to reduce cart abandonment in your e-commerce business, it is essential to understand what the current abandonment rate is. Using this indicator, you can analyze how many customers start the purchase process but do not complete it.
Here is the formula for calculating it:
- Cart abandonment rate = (1 — (Completed orders ÷ Carts created)) × 100
Practical example:
Imagine that in one month:
- 10,000 users added products to their cart
- 3,000 completed their purchase
Applying the formula:
- Abandonment rate = (1 — (3,000 ÷ 10,000)) × 100;
- Abandonment rate = (1 — 0.3) × 100;
- Abandonment rate = 70%.
Why should you track this rate regularly?
This indicator allows you to:
- Identify flaws in the purchase process;
- Measure the impact of improvements in checkout;
- Evaluate the effectiveness of strategies such as real-time customer service;
- Understand customer behavior and bottlenecks in the journey;
How to reduce cart abandonment using real-time customer service?
Now that you know your abandonment rate and understand why so many customers give up on their purchase, it’s time to take action. One of the most effective ways to reverse this scenario is to offer support at the exact moment of doubt, and this is where real-time customer service tools, such as JivoChat, become essential.
1. Be proactive and answer consumers’ questions
Implementing a real-time chat, such as Jivo’s, allows you to quickly answer questions that would normally cause the customer to give up. Questions such as “will it arrive on time?”, “can I exchange it?”, “do you accept Pix?” can be answered in a few seconds and increase buyer confidence.
2. Follow the customer throughout their purchasing journey
Through the visitor monitoring feature we offer, your operators can identify which pages the customer is browsing, whether they are at checkout, and how long they have been undecided.
3. Proactivity with automatic invitations
To complement the previous feature, JivoChat also has proactive invitations, which are activated when the customer shows any sign of abandonment, such as spending too much time in the cart or moving the mouse to close the browser tab or window.
When used together and strategically, you significantly increase the chances of recovering the purchase and completing that sale.
4. Personalize customer service
Using the Visitor History and information automatically captured by Jivo, your team can start the conversation already understanding what the customer was looking for, which pages they visited, and even which products they added to their cart.
This avoids repetitive questions, speeds up service, and makes the customer feel like they are talking to someone who really understands their needs.
5. Resolve objections immediately
When the customer is about to give up and abandon the cart, every second counts. Therefore, it is essential that your team is ready to resolve any objections in the best possible way.
With Jivo, agents can send coupons, answer questions, send videos or photos of products, and even generate payment links. The faster and more efficient the solution, the less likely the buyer is to abandon their cart.
Have you learned how to reduce cart abandonment rates with real-time customer service?
We hope this guide has helped you better understand how strategic actions, especially when supported by real-time customer service solutions such as JivoChat, can make a big difference and significantly reduce cart abandonment rates in your e-commerce business.