How Merchants Can Reduce mCommerce Abandonment

By Chanel Smith, EMEA Editor (@PYMNTS_EMEA)

Online shopping first began to take off in the 1990’s, and since then the eCommerce market has continued to grow. Merchants are now seeing a wave of mobile technology impact online sales growth, since consumers are spending more time on smartphones and tablets.

Yet despite the abundant mobile activity, Jumio, a payments validation and ID company, reports that a surprising two-thirds (roughly 66 percent) of mobile buyers are abandoning the mobile checkout point and backing out of the transaction. Jumio’s recent white paper investigates this mobile commerce challenge and also offers five strategies that merchants can use to reduce the chances of consumer abandonment.

What’s The Problem?

Jumio reports the most common reason that leads to shoppers ditching their online shopping baskets is they don’t feel safe submitting credit card information over the Internet. Forty-seven percent said the checkout process was too time-consuming, 41 percent reported that checking out on a mobile device is too complicated, and 23 percent said they tried, but the purchase wouldn’t go through for various reasons.

While the reasons listed above are technical issues, Jumio explains that shopper abandonment is a common consumer phenomenon that is not always related to problems from the merchant side. The reality is that consumers will always abandon mobile baskets, just as they do in physical stores. In fact, seven out of every 10 customers will leave their place in the checkout line, and walk out of the store without making their purchase. Merchants do not always have the ability to control consumer psychology, but they can control other issues, such as technical processes, the will help discourage frequent abandonment.  Jumio’s report provides five ways to overcome some of these manageable challenges.

Reduce Payment Friction

Jumio suggests that retailers make the checkout process as simple and transparent, with as few clicks required as possible. A one-click checkout is best, but not always feasible.

Websites should clearly highlight incorrect data input so that the consumer can easily fix the mistake. Consumers don’t want to waste time searching for what went wrong because eventually they will become frustrated and give up the sale.

Designing For Mobile First

Merchants reported that mobile traffic on websites has increased by 83 percent within the last 12 months. Consumers complain mobile shoppers get a downgraded experience when on their smartphones because companies are designing websites for desktop before mobile. The translation is confusing customers, loading times are longer on phones, and they complain screens are too small for the content.

To solve this problem, the report suggests that companies need to redesign the developing platform and start with the mobile instead of PC. Navigation, scrolling and searching through the mobile site should all be made easy for the user, and retailers must embrace mobile because it is where future retail is moving.

Holding The Basket

Mobile devices were designed in a way that would allow users to hop from screen to screen and application to application. Moving from one retail site to the next is common, and there is nothing more frustrating than consumers who return to a site only to find their online basket has been emptied. Consumers will more often abandon the purchase when this happens, which means merchants need to figure out a reliable feature that keeps track of the shopper’s mobile basket.

Casual Customers Vs. Valuable Customers

Many mobile retail sites require customers to sign up for an account to make a purchase, but often times people forget their password or username and give up after several attempts. Modern technology and database vendors have enabled merchants to learn more about the site visitor before they click “purchase.” This means merchants need to identify casual shoppers vs. valuable customers, and take this into consideration when developing checkout strategies. Checkouts should be tailored to both groups: loyal customers should be motivated with discounts and promotions, while one-time customers should be offered a “check out as a guest” option to pay.

Reassure The Customer

According to Jumio, merchants must think from a customer perspective when thinking of ways to reduce mobile abandonment. Services such as delivery and return policies for online purchases should be made clear in the checkout process. These are the two biggest concerns consumers admitted to during online shopping, and they have a powerful influence on the consumer’s decision to abandon or stick with the sale. For example, if a shopper has to spend extra time to figure out how to make a return, or how much money will go towards shipment, chances of abandonment are high. Merchants need to be aware of these two fears and make them overly transparent during checkout to mitigate any concerns that could potentially interrupt the sale.

Mobile penetration rates are growing and it is inevitable online abandonment will grow with it. The merchant cannot control certain behaviors to a certain extent, however they can influence the customer by improving the mobile checkout process.

To read the full white paper by Jumio click here.