Despite an online cart abandonment rate of 68.8% on average, some 42% of online retailers are failing to measure checkout conversation, their most important metric for completing online sales.
That’s according to a new study of 115 UK ecommerce retailers and store builders from data validation specialist, Fetchify, which found that some 35% and 42% respectively of ‘small and ‘micro’ businesses are failing to measure checkout rates. The problem even impacts large retailers, with 10% also failing to measure.
The two main reasons for not conducting this essential analysis were “not enough time / resource” (stated by 42%) and “don’t know how” (stated by 31%).
However, the report goes on to find that retailers are adapting their checkouts to boost conversion. Some 70% of the retailers have invested in new tools to help with address lookup the most popular (used by 60%), followed by upsell tools (30%), delivery options, reengagement messages and discounts (all used by 20%).
These tools are making a difference. When asked how ‘effective’ these tools are, address lookup scored the highest and rated “very effective” or “effective” by 71%. This was closely followed by abandoned cart discounts by 67%.
Alternative payments and Buy now-pay later options also scored highly with 63% and 63% respectively. Urgency tools (such as limited offers and countdowns) only rated 38% effective, upselling related products and remarketing ads both scored 44%.
The report also looked at the challenging issues related to mobile commerce where 86% of baskets are abandoned. Some 57% of those surveyed claiming to be performing better than this figure (compiled in 2020) – suggesting that the issues or resolving dropped baskets in mobile devices may be making progress. However, of the 29% of the panel which currently measuring overall rates, are not breaking it down by device, meaning a potential gap in understanding across different platforms.
Russell Jones, CEO Fetchify, says: “The study is something of a mixed picture. On one hand retailers are investing in the tools they need to boost their checkout conversion rates but on the other, a large proportion aren’t measuring the key metric they need to track their effectiveness. Dropped baskets are a huge problem across retail and even a tiny increase in conversion rate can mean big increases in revenue to a business. The tools they have purchased have to be fine-tuned to increase their effectiveness and you can only do that when you have the key data.”
