As if in a dream she stops, looks down at the contents of her cart for a moment and then exits the store never looking back to see her cart, lost and abandoned in the aisle. Welcome to the reality of e-shopping. Merchants rarely factor in the shopping cart abandonment rate they re likely to witness when opening up a new Internet store. And when they do find out it s a cold dark horrible secret. I figure I do it at least once a day in a variety of online stores from bookstores to cheese shops.
Many merchants think so.
But let s take a look at both sides of the story and you can form your own judgement. When building an online store it s a merchant s job to fill that store with products that a customer wants. Secondary to this is constructing the store in such a way that makes consumers want to purchase goods from you. This takes into consideration security issues, graphical design and ease of shopping and checkout. When shopkeepers look at the numbers and see people spending 30-60 minutes in their store, filling a shopping cart with items and then leaving, never to be seen again, merchants can t help but hold up their hands in defeat.