Marketing Profs

There's an epidemic online, and it may be infecting your sales.

It's the epidemic of abandoned shopping carts.

We may always have it. It's so easy to abandon an online cart. There's no embarrassment factor to it at all.

And there are good excuses for abandoning a cart.

Some carts are abandoned because the Mrs. has opened some other windows and found a better price, maybe from an out-of-state retailer who didn't have to charge sales tax.

It could be someone is just window-shopping, and wants to know the whole price before making a decision the next day or next week.

It could be a kid who's shopping, and they don't even have a credit card.

There are a lot of studies about abandoned carts. The carts ask too many questions, they don't disclose shipping costs ,or customers are just doing market research and you can do your own by looking inside those abandoned carts.

But the biggest problem is often that the process isn't clear, as it is in a real store.

In a real store I know before I get to the line how much my purchases will cost. There's no shipping, and I know the local sales tax rate. If the clerk asks me for my home phone number or address, I know how to lie.