75 Percent of Online Buyers Abandon Shopping Carts According to BizRate.com Survey; Of Those Who Abandon, More Than Half Leave Their Carts Prior to Checkout

Business Wire, Oct 23, 2000

Business Editors

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2000

Cyberspace has become littered with empty shopping carts because e-tailers can't "close the sale" with the majority of online shoppers.

More than three-quarters of online buyers failed to complete at least one purchase during a 90-day period according to a recent survey by BizRate.com (www.bizrate.com), the No. 1 retail mall on the Web according to Media Metrix. On average, surveyed shoppers abandoned between two and three carts over the course of last summer with each cart representing an estimated $175 in lost sales to the merchant.

"Imagine if your local store had aisle after aisle of shopping carts filled with unclaimed goods. It's a disturbing problem, but represents the reality facing many online merchants today," said Seth Geiger, vice president of professional services at BizRate.com. "In order to reclaim these lost sales, e-tailers must address the obstacles that prevent window shoppers from becoming customers."

The panel survey, which drew more than 9,500 respondents, revealed that 55 percent of online abandoners left their carts prior to checkout. Another 32 percent left their purchases at the point of sale when entering billing and shipping information or after the final calculation of the sale. Apparel was the most common item abandoned by shoppers, followed by computer goods and entertainment items (including books, music CDs and videos).

Consumers get easily frustrated with online shopping. More than 40 percent of shoppers blamed their abandoned carts on expensive shipping and handling charges while 31 percent stated that they had changed their minds. Another 21 percent cited slow-loading pages as their cause for terminating the sale.

"Customers have made no secret of their online shopping frustrations," added Geiger. "The key will be how well merchants listen to shoppers before the start of the holiday shopping season."

More than half of abandoned shopping carts on consumer sites are purchased at a later date, according to BizRate.com respondents, but 44 percent of those carts are purchased from a merchant's competitor -- either at another site or at an offline store.

About BizRate.com

Founded in 1996 and based in Los Angeles, BizRate.com (www.bizrate.com) is the No. 1 retail mall on the Web (according to Media Metrix, August 2000), connecting millions of buyers to thousands of sellers in a single, organized location. Designed as a shopping hub, the site provides the best efficiencies for both online buyers and sellers.

In the BizRate.com C3 Marketplace, shoppers have access to a powerful product search engine, single-click check-out, exclusive deals, "hot" product listings and gift guides to empower consumers to "shop smartly" across 19 popular store categories and thousands of merchants. Through BizRate.com's rating system, compiled exclusively from point-of-sale and fulfillment surveys of participating merchants, shoppers can compare merchants across 10 service dimensions.

BizRate.com ratings appear on Consumer Reports Online and in Consumer Reports magazine, as well as on Microsoft Network, AltaVista, GO Network, Go2Net, Snap, Citibank, iChoose, Brodia and CNET. The BizRate.com C3 Marketplace is a featured addition to Fleet Bank Services online site.