Nearly three quarters of shoppers have abandoned online shopping carts due to shipping

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Nearly three quarters of shoppers have abandoned online shopping carts due to shipping.

A new global shipping report by BigCommerce, the ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established brands, reveals that almost three quarters (73%) of UK online shoppers have abandoned their cart because they did not like the shipping options available.

Whilst many would consider this a cause for concern, almost half of retailers (47%) admit they don’t know what their cart abandonment rate is, let alone the reason behind it.
 
One in two (45%) UK consumers purchase online at least once a week, so it’s no surprise they value shipping options. With the global ecommerce market currently valued at over US $3 trillion[1] the results of the study suggest that retailers need to put more emphasis on connecting the dots between shipping practices and customer behaviour.    
 
Mark Adams, vice president and general manager of Europe at BigCommerce, commented, “Retailers need to treat shipping as a critical piece of their business – or risk being left behind. A brand’s shipping experience can carry as much weight as the marketing or products themselves. Spending the time and money getting to know customers’ shipping expectations might not be at the top of the priority list, but our research shows it holds the potential to deliver repeat shoppers and increased sales.”
 
Key findings from BigCommerce’s Shipping, Delivered: Best Practices & Expectation for 2019 Report include:
 
Shipping experience can make or break a purchase for one in three Brits. 
For more than a third of UK consumers (35%), shipping is so important they have stopped shopping with an online retailer altogether because of a negative experience. 

• UK shoppers will spend more to get a great shipping deal. 
  Consumers want convenience and speed. So much so that 44 percent of online shoppers avoid retailers that do not offer free shipping, while 80 percent have made a purchase from a retailer purely because they offer free shipping. Furthermore, while research shows that one in three (36%) UK consumers are not willing to pay extra for next-day delivery, a huge nine in ten (87%) admit adding items to their cart in order to receive free shipping.
  
  
• Consumers’ environmental concerns high on the agenda. 
  Seven in ten (71%) online consumers in the UK think about the environmental impact of online shopping, making us more environmentally conscious than our US and Australian counterparts. The biggest concern for UK consumers is products that are shipped with additional packaging. In order to offset this, almost a third (32%) of consumers want the option of no shipping, instead choosing to pick up items at physical stores rather than have them delivered.
  
  
• No relief from the ‘right to return’. 
  Currently, only 12 percent of retailers offer free shipping for returns while a further five per cent plan to offer it within the next year. This finding, however, does little to reflect the true expectations of online shoppers. In reality, 37 percent of UK customers expect a pre-paid returns label – three times the number of retailers currently offering the free service.