Study shows Shopping Cart Abandonment by Online Consumers in India costing e-coms $10bn per year

India e-Commerce sector is growing at a rapid pace and the revenues are forecasted to be between 16-20 billion $ for 2015. Cart Abandonment by online shoppers has emerged to be a critical issue with as many as 70% online shoppers in India abandoning their carts before the final purchase. Against this backdrop, Octane Research has released their findings on how and why the online shoppers leave their carts and abandon their shopping experience and how India marketers are addressing this to convert lost revenue opportunity. This study titled, ‘Understanding India’s Shopping Cart Abandonment 2015-16’provides insights, strategies and recommendations for India marketers to earn back the lost revenues in abandoned shopping carts.

Key Highlights of the Research Study:

1.Mystery shopping conducted across India portals reported that about 34% of the e-Commerce websites deploy a Cart Abandonment Program while 66% have still not considered this route to earn back the lost revenue.
2. The rate of Cart Abandonment in India is 51% as reported by the India Marketers. However, our research shows that the industry ‘best in class’ rate for Cart Abandonment in India is 70-75%.
3. 56 % of the India consumers abandon their cart because of Unexpected Costs such as high cost of shipping, tax rate, accessory charges etc. at the Point Of Payment.
4. Consumers’ View reported that Home Furnishing and Gifting have the highest rate of deployment of Cart Abandonment Program (CAP).
5. 50% of India Consumers voted ‘Shipping and handling costs listed too late’ in the check-out process as the No.1 reason for cart abandonment.
6. A whopping 78% India Marketers employ ‘Re-Marketing Campaigns’ to nurture leads and convert consumers’ interests into revenues.
7. 69% of India retailers provide incentives such as Discounts, Offers and Coupons to draw in consumers as a part of Consumer Re-engagement activities.
8. Approximately $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts in 2015 globally, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable by savvy online retailers.

This first of its kind research in India has been conducted and analyzed from two perspectives: Marketers’ View, in which viewpoints of 33 e-Commerce Marketers’ on Cart Abandonment have been included and Consumers’ View, in which the effectiveness of Cart Abandonment Programs across 115+ e-Commerce portals has been evaluated. This approach has been crucial in identifying the touchpoints where India Marketers’ current Cart Abandonment Programs fail to engage with consumers.

Commenting on the release of this Annual Industry Report, Punit Modhgil, Director & Co-founder, Octane Marketing (Octane.in) said, “There is a tremendous opportunity for India e-Commerce to boost the revenue impact of their marketing efforts by focussing on improving shopping cart conversion rates. We find that email based shopping cart Re-Engagement Programs are being preferred by marketers and consumers alike.”