Many retailers get frustrated about high shopping cart abandonment, but it’s important for them to realize that this is often an addressable concern that they can improve with enough time and effort. Although sellers will never be able to get every single shopper to buy every single item they put in their shopping cart, they can take meaningful strides to deter shopping cart abandonment and improve the sales process.

Although there are a variety of ways retailers can accomplish reduced shopping cart abandonment, ranging from improving the design of their websites to reducing the number of steps to complete a transaction, one of the important elements to hit is transparency. Retailers need to be more upfront with customers about what they are getting. Fewer surprises during the sales process can result in more purchases.

One example of this is inventory availability. As a shopper, one of the biggest disappointments is placing an item into a shopping cart and going through the sales process only to discover an item is out of stock and not purchasable. This can be brutal if the outage happens while the customer is just milling about the website and stock runs out while they are still looking at other items. Not only does this train people to quickly buy an item and rush through the sales process (which may result in fewer items per transaction), it can also burn customers completely from shopping with a specific retailer.

Greater transparency over inventory management processes can be achieved with the right inventory management software. By tracking product availability with inventory management software, merchants can accurately convey to customers whether an item is readily available, limited in quantity or out of stock. Although this seems like a small step, it’s the small things that will ultimately help merchants improve the sales process and reduce shopping cart abandonment.

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