Four in ten online retailers don't measure checkout conversion rate according to new Fetchify study
- Laura Lutener
Nearly 70% of all online sales fail to complete – yet some 42% say there’s “not enough time / resource” and 31% “don’t know how” to measure the most important metric for eCommerce.
An incredible 42% of online retailers are failing to measure checkout conversation, their most important metric for completing online sales, according to our new study. This is despite the huge issue of lost sales throughout online retailing, with the average basket abandonment rate across all eCommerce standing at 68.8%*
The study of 115 UK eCommerce retailers and store builders found that this even affects large retailers with 10% failing to measure. The issue is particularly acute for ‘small and ‘micro’ businesses with some 35% and 42% respectively failing to measure. The two main reasons for not conducting this essential analysis were “not enough time / resource” (stated by 42%) and “don’t know how” (stated by 31%).
However, the report did find that retailers are adapting their checkouts to boost conversion. Some 70% of the retailers have invested in new tools to help. Address lookup is the most popular (used by 60%), followed by upsell tools (30%), delivery options, reengagement messages and discounts (all used by 20%).
And these tools are making a difference. When asked how ‘effective’ these tools are, address lookup scored the highest and rated “very effective” or “effective” by 71%. This was closely followed by abandoned cart discounts by 67%. Alternative payments and buy-now-pay-later options also scored highly, both at 63%. Urgency tools (such as limited offers and countdowns) only rated 38% effective, upselling related products and remarketing ads both scored 44%.
The report also looked at the challenging issues related to mobile commerce where 86% of baskets are abandoned. Some 57% of those surveyed claiming to be performing better than this figure (compiled in 2020) – suggesting that the issues of resolving dropped baskets in mobile devices may be making progress. However, of those in the panel that are currently measuring overall rates, 29% are not breaking it down by device, meaning a potential gap in understanding across different platforms.
Russell Jones, CEO Fetchify: “The study is something of a mixed picture. On one hand retailers are investing in the tools they need to boost their checkout conversion rates but on the other, a large proportion aren’t measuring the key metric they need to track their effectiveness. Dropped baskets are a huge problem across retail and even a tiny increase in conversion rate can mean big increases in revenue to a business. The tools they have purchased have to be fine-tuned to increase their effectiveness and you can only do that when you have the key data.”
This survey was conducted in December 2021 and quizzed 115 eCommerce retailers and store builders. The base was a mix of Fetchify customers and non-Fetchify customers. A mixture of industries and company sizes were studied with business ranging in size from microenterprise (1-10 employees), small (11-50 employees), medium (51-250 employees) to large (over 250 employees).
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About Fetchify
We are a pioneer in SaaS address lookup and data validation solutions. We process millions of data transactions each day for thousands of clients ranging from small e-commerce startups to large household brands such as Heinz and RBS. Our flagship products Address Auto Complete and Postcode Lookup reduce friction on checkouts, leading to increases in conversion rate of up to 40%, and helps reduce failed deliveries by as much as 75%. Since launching in 2008, we have differentiated by our ease of integration and exceptional support. We provide a full suite of data validation solutions including Phone Validation, Email Validation, UK Bank Validation, and Data Cleansing.
*1 Baymard Institute December 2020
