Why are 70 % of all shopping carts abandoned and to what extent can effective countermeasures mitigate this rate? – These were the key questions that Anna Simmes investigated in her master thesis at the Marketing Center Muenster. Online shopping cart abandonment describes the phenomenon that a potential customer starts a check out process for an online order but drops out of the process before completing the purchase. Since shopping cart abandonment directly affects an online firm’s sales and revenue, researchers and practitioners likewise are interested in understanding why people leave a website without completing the shopping process and, more importantly, how to reduce online shopping cart abandonment.

Hence, the goal of the master thesis was first to explore the motives why people abandon their shopping cart and second to investigate effective countermeasures that firms can use to reduce and prevent the likelihood of abandonment and thereby to increase the likelihood of a conversion. Together with Kapten & Son who were also interested in collaborating on this project, Anna Simmes first ran an online survey to identify motives of shopping cart abandonment. The results reveal that motives can be grouped into four categories which are product-, process-, cost-, and entertainment related reasons. In particular, the latter group of motives was surprising as some shoppers place items into their shopping cart as it is a fun activity for them. Subsequently, Anna Simmes conducted a field experiment over three weeks in which she analyzed the effectiveness of a reminder pop-up window with a 10 % discount vs. a reminder pop-up window without a discount vs. a control group. Results indicate that both a reminder pop-up window and a monetary incentive reduce the likelihood of abandonment.

Professor Krafft and Julian Allendorf who supervised Anna Simmes in her thesis were very satisfied with the results in which they will have important implications for researchers and online firms how to deal with online shopping cart abandonment. Johannes Theobald, co-founder of Kapten & Son and alumnus of the University of Muenster was also very pleased about the outcome of the cooperation. He will now discuss how the results of the study can be implemented to improve the shopping experience and completion rate of created shopping carts.