Are you wondering why so many shoppers on your San Diego website are leaving abandoned items in their shopping carts? If visitors to your site are browsing without making a purchase, you’re leaving money on the table.

So what are some of the reasons that customers might put items in their carts, then leave without buying? A study by Virtual Hold Technology found that many online shoppers simply give up when they run into problems buying online and can’t get hold of customer service. More than 75 percent of survey respondents said they had abandoned a shopping cart because they couldn’t get help with a problem.

The top problem users faced was not being able to correctly read or use the captcha code—80 percent of users struggled with this. Problems using promotional codes, discounts or gift cards were the next biggest issue, cited by nearly half of users.

Other issues that led to shopping cart abandonment were when customers had questions about product features, shipping, product availability or return policies and couldn’t find answers. Another common roadblock to purchase was technical problems, such as sites timing out, taking too long to load or difficulties logging in, resetting passwords or entering passwords.

How can you make sure customers don’t give up on your site (which more than one-third of users do when they can’t get an answer)?

• Make sure you have good FAQs online. Regularly update your FAQs to be sure they are answering key questions customers have. Also make sure your FAQs can easily be accessed above the fold on every page of your site.
• Enable immediate customer service. More than 75 percent of online shoppers in the survey said they’d buy more from a site that offered the ability to click or tap to get customer service assistance. Over half also said they’d promote such a site to their friends and family. Start by including a way to contact your business that’s clearly visible at the top of every page. This should include your toll-free phone number, plus a way to email you.
• Use chat. Of course, email isn’t the ideal solution for shoppers in a hurry, so consider adding an online chat feature that makes it easy for customers to get immediate help. You can also create a popup so that when customers perform certain actions on your site, an offer to chat pops up on their screen.
• Send triggered emails. Once customers have abandoned a shopping cart, all is not lost. Send triggered emails reminding customers they have product in the cart. Include an offer of customer service assistance, such as your phone number or link to chat, within the email.
• Do regular testing. Make sure your discount codes are updated, your password and account creation pages work properly and your captcha offers options to choose another captcha if customers have problems.

By treating your online customers as you’d like to be treated, you’ll see fewer carts abandoned and more sales.