Hi LilJH,
The other replies already go into some common culprits for having a large drop off by users reaching checkout but not making it to the completed purchase:
- Simply not working - is there a bug?
- Extra costs like shipping were too high. For online stores in general, this is the most common reason.
- Lacking payment methods.
- Lacking information such as return policies or if you deliver to the customer's location.
- Lacking trust.
Check nothing's broken
Checking for bugs is something you can do immediately to rule it out as a possibility if you haven't done so already. Try going through your checkout process on both desktop as well as mobile, and test each payment method. Make sure there's nothing broken, or anything that would impede your users from being able to complete the purchase.
Dig in to your data reports
Try looking at your purchase conversion rates for different products, different referral sources, and different date ranges. It seems you're concerned about the Facebooks ads and you may have already looked into it. If you haven't though, check the conversion rates of people who came from Facebook versus other sources. Or, select the date ranges before and after stopping the ads to see if any patterns emerge. I would also check the conversion rates for different products. How different products behave can vary greatly from store to store, and in some cases some of your products may behave differently from others which may give you ideas on what do to. Where the user is located geographically might be a good thing to check as well.
Try using a session recording app
If the cause continues to be unclear with the information you have right now, the next step would be to start gathering evidence. MIDA seems to be a popular session recording app with positive reviews and a free plan available. With session recording you can see WHAT your customers are doing, however it may not be immediately obvious WHY they are doing it. If the session recordings by itself gives a clear idea of the problem - great. In my experience they help, but it lacks a lot of context on why your customers are behaving the way they are.
Gather customer feedback
To understand WHY your customers are abandoning the checkout process, it is very helpful to gather feedback from them directly. Survey apps like Gojiberry have cart abandon surveys that can help, however they tend to get very few responses - users who are thinking to leave your website are not very motivated to fill out a survey.
Alternatively, you can try adding a customer support live chat widget to your website using apps like Gorgias. It's extra work on your end to respond to help requests, however it is a great source of customer feedback. When your customers are asking questions like "do you support this payment method?", "do you ship to our location?", or "does your product have this feature?" - they are telling you their needs and concerns. Based on that feedback, you can develop some ideas on what may be preventing that final purchase conversion step. Not to mention - good customer support is an important part of giving your customers a great user experience.
I hope these ideas help you find the cause of your problems! Your customers seem interested in your products, and I hope fixing this bottleneck gives you a big boost!
