How retailers gain an Edge in the checkout experience

Shopping cart abandonment is a big problem in e-commerce, one that challenges CFOs, CIOs and indirect tax leaders alike.  

Potential customers often abandon their purchases due to lengthy and complicated checkout processes. Other drivers include mandatory account creation, ambiguous return and refund policies, a lack of discount/promo codes, site speed, unexpected costs and inaccurate sales tax calculations.  

In addition to analysing the cause of shopping cart abandonment, this Big Commerce report also describes numerous ways to reduce abandonment and improve the checkout experience. Most of these approaches relate to improving the speed, convenience and accuracy of the checkout experience, often through automation implementations and upgrades. The report notes that one approach involves reducing latency by optimising page load speeds: “Keep a close eye on site availability and uptime, especially during peak seasons. Slow page load speed can seriously dent your conversion rates.” 

Another approach that the BigCommerce report recommends centres on transparency: “Don’t surprise customers with unexpected taxes and fees at checkout. They will feel duped. Be upfront about fees associated with shipping, handling and taxes.” 

I couldn’t agree more: Our latest version of Vertex O Series Edge, which now includes EdgeLink, supports checkout-experience-improvement practices specific to tax.  

O Series with Edge and EdgeLink orchestration can ensure that taxes are not the reason for a dropped cart. It moves tax calculation close to the point of need via highly scalable and high-performing localised tax calculation endpoints without losing the accuracy of tax engine automation. This frees up retailers to optimise the cart workflow, accurately quoting tax early and often so there are no surprises. At the same time, it maintains a fast-loading checkout process to protect the user experience. 

These new capabilities allow for greater automation and less overall effort. EdgeLink empowers calculation endpoints to self-update and be fully configured within the Vertex cloud, seamlessly bridging the tax department’s meticulously managed tax configuration with tax calculation at the edge. 

Last year, Baymard Institute, an online user experience research institute, collected shopping cart abandonment rates published by various sources (mainly consulting firms, e-commerce vendors and other research firms) over the previous 11 years. The average of all those abandonment rates was 70.2%. 

The lost revenue associated with frequent purchasing bailouts explains why BCG research indicates that CFOs, CIOs, tax leaders and other executives in retail companies are “investing in process innovation and automation to improve and streamline operations”.  

Ultimately, shopping cart abandonment is a significant issue. To tackle this problem, businesses should consider the benefits of automation solutions. For more information about this topic and how Vertex O Series Edge with EdgeLink addresses these concerns, check out my first blog on the topic.