• Online Retailers miss out on over £420 million sales a month
• 54% of consumers have terminated a purchase because of the lengthy checkout process

RELEASE 16.06.20: Online retailers are missing out on £420 million* in lost sales as lengthy waits cause customers to ditch the check-out early.

Over half (54%) of us regularly leave sites between choosing something and paying for it, which is exasperating for both the customer and retailer alike according to research by one of Europe’s biggest online payments providers Moneybookers.

The main attraction of shopping online is that it’s quick and simple, yet on average it can take over seven minutes to pay on some of the UK’s leading websites, and involves as many as 11 different steps.

Lengthy and laborious checkout processes are the online equivalent of a surly and unhelpful shop assistants as customers vote with their mouse and take their business elsewhere. 63% of Brits admit that they find the checkout process on some websites can be long-winded and ultimately frustrating.

Moneybookers’ in-house shoppers found that with the worst offenders, checkout can take up to seven minutes and the sites were so time consuming to use that new customers have to work their way through 11 different steps, inputting a range of personal information before they’re finally able to confirm their order.

The information consumers are asked to input ranges from the expected, like billing information and delivery address, to the more obscure such as ‘how many children are there in your household?’ With 74% of shoppers concerned by the amount of personal data they’re asked to enter, some retailers run the risk of losing sales by using the checkout as the chance to conduct market research.

At the other end of the scale the research found that the smoothest checkouts took on average just under three minutes, despite still comprising of seven steps or more.

Nikolai Riesenkampff, Co-Chief Executive of Moneybookers said, “Consumers have every right to expect the online checkout process to be quick, simple and above all safe. Retailers who don’t make every effort to ensure their customers can confirm their order as easily as possible are putting themselves at a real disadvantage. Customers wouldn’t put up with bad service in a shop on the high street, so they shouldn’t have to do it online either.

“At Moneybookers we offer a simple eWallet, which is designed to make the checkout process straightforward for consumers and retailers alike, by enabling customers to make online payments conveniently and securely without revealing personal financial data. Once registered there’s no need to type in your credit or debit card details with each transaction. You can simply pay with your email address.”