Online sales have become increasingly dominant over the last few years, and many retailers use ecommerce software to take advantage of multichannel marketing strategies. Just like store operations, however, websites need to be optimized to improve the customer experience and ensure a smooth shopping process from browsing to check out. Sites that take too long to load, have pages that are hard to navigate or purchase procedures with too many steps are more likely to result in abandoned shopping carts. A recent report by TrustInsight revealed that almost one-fifth of shoppers have had their credit cards declined, causing frustration and lost sales.

According to the report, one-third of these declines were unnecessary, resulting in customer frustration, increased costs for banks and lost revenue for merchants. One out of every six shoppers whose card was declined online gave up on the purchase completely, instead of trying a different card.

While cards can be rejected for a number of reasons, retailers need to take any measures available to reduce unnecessary declines on their sites. For example, they can make sure their ecommerce software is high-performance and supports up-to-date transaction processes. Marketing Land recommended optimizing retail websites by analyzing site metrics, such as add-to-cart, checkout and purchase rates.