Feeling overwhelmed sees 74 percent of consumers abandon carts: Accenture

Overwhelmed customers are abandoning carts as customer-centric marketing methods are still resulting in low change in consumer purchasing behaviour.  

However, latest findings from Accenture showed consumers are “ready” to adopt generative AI tools. 

Accenture’s Consumer Research 2024 findings revealed 74 percent of consumers surveyed walked away from purchases simply because they felt overwhelmed this past quarter [pdf].

The report also found 71 percent marked noted no improvement “or even see an increase in the time and effort required to make a purchase decision" despite customised marketing methods. 

“Ultimately, we expect this shift to trigger the largest reconsideration in decades of what and how consumers buy. 

“The question is how consumer-facing companies can best harness technology to be where people are when making decisions and to make the experience easier. 

“Those who empower consumers with easier decisions will earn deeper loyalty, leaving competitors behind,” the report stated. 

The Accenture report surveyed 19,000 consumers from 12 countries on making purchasing decisions across various categories.

From its study, the report determined that some “choosing small items like moisturizer can be as challenging as selecting big ticket items like a washing machine”. 

It stated AI tools can assist companies deliver hyper-personalised experiences “that not only cut through the noise”, but also build loyalty. 

“Based on our research, we believe that consumers are on track to adopt generative AI-powered advisors at scale over the next two years, as they increasingly seek to lighten their workloads associated with making purchases. 

“More than half (51 percent) of the consumers in our study are already open to using conversational AI solutions,” the report said. 

Other findings in the survey include 75 percent of people surveyed “feel bombarded by advertising” and 73 percent are “overwhelmed by too many options, as one respondent told us: “Finding information is easy, but [it is] difficult to make a decision from so much.”

Finding intricacies

According to the report, generative AI can help businesses pick up on consumer “intricacies” through the buying process. 

“Using this granular, life-centric knowledge, they can get to know their consumers as real, evolving people rather than as lists of transactions — and curate uniquely personal experiences that cut through the noise.”

“Search is a critical component of how consumers start the purchase journey, and some are already engaging with a new process by searching for their need then for the solution.”

Companies “will need to allow third-party generative AI-powered tools access to product details on their website”, according to the findings. 

“For semantic search on their own channels, they must also develop data sets that go beyond product attributes and include an understanding of the contexts in which a certain product could be the right solution,” the report stated. 

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