Password frustrations lead two-thirds of shoppers to abandon their carts

Poor account and password experiences at checkout mean two-thirds of shoppers abandon a shopping cart if they need to create an account according to new research.

Passwordless security firm, Beyond Identity surveyed more than 1,000 people in the UK and found that 62 percent of respondents have abandoned a shopping cart if required to create an account.

There's a deeper impact on the retailer too, because after abandoning a cart, 83 percent of respondents would seek to shop elsewhere, 76 percent would be reluctant to visit the same website again and 58 percent would have a negative perception of the brand.

When asked what has stopped them completing a purchase. 32 percent blame 'fatigue from constantly creating online accounts', whilst 41 percent report abandoning a cart because they have forgotten a password and 30 percent say over-complex password creation requirements are deal-breakers at the checkout.

Tom 'TJ' Jermoluk, CEO of Beyond Identity, says:

We've all experienced the frustration of forgetting our passwords. Now it's time to forget the password altogether because the results of this survey show they are becoming a liability.

The online retail space is hugely competitive, so brands should be very nervous to hear that problems with passwords, account sign-ups and online registration can drive customers to abandon their carts or seek a competitor's services.

The best way to solve the problems with passwords is to abolish them altogether. Gartner predicts that 60 percent of large and global enterprises and 90 percent of midsize enterprises will implement passwordless protections by 2022, turning to MFA and other security solutions in more than 50 percent of use cases.

The three of the most annoying parts of online login and registration are rated as: forgetting passwords (38 percent), passwords that have specific requirements -- length, special characters, etc. (39 percent), and CAPTCHA tests (38 percent). A further 27 percent say security questions are annoying and 20 percent say the same about multi-factor authentication.

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