Case Study: Fixing Cart Abandonment for an Online Retailer

Duration: August – October 2025

Scope: UX usability testing and Path-to-purchase analysis

Client: A specialized e-commerce retailer in Thailand

The Business Issue

A mid-sized Thai online retailer had a successful marketing strategy that drove plenty of traffic to their site, but they faced a critical problem: High Cart Abandonment.

Too many customers were adding items to their cart but dropping out at the final payment step. The client needed to know if the issue was technical (bugs) or psychological (trust/pricing) to stop the loss of revenue.

The Techniques

Moderated Usability Testing + In-Depth Interviews
We conducted Moderated Usability Testing to “watch” real customers try to buy products on the site.
- Task-Based Testing: We recruited 15 target users and gave them a specific budget and shopping mission.
- Think-Aloud Protocol: Users voiced their thoughts in real-time as they clicked through the checkout, revealing their exact moment of hesitation.
- In-Depth Interviews (Qualitative): We conducted one-on-one sessions to explore broader consumer attitudes toward online trust. We probed into their past experiences with other platforms to understand their expectations regarding security, warranties, and payment transparency.

The Results

he research proved that the platform’s technical performance was sound, but it failed to meet the psychological needs of the Thai consumer.

Expectation Mismatch: Users experienced significant friction because the site’s information flow did not match the mental model they had developed from using major marketplace apps. Key decision-making information was presented too late in the journey, causing hesitation.
Trust Deficit: The qualitative interviews revealed that users felt “unsafe” during the checkout process due to a lack of visible reassurance signals, leading them to abandon the purchase despite wanting the product.

Strategic Pivot: Guided by these insights, the client overhauled their checkout user experience (UX). They redesigned the information hierarchy to prioritize transparency earlier in the user journey and implemented stronger trust signals at critical payment touchpoints.