A study by McAfee has found that shopping cart abandonment rates, which are often reported as being high across most categories, may be a little misleading.

Some studies peg a figure of around 57% of all shopping cart sessions being abandoned.

McAfee studied the behavior of 163 million shoppers and found that 65% of all shoppers wait a day or more to complete a purchase, and the average delay is just under 34 hours.

McAfee says that online sales conversions were 11% higher among digital window shoppers who were shown something related to security, a form of reassurance such as a third party security certificate. The longer it took a shopper to complete a sale, the more responsive they were to security cues.

McAfee also quoted another study that where 63% of consumers said they won’t purchase from a Web site that doesn’t display a trustmark or security policy.

There’s all sorts of reasons that people abandon a cart, the lack of a security seal is just one of them. While cart conversion rates will never be 100%, there’s a lot you can do to minimize cart abandonment. Some of these strategies are very simple and won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Read more of the McAfee report.