A study by security firm McAfee has found that 65% of online shoppers wait a day or more to fully convert on a purchase.

The study, Digital Window Shopping: The Long Journey to Buy, reviewed 163 million online transactions. Released September 17, it observed that this behavior — generally characterized as shopping cart abandonment — may simply be characteristic of a cautious shopper.

"The good news is that those shoppers who you thought were disappearing may not be gone, they may just be delaying," said Research Analyst Shane Keats of McAfee.

Keats also noted that many marketers typically use price discounts and remarketing emails when they perceive a customer abandons a cart.

Sales conversions are reportedly also 11% higher for digital window shoppers given a security cue. McAfee gauged this with its Trustmark security service in a series of A/B tests, and discovered the change in behavior when the icon appeared to the user.

"If you are already investing in security for your site, why not communicate that to your customers at every stage of their shopping?" Keats suggested.

In April, a PayPal/comScore study found that 21% of buyers said they decided not to shop at a given site because of security concerns.