7 Ways to Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment
Research shows about 75 percent of online shoppers fail to complete a purchase for one reason or another. While retailers and general merchandise vendors have many good offers on their site to attract sales, they might not be doing enough to ensure that shoppers complete the purchase once selected items in the shopping cart are processed at checkout.
The main reasons for shopping cart abandonment are:
• High shipping cost or hidden fees
• Slow payment process
• Not enough payment options
• Transaction security and personal information concerns
• Price comparison not available
• Coupon or discount not available
• Shopper intends to buy offline
• Lack of support for the purchase
As all web merchants know, just because a customer puts an item in their shopping cart, that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. Shopping cart abandonment rates are fairly high, and this is troubling for large as well as small online ecommerce sites. So let’s see what can be done to save your potential buyers from leaving your site.
Know Shipping Rates and Be Transparent About Costs. A recent research study revealed 46 percent of shoppers abandoned their shopping carts because shipping charges were too high. You are competing for business online, so it doesn’t’ make sense to inflate shipping costs to increase your profit – especially when big sites like Amazon can offer free shipping with a $25 spend. Make sure the price is clearly marked next to the “Buy” button so shoppers know the price of the item on checkout. If you charge for shipping and handling, make that clear up front and not at the last minute. A last-minute surprise with such hidden fees may be the reason why the transaction fails. Keep your entire purchasing process transparent and you’ll get more sales in the long run.
Ensure Your Order and Payment Process Are Fast and Easy. Don’t require any extra questions to complete a transaction online. All you need is name, delivery address and credit card authorization. Only ask for information that is directly relevant to delivering the products and receiving payment. Your marketing people may want some extra customer information, but the point of sale is not the time to get such information. Marketing can request that information in follow up emails. The other thing you want to do is test your site to see how fast it operates with different browsers. Make sure your checkout process is fast and smooth.
Provide All Possible Payment Options and Make Them Known. Say your buyers complete the order and move on to make payment only to find you don’t offer their preferred payment option. You need to offer as many payment options as possible and make sure this info is clearly stated on your homepage, product pages and landing pages.
Promote Transaction Security. Use the latest security technology to protect your customers and your business and make sure your customers know this by showing a seal of approval from established security companies like VeriSign. Post a privacy policy that is also easily found so your customers know you won’t be careless with their personal information. This will go a long way toward assuring buyers this is a safe website that can be trusted with personal and financial information.
Give Shoppers Price Comparisons. This can help you avoid a situation where shoppers take your price and then visit a competitor to compare the price. Enabling customers to perform price comparisons directly from your site gives you the opportunity to influence prospects by showing them why your product or service is better than the competition.
Provide Chat for Support. Many times, customers have questions about the product, and if they’re not sure and can’t ask a question, they will abandon the idea of buying online. You can avoid this by providing a chat service.
Make It Easy to Come Back. Many shoppers abandon the cart but return at a later date, perhaps because they weren’t ready to buy yet. Send a follow up message by auto-responder using the captured email address. You can send an incentive to buy, offer a coupon or discount. Also, you can provide the ability to put items on their wish list. Use an abandoned cart recovery script so customers can return to the point where they left off
Retailers are going to need to get creative in 2011 and one of the best ways to do that is to expand their online presence and e-commerce efforts. There are several price comparison sites out there offering creative new ways to reduce cart abandonment / bounce rates, most notably Onewayshopping.com (www.onewayshopping.com), which gives merchants the opportunity to list marketing messages (promotions, coupons) with their products.