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Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment
June
12, 2006
Shopping cart abandonment, or drop out
defined as the number of shoppers who begin
the steps of checkout and purchase, but
never complete the sale. For many
online merchants, cart abandonment can mean
the difference between being profitable or
operating at a loss. Despite its
importance, surveys have shown that less
than half of all online merchants know their
cart abandonment rate
Industry publications report a 70% average
cart abandonment rate for online websites.
In other words, on average 7 out of 10
people who begin your checkout will never
complete the sale. Overall, the
average website converts browsers to buyers
at a rate of 1 to 2% - demonstrating the
importance of improving both the overall
shopping experience (most potential
customers browse a page or two before
abandoning the site, and reducing all
barriers to the sale at the time of checkout
(presumably by the time an individual has
browsed your site and added items to the
cart, they are a highly qualified
prospective buyer, and if 70% of those
individuals drop out of the checkout process
for one reason or another, there is a
tremendous opportunity loss associated with
this lost sale.
One way to look at cart abandonment it by
analogy to the traditional bricks-and-mortar
shopping experience - imagine a customer
goes to your traditional storefront, selects
some items and then goes to the checkout at
the front of the store. What the find
are long lines, then a cashier who asks them
to fill out a membership form, followed by
problems with the cash register reading the
shopper's credit card.
A study by Keynote, who specializes in
online customer experience testing, surveyed
online shoppers and found the following top
ten reasons for abandoning the sale:
■
High shipping cost and long delivery
times
■
Comparison shopping and browsing
■
Changed mind
■
Total Cost of items too high
■
Checkout process too long
■
Checkout requires too much personal
information
■
Site requires registration before
purchase
■
Site is unstable or unreliable
■
Checkout process confusing
■
Lack of Free Shipping or competitive
incentives.
Even reasons that appear to be out of the
merchant's control, such as customer changed
mind, can in fact be managed or minimized by
taking steps to simplify the checkout
process, making it shorter, less
intimidating, and with fewer distractions.
Here are seven tips for reducing shopping
cart abandonment:
Remove shopper registration until after
the sale is completed
Over half ecommerce websites require a
shopper to create a member account during
the checkout process. One of the first
principles of selling is to never stall a
visitor or distract them from completing the
sale.
Show shipping and related costs and taxes
upfront
Show shoppers all costs associated with
the sale as early as possible - during the
first step of checkout is good - as part of
product pages is event better.
Build trust during checkout
Consider placing guarantees, return,
privacy, delivery, customer service and
security policies visible during the
checkout process. There is a balance
here between engendering confidence and
trust, and creating too many distractions or
overcomplicating the checkout pages.
As a general rule, since customers read top
to bottom, left to right, we recommend
placing these items on the bottom and right
of checkout pages. And balancing between
on-page notices which should be brief, and
off-page notices in the form of pop-ups,
which can be more verbose.
Use progress indicators
Shoppers are far less likely to have
confidence in the checkout process if they
have a clear sense of how many steps there
are, what each of these steps are, and which
step they are currently on. Add the
ability to review information added in
previous steps without erasing Avoid
redundant data entry such as entering an
email address twice or selecting a credit
card option. Above all, reduce the
number of steps in checkout to two or three.
Provide customer service options
Provide shoppers with the ability to
contact you via a 1-800 number or live chat
during checkout, and even on the main
shopping areas of your site. Even
having a 1-800 number or live chat option
present provides assurance to customers who
often complete the sale without even using
these options, but are comforted by seeing
they exist.
Clearly identify what visitors should
click next to complete the step
Make sure all 'Continue' and 'Complete
Checkout' buttons are obvious and well
positioned on the checkout pages, and
consistent for each step.
Use a readable and clear font size and
color
Important always, this is especially
important if your potential customer basis
is older or uses reading glasses.
Studies have consistently shown that the
readability of a page has a significant
impact on a shoppers overall impression of a
site and their confidence and inclination to
purchase.
Keep in mind that both shopping cart
abandonment and general site abandonment are
critical factors in determining conversion
to sales and customer retention, especially
in the light of the many comparison shoppers
that may represent your potential customer
base.
For more information on streamlining the
checkout process and displaying shipping
charges on product pages, see:
Streamlined
Checkout™
Streamlined
Shipper™
Contact Sienna Jones
marketing@streamlinedcheckout.com
Digital Beach
Digital
Beach provides advanced Ecommerce and
Internet Marketing services to a wide range
of companies from small merchants to medium
and large corporate clients.
Digital Beach has been delivering Streamlined Checkout™
with the StoreFront™ cart as part of an overall
eCommerce solution to online merchants since
both products appeared on the market some three
years ago. Nearly two years ago, we
decided we liked
the product so much, we bought
the company.
More about Digital
Beach
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