The Basics For Improving Shopping Cart Abandonment

As an online retailer what if we told you that you could undoubtedly be making more money? Shopping cart abandonment is alive and well in the world of online shopping. According to the recent Baymard study, there is an average of 69.23% of online cart abandonment. To put this into perspective, for every 100 potential customers 69 of them will leave your store without purchasing a thing.

We want to share you with the most common issues consumers encounter while shopping online and offer you some of our top solutions which will help reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Here are some of the top 10 reasons from the 2017 Baymard study that lead most online consumers to cart abandonment before completing their purchase:

1. High extra cost due to tax, shipping, and fees
2. The need to create a user account
3. Long, complicated check out process
4. The total cost wasn’t calculated up front
5. Website crash
6. Didn’t trust the website with CC information
7. Slow delivery process
8. Un-satisfactory return policies
9. Lack of variety in payment methods
10. Declined CC

The good news is, 90% of these issues are capable of being resolved on your end. As an online retailer, there is a multitude of tools that are available to you to make the user experience is positive carrying them all the way to the finish line of checkout.

Shipping cost is one of the top contributors to people canceling their purchases altogether. Consider a few of these shipping options for national orders: free shipping on orders that exceed a certain amount on the subtotal of items, or flat rate shipping for all purchases. Allow your shipping cost to be displayed upfront to help mitigate the shock factor come check out time, and remember, your shipping charges should not be thought of as a profit margin.

Condense your checkout page. The fewer steps to check out the better. Think in terms of if you were in the store, you found exactly what you needed, but the checkout line was 20 people deep and you didn’t have the extra 30+ minutes to wait in line to purchase your items. The same goes for online shopping, most consumers choose to online shop for the ease of not having to travel to a brick and mortar so you want to cater to their experience. Provide no more than three step process, Shipping, Payment, Review and place the order. If you have the option for customers to create an account with you also allow for customers to check out as a guest, the majority will prefer to utilize your guest option as its one less step they will have to go through to make their order. Be sure to include thumbnail images of the products throughout the entirety of the checkout process, this will help remind your customers of what they are purchasing and will diminish the room for abandonment when they aren’t capable or immediately remembering exactly what they are purchasing.

Providing a multitude of payment options will help you in the long run, you don’t need to offer every payment option possible – yet offer major credit card options as well as PayPal and that should cover just about all of your payment bases. Consider displaying security logos on your checkout page. With the increase in online fraud, the hesitation your customers may feel without the acknowledgment that your site is secured is understandable. You want to build trust within your customer base. Be sure when using these logos that they are well known and recognizable to the average user.

Remarketing, remarketing, remarketing! Inevitably, some customers will choose the route of cart abandonment and this is where remarketing comes into play. You want to gift yourself as many opportunities as possible to up your conversion rate. Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Bing ads are all available for you to use. These ads help to remind your site visitors of what they are missing out on and will overall help you win back some of those prospective customers that previously chose to leave.

Shopping cart abandonment in the e-commerce world is inevitable. However, implementing these critical changes – lower shipping cost, upfront cost, simple checkout options, site security, and remarketing will overall lead to higher conversions.

Let’s turn prospective customers into customers.