How to Fight Shopping Cart Abandonment By Ryan Franklin
If you’re an ecommerce merchant and you’re thinking about order fulfillment then you’ve likely dealt with shopping cart abandonment in the past. We’ve all been there: You get a decent amount of traffic going all the way through the funnel but when it comes to completing the order you just can’t seem to get the numbers where you want them. Abandonment can be attributed to many factors, from poor design to shipping costs. Here we’ll look at three issues and how to address them.
Shipping Costs
One of the most frequently cited reasons for shopping cart abandonment is high shipping costs. Based on the big players it might seem like the best solution to this problem is to offer free shipping and eat the cost as a part of doing business. In reality that solution is a terribly inefficient and costly option that doesn’t really address the problem. Instead of trying to massage shipping costs out of your profit margins you should look into other ways of eliminating this problem. First, you need to make sure your customers can see the total cost of their order at all times through the process. If they know the cost then they’re not suddenly going to drop off when it comes up later. You should also consider getting an average shipping cost and offering a flat rate to make the process easier. If your profit margins allow for it you also might consider doing free shipping on large orders where the cost is minimized.
Comparison Shopping
Another oft-cited reason for shopping cart abandonment is the desire to do comparison shopping. If you think about it a second you can probably come up with the simplest solution to this problem. Got it? Make your site a place to go for comparisons, of course! You can implement code on your pages that shows prices from other merchants so customers know they are getting the best deal from you. This can be a bit of a double-edged sword, however, because if your cost is higher then they’re likely not going to buy from you. You’ll want to keep up with competition as a result.
Time
Time is important to everyone, your customers included. If it’s taking forever to go through with an order they might just move on or go to another site that seems more efficient. You should never lose a customer to time, so make sure that your experience is well designed and quick. This can mean everything from optimizing design to ensuring that your page load times are fast. One simple trick to reassure people is to give them feedback throughout the process with checkmarks or other indications when they’ve filled out forms correctly. If you value your customers’ time then they will value your site.
There are dozens of other reasons for shopping cart abandonment, but fixing these will take care of some of the biggest offenders.
Author’s bio: Ryan Franklin is a guest author and expert on shipping of all kinds, from yacht transport