Shopping cart abandonment is common in eCommerce. This occurs when a visitor clicks on a product and adds it to their cart, but never completes the checkout process.
There are many different reasons for shopping cart abandonment. This guide offers a few tips on how to minimize abandoned shopping carts and encourage customers to commit to a purchase.
Send out reminder messages
If a user has an account, you could consider sending a reminder email to tell them that they’ve left an item in their shopping cart. Such emails can sometimes prompt consumers into going back and completing the checkout process. Many ecommerce platforms or bulk mailing tools allow you to automate these reminder messages. Consider setting up these reminders if they’re not already triggered.
Simplify the checkout process
If the checkout process is too long or complicated, this could be causing customers to abandon their shopping carts – some may simply not have the time or patience to complete it. While ideally you want all customers to create an account, it’s worth allowing customers the option of checking out without making an account so that you don’t lose impatient customers. Try to keep the checkout process to a minimum of three pages and consider using a progress bar. This post offers a few tips on how to speed up the checkout process.
Offer different shipping options
Some consumers may choose to abandon their shopping cart if the expected delivery date is too far away. Others may abandon their purchase if shipping fees are too high. If possible, it’s worth providing multiple shipping options including a fast more expensive delivery option and a slow cheaper option. A lot of companies are also offering green shipping options for customers that want to reduce their carbon footprint. You can work with an order fulfillment company to provide the right delivery options. Consider what types of customers you tend to get and which shipping options they’re likely to prefer.
Avoid charging surprise hidden fees
No-one wants to reach the end of a checkout process only to realize that surprise hidden fees have been added to the price. Customers who are on a tight budget may feel that they have been cheated. This is why it’s important to outline all fees from the start such as shipping fees, packaging fees and tax. Display this information clearly within your product description so that customers know exactly what the overall price is likely to be.
Make sure your site looks and feels trustworthy
Some customers have reservations about buying products via smaller eCommerce sites. Make sure that your site looks and feels trustworthy by making sure that it is well designed, making sure that text is well-written and making sure that photos are professional. Use a popular and trusted payment service. It’s often worth accepting credit card payments as well as debit card payments – many customers prefer to use credit cards when buying products online from unfamiliar sites as credit cards typically offer a level of protection that you don’t get with debit cards.
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