How To Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment

Fixing Shopping Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is never a pleasant experience for customers or sellers. Sellers feel the sting of lost sales opportunities, while customers feel like they have wasted their time and energy. According to a study conducted by Bymard.com, the average abandonment rate for online shopping carts is 67.75%, which is an overwhelming amount of lost business. Despite this high amount of shopping cart abandonment, there are ways that ecommerce businesses can overcome this problem. The following ecommerce solutions are a great way to avoid cart abandonment and help ensure your customers end up making a purchase.

• Provide free shipping. According to a Forrester study, 61% of online shoppers preferred to shop with retailers that offer free shipping than those who don't. A study conducted by PayPal also revealed that 43% of shoppers abandoned shopping carts because the shipping charges were too high. Various other studies also revealed that free shipping would encourage customers to make more purchases.
• Make your charges clear, visible and reasonable. It is extremely important to avoid all hidden charges, as studies reveal that customers hate unforeseen additional charges as they check out. The best way to introduce additional variable charges, such as sales tax, etc., is to incorporate a sales tax calculator into the shopping cart. This ecommerce solution will avoid surprise charges for customers.
• Even the slightest inconvenience can make your customers move to your competitors, so make sure that your ecommerce website is easily accessible, navigable and has great download speeds.
• No one likes to queue, so it is important that the checkout process is simple, quick and easy. Reducing the number of clicks is one of the best ways to do this.
• Streamline your data collecting and only ask for information that you absolutely need.
• One major aspect of any ecommerce solution is trust. With identity theft and fraud increasing, ecommerce shoppers are wary to shop online and you must make them feel safe and confident to shop with you. This can be done by incorporating various trust seals on the website as well as using safe and secure payment gateways.
• Offer multiple payment options. This will allow you to reach a wider range of customers.
• Offer guest check out. Study reveals that shoppers tend to abandon shopping carts if they are asked to register before making a purchase. Allow guest checkouts and leave it to the customer to decide if they want or don't want to register.
• Localise your shopping cart. Make sure that the purchasing process is provided in their local language and charge your customers in their local currency.
• All search tools on your website should be designed so that it makes finding products easy and quick.
• It's extremely important to remind customers of their abandoned carts. Sending out a message to remind customers of their abandoned carts has proven to increase transactions. As a result of this customers will either purchase the abandoned items, save them for later or clear the cart. A Forrester study revealed that 41% of online shoppers were unprepared to make a purchase and so they abandoned the shopping cart. Therefore, ecommerce website owners must give customers the option to make purchases when they are ready.

Still Need Help?

Turn to Advansys. We are a leading ecommerce solution company with the expertise and skill to craft out solutions that will minimise shopping cart abandonment rates, as well as reduce bounce rates, instil trust, boost customer confidence, and increase sales and revenue. To learn more about our ecommerce solutions you can reach us at Advansys Limited Building 4 Millars Brook Molly Millars Lane Wokingham Berkshire RG41 2AD Telephone: 0845 838 2700 Fax: 0845 838 2701 sales@advansys.com

Source: http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate,

http://documentation.vin65.com/Store/Shipping,

http://seewhy.com/blog/2010/06/03/reasons-why-website-visitors-abandoned-their-shopping-carts/