Every day, shopping carts get abandoned on e-commerce sites. On many sites, its not unusual for 70% of visitors to start shopping and then just walk away.
These are lost opportunities and can be a major drain on marketing expenditure. So why do they/we do it?
A survey earlier this year by PayPal and comScore highlighted 7 key reasons, and I’ve added some thought on how they might be rectified.
#1 High shipping charges
A common problem, but you can test different shipping options. For example, give an option where visitors would qualify for free shopping, as Amazon does. Could you offer free shipping, perhaps for a limited period?
#2 Wanted to comparison shop
People rarely purchase on their first visit but want to compare prices. So see if you can make it easy for them to come back and pick up their abandoned cart by giving an option to save a cart for a period.
#3 Leaving to Google a coupon code
When you give people the option to enter a coupon or offer code, they will go to find one. Make sure you have some codes on your own site, and link to them from the checkout. And leave asking forthe coupon unitl as late as possible in the checkout process.
#4 Couldn’t find preferred payment option
Most stores offer a wide variety of payment types, but are these obvious when somebody is shopping? Make it easy for the shopper to locate this information, perhaps in the footer of every page.
#5 Item unavailable at checkout
Never ideal. Look how this is managed at the checkout – what options are provided other than abandon?
#6 Couldn’t find customer support
Most online stores do offer good customer service options, but sometimes visitors are not seeing them at the appropriate point in the process. Also, if you use live chat support, and the chat service is “offline,” what is the customer experience like?
#7 Security concerns
A confidence and credibility gap has opened up – the Web isn’t 100% safe for shoppers, and they know it. But assurances, 3rd party security seals, and credibility of design are key. And test different positions for maximum impact.
By looking at these top concerns and how your shopping cart handles them, you should be able to reduce your cart abandonment rate and so improve the profitability of the store.
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