The majority of users abandon online shopping carts before completing a transaction.
True. According to Ecommerce Times, an astonishing 80% of users abandon their shopping carts before completing a transaction! These are real potential customers, many ready to spend money at your site. Prevent this from happening by avoiding some of the main problems that cause people to desert carts. These include:
- Failing to understand online consumer behaviour. People sometimes use shopping carts as a handy spot to store potential product picks while they shop. This doesn't mean they will buy everything they place in their cart. Some people are just browsing or comparison shopping. Others may put items in a shopping cart, intending to think about it a while or come back later to complete the purchase. Some do follow through, but others will get distracted, experience "shopper's remorse", or simply forget all about these impulse buys.
- Placing too many barriers before users, such as the need to register before one can place an item in a cart. Nothing will turn users off faster than a long and convoluted registration process, except perhaps being asked to provide personal information they consider none of your business.
- Failure to make key information easily accessible. Nothing is more infuriating than getting almost all the way through the checkout process only to discover that a merchant doesn't ship to your area. Many users abandon the shopping process because they are asked for their credit card information before they have even determined whether a site ships to their location.
- Failure to anticipate and answer customers' questions. Customers expect answers to questions they may have when shopping. Your site should feature prominent links to contact phone numbers or email addresses, customer service pages, and Frequently Asked Questions. An easy way to find out more is vital if your company doesn't have the benefit of strong brand recognition. People are less likely to do business with entities they have never heard of.
- A difficult or cumbersome checkout process. Unintuitive, confusing or overly complex order forms can send users scampering for the Back button, especially if help is not offered.
- Promoting add-on sales too soon. Don't ask users to purchase batteries for that digital camera they're buying while they're in the middle of adding it to their cart. According to Usability News, research indicates that users find such solicitations not only disorienting, but irritating. Instead, these authors suggest you display related items on the final checkout page, and place the control with the users.
- Forcing the user to hunt for important controls. Add to Cart buttons should be large and prominent, as should the cart's final Checkout button. One of the key findings of usability research is the fact that many users do not scroll. If users are viewing your site on a low resolution system, be aware that important controls may be off the bottom of the screen. Some users will never know these controls are there, and will abandon your site.
- Asking people to click a "Buy Now" button when they're not ready to buy. Usability News reports that users confronted with a Buy Now button may perceive this as committing too soon to the purchase decision, and will look instead for a Shopping Cart button on the same page. They suggest you avoid Buy Now buttons in favour of the shopping cart, a metaphor everyone understands.
- Failure to assuage concerns about security. Many people remain nervous about shopping online. They want strong reassurance that you take security seriously. Your shopping cart, third-party or not, must appear to integrate seamlessly with the rest of your site and provide state-of-the-art payment processing. A shopping cart that looks amateurish, lacks features, or does not reinforce your corporate identity will undermine your credibility and consumer confidence.
