Shopping cart abandonment can be a frustrating issue for online retailers. And, it’s a big problem. According to statistics, trillions of pounds are left on websites all around the world. Clearly, if your business can manage to tackle these abandonment issues head on, it should lead to a healthier amount of sales.
The big question is, what can you do about it? We’re going to take a look at a few simple ideas that might just help. Read on to find out more and start getting more from your online checkout process.
Via: Flickr
Get to know conversion rate optimisation
First of all, it’s important to understand the basics of conversion rate optimisation or CRO. Just like SEO optimises your website for search engines, CRO does the same with the visitors to your site. There are plenty of guides out there that can help you get started. Or, if you want faster results, you might be better off finding a conversion optimisation company to work with. Get it right, and you should see a dramatic increase in sales and conversions.
Use customer reviews
Many people are still hesitant about buying online – and it’s no surprise. There are still plenty of websites out there that will happily rip off their visitors, and if you get burnt once, it makes you a lot more careful. A good way of defeating this is to use online reviews of your products and services. Make them easy to find on your site and it should give you a little social proof that you are a legitimate business.
Display your security credentials
Another issue with online shopping is trust. People don’t like handing over their credit card details to anyone, and they are becoming savvier about online security. The trouble is if you don’t shout from the rooftops about how secure your site is, they just won’t know you are safe. Make sure that you display any badges of the security tools you use – it will make a difference.
Use a guest checkout process
Are you asking your customers to go through a lengthy signup process before they buy anything? If so, try adding a guest checkout option to speed things up a little. More than one in five people list time constraints as one of the issues with buying products online. So, the more barriers you remove, the better your performance should be.
Be clear on shipping costs
Another big issue occurs when a customer fills their cart and then finds out how much they have to pay for shipping. If it’s a significant amount, they will just walk away from the transaction. Try and be clearer with your shipping costs – and perhaps even remove them altogether for higher value orders. Yes, you will lose a little profit from each payment. But, the additional orders you get will more than outweigh the difference.
As you can see, there are several ways of improving your shopping cart abandonment rates. Do you have any more tips to add?
