Don't let "cart abandonment" get you down. Good planning will go a long way toward closing the deal.
When was the last time you walked into a grocery store, filled up your cart with milk, eggs and apples, walked all the way to the checkout, then changed your mind, left your cart in the aisle and walked out of the store? The answer is: probably never! But online shoppers often do just that. "Cart abandonment" is one of the uphill battles that all web marketers face. It's important to understand this phenomenon and work to make your ecommerce web site the best it can be for your visitors, so that when they finally reach the checkout line, they're ready with credit card in hand.
Visitors may vanish from your site right before checkout for a number of reasons, but the good news is that with a little foresight you can stop them. Follow a couple of basic guidelines to ensure a positive visitor experience.
When a visitor clicks that precious "add to cart" button, you want to be sure that she knows what she's getting. Take the guesswork out to prevent last-minute "cold feet". Depending on your industry, you may want to include product weight and dimensions, sizes, colors or construction materials. If it's an edible product, what are the ingredients? Is there anything a person with food allergies should know? If it's furniture, how wide is it? Will it fit through your customer's front door in one piece or does it require assembly? If it's a tote bag, is it waterproof? Never be afraid of information. When it comes to details, there's no such thing as overkill, as long as they're clear and organized. Arm your customers with information and watch your sales increase.
Customers don't like surprises. You might have experienced this frustration yourself if you've ever gone to a web site and been forced to "check out" before shipping and delivery charges were calculated and added to your order. A customer might be perfectly fine with a $50 delivery charge - as long as he's aware of it. That same customer might not be as forgiving if an extra $50 suddenly appears without warning on the order total. Information, again, is they key. It's best to provide an exact delivery charge, but if that's not possible, then an estimate or a simple shipping calculator prior to purchase can help.
Would you spend $100 on something you can't really "see", certainly can't touch and know only one paragraph's worth of information about? Sure you would, if you knew that product was guaranteed to be exactly what that paragraph said - or else you'd get your money back. Sometimes all it takes for a customer to make a purchase is a comfort level that she can take a chance on your product without risk. Face it, buying on the web is a risky proposition. Thousands - nay, millions - of shopping sites are competing for our attention, and somehow every store's products are "Incredible!" "Cheap!" "Authentic!" Show your customers that you stand behind your products by guaranteeing some level of satisfaction. At the very least, provide your customers with your company's refund policies so that they can make educated purchases.
It takes an incredible amount of trust to hand over your credit card number and personal information to a complete stranger. In days where identity theft makes headlines, it falls on you as the merchant to create the secure environment your customers need to feel comfortable making a purchase. Start with a reputable security certificate to protect and encrypt transactions and clearly announce your status as a secure merchant by displaying your certificate vendor's verification seal.
Make sure that your site is free from spelling and grammatical errors and that it is informational and professional. Something as simple as a poorly written paragraph can send up warning flags in a customer's mind. Professionalism will go a long way towards ensuring your credibility and your customer's comfort level.
Finally, don't ask for more information than you need. You might ask for a customer's birth date because you have well-intentioned plans of sending a free gift, but customers may see this as suspicious. If you do ask for additional information, explain why and always make it optional.
The simpler the checkout process, the better. Don't send your visitors packing by requiring a lengthy "new customer registration". In fact, make any registration process optional, or you risk deterring a customer who opts out of creating an account. Clearly define the steps in the checkout process so customers know what's coming next and how long the transaction will take. Web shoppers want their purchases made quickly and simply, which is one of the reasons they're not standing on line at the local retail outlet one block away.
If the checkout process is physically too slow, your customers will get tired of waiting for pages to load and may leave for another merchant. It would be a shame if you managed to build a terrific site, gain your customer's trust and lead them all the way to purchase only to lose them in the final five seconds of lag time.
You'd think this would win an Obvious Award, but never assume something is working just because it was working yesterday. Whatever cart software you're using, make sure it's current and functional across browsers and operating systems and be sure to test it regularly to ensure that bugs haven't crept in unexpectedly.
Sometimes, getting a customer back can be as simple as sending a reminder email letting her know that her items are still waiting in her cart. People on the internet can be easily distracted by another web site, their boss, their kids, the chicken in the oven. If a customer has already signed into her account or provided an email address, a friendly reminder email might be enough to prompt her to return and complete the purchase.
Whether customers ultimately make a purchase depends, in large part, on how easy you make it for them to do so. And whether they return depends entirely on your ability to provide what they want. Does your site offer:
A little planning and "thinking like a shopper" can help your ecommerce site be a success. If it drives you nuts when you shop online, it's going to drive someone else nuts, too. If it makes your life easier, it's probably going to make your customer's life easier. Follow the basic guidelines, and don't forget to do some good old-fashioned down-in-the-trenches research, to find out what your customers really think and want.
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