Abandon Shopping Cart in 5 Words:
Progress, Steps, Link Back, Shipping
So you have an e-commerce site and you’re making money. How much more revenue would you make if potential customers didn’t abandon the shopping cart?
Abandon Hope and Basket
Shopping cart abandonment is a science in itself. Experts talk about the ‘sales funnel’ which is the steps along the route to hitting the confirm button. One of the first items to address is how many steps are there in your shopping basket? Can you reduce those steps?
Seller Beware
There’s an illuminating anecdote from Avinash Kaushik (the Godfather of web analytics) about a brand new shopping cart he saw introduced. It was java-driven and really was the bee’s knees. It reduced the cart to a single page. Did it convert at a higher rate? No. O’ dear you think but it should. You and I may think it should but customers didn’t. Avinash subsequently found out customers felt more ‘at home’ with the old version.
It’s Them, Not Us
What I mean by this little story is we may think something is great on a Website but we know nothing. Our visitors and our customers know everything. Have a regular programme of feedback on the site and commit to surveys.
Customers want all manner of options like being able to go back while in the shopping cart and don’t want to feel trapped.
A Word About Shipping
Show the shipping charges early and show them clearly and most defiantly not on the last screen.
5 Tips to Consider for Shopping Carts
1. Include a progress indicator
2. Show a thumbnail image of the product (or service) in the basket
3. Make it your fault if there is an error ‘Sorry about that…’
4. Give an option to call or chat
5. Show shipping costs early
Extra Tip: Positive Forms
We are all used to filling in online forms and an error message will appear if the information is not in a certain format. How much better it looks for a visitor if a ‘tick’ appears when the field they are filling in is correct.
You can have a big win by exploring what works best in your shopping cart.
All the best,
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