February 03, 2010, 12:32 PM — Users abandon online shopping carts for many reasons. Here are the top five.
1 – Using Your Shopping Cart for Research
Users are not on your site to purchase, but to research their options. For the most part, your customers are smart consumers. They compare notes with each other and fully check market and shipping prices before making decisions. These consumers are not afraid of adding items to the shopping cart while comparing prices with a competing site. Customers’ decisions to purchase hinge on emotional attachment to your brand and this market research, so ensure that your site has as much comparative information and personalized reviews as you can. Make these resources available to customers before they reach the shopping cart. This will increase the likelihood that they will remain on your site rather than leaving to conduct their research elsewhere, improving chances that their visits will end with purchases.
2 – Product Does Not Meet Customer Needs
You don’t have the product users want. Web site owners must be aware of visitor behavior, as well as visitor wants and needs, in order to constantly improve the site and increase revenues. You need to learn why users are leaving, so asking them is a good first step toward understanding what they are seeking. Check your marketing efforts. Did users find your promotions misleading or confusing? Were they surprised to find what was on your site did not match what you advertised? Are users unable to determine whether your product meets their needs? Don’t force customers to go through the shopping cart process in order to get detailed information about a product, such as colors, sizes, etc. Make accurate, detailed information as accessible as possible, and clearly communicate your offerings to potential customers.
3 – Your Shopping Cart Is Not Optimized
Your shopping cart is not optimized or working properly based on something relatively easy to update or fix. Customers may feel that the entire process is too long, slow or unclear. Additionally, your shopping cart may not support their browsers or operating systems. Too often than not, retailers spend so much time focusing on the look and feel of the actual shopping cart and fail to optimize it across as many platforms as possible. Making sure that your cart process is up to date will help improve the overall shopping experience. You do not want to lose customers right before they purchase because of issues you can easily fix.
4 – Customers Must Register Before They Purchase
Asking your clients to register prior to purchasing something on your Web site and then asking them to fill out the same contact information again to purchase your product feels time consuming and unnecessary. Reducing the number of steps to your shopping process will go a long way in creating happy customers. They already have a view in their mind of their best online shopping experience, so listen to them to make it yours.
5 – Shipping Costs and Availability
Shipping costs are either too expensive or you do not ship to the customer’s location. It is important to manage your customers’ expectations about your products and services. The easiest way to understand what they think of your prices and resources is to ask them about their experience. Perhaps you were in the middle of expanding your shipping locations or were introducing a new pricing strategy, and could easily win them back, if you just knew what they were thinking.
There isn't a secret formula to stop shopping cart abandonment except listening to customers, acting on their comments and personally engaging with them. Retailers need a holistic view of shopping cart processes - a view that goes beyond the individual page. Going directly to the source is often more productive than implementing the best new technology or spending lots of marketing dollars on branding. Chances are, you can win customers back by fulfilling one of their most basic needs – listening to them.
