WHATS SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT, AND WHY IS IT SO TRAGIC?

I have always maintained that the real tragedy is not being unable to attract qualified traffic to your ecommerce website. Instead, it is getting traffic but not being able to convert it to sales. And a high shopping cart abandonment rate is the gravest of those tragedies.

Every ecommerce business owner knows what shopping cart abandonment is. But to set the context, let me define it as the act of a customer discontinuing the purchase process after adding goods to the shopping cart.

The reason this is so tragic is that you, the ecommerce business owner, managed to get the customer to do everything: visit your website, navigate it, locate the right products, and add them to the cart. But at the last stage when the customer was to checkout, they chose to abandon you. If that is not a tragedy of epic proportions, I dont know what is!

Simple Fixes That Can Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Here are some ideas that are easy to implement, yet can positively impact shopping cart conversions. Figure out which ones are relevant to you, and implement them right away:

1. Allow Customers to Purchase Without Registering
There are many benefits of having customers go through the complete registration process, but that is from your point of view. If the customer is not sure that they will buy repeatedly from you, or if they do not care about the benefits of registration, then they might abandon your shopping cart if you force them to register before checkout. Allow customers to purchase as a guest, without going through the complete registration process.

2. At Checkout, Dont Shock Customers With Levies, Taxes, Shipping, and Other Costs
If a customer encounters unexpected costs at the checkout stage, they are not only more likely to abandon the shopping cart, but they may also develop a dislike for you. I remember the time when third-party sellers listed several books on the marketplace at a selling price of $0.01. The catch was that there would be exorbitant shipping costs added later. So, while browsing by price, the buyer would choose the 1-cent book, but abandon the shopping cart upon discovering that there was a $50 shipping cost!

Of course, there are legitimate costs that you may need to add. But find a way to do so transparently, without making the customer feel that you were being sneaky about it.

3. Be Sensitive to International Customers
One of the greatest opportunities in ecommerce is to sell cross-border. To this end, the least you can do is to avoid alienating international customers. Here are some of the common irritants cross-border customers face at checkout:

• While entering ones address, there is a dropdown for State, but all the states listed are U.S. states!
• The price is mentioned in a currency that is foreign to the buyer, with no indication of what the customers would end up paying in their own currency.
• None of the shipping options seem to be relevant to the foreign buyer.
• And worst of all: there is no indication whether the online retailer sells offshore at all!

Put yourself into the shoes of customers from across the globe when you are designing the checkout process. Even if you do not actively target international customers, chances are that 5-10% of your sales originates abroad. Imagine how much this number could scale up if you made it easier for international customers to buy.

4. Offer Many Options to Close the Sale and Nothing Else
At checkout, present customers with as many options as possible to assist them with checkout. But all of these options should only be related to closing the sale, such as:

• Shipping options
• Payment options
• Delivery date options
• Gift-wrapping options

Other than that, do not distract the customer with anything. Though the usual web design mantra is to have a uniform website template, it is best to remove most of the navigation at the checkout stage except for action buttons that guide the customer to pay up rapidly.

5. Make the Call to Action Button Easily Accessible
Buttons such as Proceed to Checkout or Pay Now, should be easily visible at all points of time on your website. It is unforgivable to make the customer search for these buttons. A fixed button on the top-right of the screen usually works.

6. Make Them Feel Secure When You Ask Them to Part With Their Money
First time buyers who are not too familiar with your brand might hesitate to enter their payment details into your website. In some cases, this reluctance could cause them to close the browser window, thereby abandoning the shopping cart. Here are some steps that will lower the level of hesitation:

• Make sure that everything about your website feels professional, including the language, layout, and icons. A professional looking website is more likely to be perceived as legit.
• Prominently display badges and other symbols of security related to the payment process.
• Mention warranty, returns policy, money back guarantee, privacy policy, and other terms that could instill confidence.

7. Dont Close the Transaction When the Browser Window Closes
Despite your best effort, a significant proportion of customers will abandon the shopping cart. To the astute seller, this should not mark the end of a potential transaction. You can resuscitate an abandoned cart in many ways. Here are some of them:

• If you have captured the email address of the customer, you can email the shopping cart to them, with a message such as the following items in your shopping cart are ready to be delivered as soon as you checkout.
• If your cost structure permits, you could have a customer service executive call up customers who abandon their shopping carts, offering them assistance with completing the purchase. I know of an ecommerce player in the health niche who uses this method with spectacular results.
• Using the retargeting (or remarketing) advertising technique, you can ensure that when customers visit third-party websites, they see your ads with the specific products in their shopping cart. This would serve as a reminder to customers and increase the likelihood that they will return to your website to complete the transaction.
• Just because the customer abandons the shopping cart does not mean that you should abandon the customer. Retain the customers products in the cart, so that on the next visit they are reminded of the products added to their cart earlier.

Final Words
Reducing shopping cart abandonment is not about quick fixes. You have to ensure that you have great products that are priced well. Also, you should have a strong brand that inspires confidence, not to mention a track record of impeccable service. But if you also implement the simple fixes mentioned in this article, you will notice an improvement in your shopping cart abandonment rates.