6 Best Ways to Prevent Cart Abandonment

According to a Business Insider survey, cart abandonment this year will cost most e-commerce stores a total of $4 trillion. Yes, you read that right – $4 Trillion!  As if that is not bad enough, the rate of cart abandonment is going up (69% in 2011, 72% in 2012 and 74% in 2013) instead of down.

This is in spite of the multitudes of solutions available to e-commerce store owners. The good thing is some of that revenue can still be recovered if most e-commerce stress adopted the following proven anti-cart abandonment measures.

Make Checking Out Easy

A fast and easy checkout is one that converts. Ensure that you find a way to balance both the customer’s ability to add more products to their cart and your checkout process. Create express checkout options that will allow customers to buy whatever they need without having to jump through too many hoops.

Minimize the number of forms, amount of information, and other extraneous things. We know you want to build a database of buyers, but do not do it at the risk of losing more than half of those customers in the first place.

Provide Multiple Payment Options

This is critical these days. Find out where your clientele and visitors come from and see what payment options are available to them there. Integrate MasterCard, Visa, Paypal, and many other payment options into your payment approval system.

There’s nothing more annoying to an online shopper than spending much time picking out their products only to find that your store does not accept their card.  If you are having trouble setting up a checkout process that provides multiple payment options, you can always outsource this. Websites like www.fastspring.com offer just such a service.

Lower Your Shipping Costs

Better still, eliminate your shipping costs and watch what happens to your conversion rates. Multiple studies have shown that over 70% of all customers agree that free shipping is important in their buying process. See what you can do about this.

If you cannot provide free shipping, at least, provide one that isn’t perceived as expensive or go with a price that is considered the industry standard. This is the right thing to do.

Display Crucial Information Prominently

There are some important details that customers unconsciously look for. For instance, most people looking to buy a PC online often unconsciously look for warranty. If this information is not readily visible, it makes them think about buying the PC from you.

This hesitation can cause them to abandon the cart because they aren’t sure whether you have it or not; and most would not contact you to verify as there are other shops that they can buy from while waiting to hear back.

Indicate Stock Availability

This can be the reason a customer chooses to buy or not to buy. You see, stock availability is critical, so they know just how many is available. If you do not have enough, they could buy what you currently have and get the rest from other stores. Whatever the case, always make sure that the available stock is boldly displayed.

Consistently Check for Errors

Temporary checkout malfunctions result in about $66 billion lost in revenue every year. You should ensure that there’s a team that routinely monitors the checkout process so that no order is voided as a result.

Let them run frequent tests during the day –particularly when there’s high traffic- to ensure the cart works all the time. People may not necessarily contact you to inform you that your checkout button is not working. In fact, this instantly triggers suspicion among most customers, resulting in them checking out other stores and making their purchases from there.

As you can see, these are not insurmountable problems. You just need to know what to do to prevent and minimize the rate at which people abandon your store’s cart. Take all these measures, and you should convert better.

Sources:

https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/shopping-cart-abandonment-online-retailers-biggest-headache-is-actually-a-huge-opportunity-2014-4

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