Use this specialized tactic to uncover online sales issues.

Very specialized, but this tactic bears mention (and its own page.) Online shopping carts are abandoned every day many times, and it hurts those companies that don’t master it.

Using funnels to understand dropoff in shopping carts (cart abandonment).

There are many reasons for abandonment. Let’s examine them.

• Customer does not trust you. This could be a simple solution, like not having an SSL certificate prominently display during checkout, or making account creation mandatory for purchase. Please don’t do this.
• Customer is confused. There are online shopping carts and then there are online shopping carts. Take an employee that hasn’t used your checkout process online yet, put them in front of a computer, and have them checkout. Were there problems? Make sure you ask them questions (and have them talk out loud while checking out) to see if you can spot any mistakes. Remember, any confusion is occurring every time your cart is used, and it will whittle away your sales.
• Customer is exhausted. Even though we love GoDaddy.com, sometimes, even after using their cart about a billion times, it’s annoying; they have a far more extended checkout process, with many ‘can-ads’ (“You can add this, you can add that”). If you can make checkout simple and streamlined, do so.
• You have bad customer service, or no 800 number on every page of the shopping cart process. The more the customer feels ‘on their own’ during the checkout process, the less likely they are to buy from you. Studies show, amazingly, that even if they don’t use the 800 number, it still increases transactions.

Things you can do to cut down on shopping cart abandonment.

• Explain everything. From the security code of credit cards to a strange text box on one of the checkout steps.
• Clean is good. Make the interface as simple as possible. No bells and whistles unless absolutely necessary.
• 800 number on top of all checkout screens. Builds trust and most people won’t use it. If they do use it, use that moment to understand your customer’s needs intimately. You might find yourself upselling to them.
• 5 screens, tops. Login/Start > Billing/Shipping > Review > Transaction Complete. Thank you very much.
• Contact us for more!

Why it’s so important (The Result)

Let’s do a simple example:

Money you made last year due to sales * 0.05 =
what you lost last year in revenue.

Shall we say more? 5% is a typical number of abandonments with the tips above. Our shopping cart savings is more like 15% when contracting.

Pitfalls of abandonment.

Shopping carts, like any interface, usually follow the 95% rule:

Most interfaces cannot be explained to
5% of the population, no matter what you do.

There is a limit to how much you can tweak your shopping cart to serve customers. Something you implement for a certain set of customers might rub other customers the wrong way. The trick is knowing when you have the best cart/checkout for your needs, and can’t do anymore.

What strategies shopping cart abandonment is used for.

• Helps you build trust: Where most sales fall flat. Believe it or not, much of sales is lost at the last stage, in the shopping cart. There are companies out there spending thousands of dollars on this single problem. Shoping cart abandonment can be performed through usability testing or examining analytics. Call us for more information.
• Helps you stay in touch: You can offer things during checkout (or right after checkout) while customers thinking cap on; would they like to sign up for your newsletter, your RSS feeds, take part in a survey for a discount on next purchase, etc.
• Helps you generate sales / leads: Is the cart working for your customers? Use website tracking specifically to track where customers fall out of the purchase process once checkout has begun.

How we help.

This specialized tactic is something we’ve focused on here at Think Around Corners. Call us to schedule a free phone consultation about your shopping cart!