Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment Now

Are potential buyers at your website abandoning their shopping carts? The problem is endemic in the online retail industry, but it doesn't have to be that way. All you have to do is make it easy for customers to buy from you -- and that means improving the shopping cart experience at your site. Keep reading to find out how.


Read the full article here: Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment Now

For more discussion go here: Blog Article Discussion

Nice article Wayne.

Many of the things that you discuss in your article are beyond the control of the average webmaster. This is because they use a commercial cart that either can not be motified or that the user does not have the skills to reprogram.

Can you recommend any carts that do what you describe or suggest one that has a very low abandonment rate? That would be most helpful.

Thanks.

Hi EGOL.

I know that many of the suggestions provided in the article are unavailable to many webmasters. On the other hand, by picking and choosing from the ideas presented, an e-commerce site owner can enhance their shopping cart completion tremendously.

I am biased toward programming a cart, although I understand that many webmasters can't even consider a customized checkout system. What would be really helpful for online businesses is for some of the major plug and play shopping carts to adopt some better sytems themselves.

Shopping cart technology is already several years old in many cases, and that is eons in internet time. In the meantime, selecting a cart with programmable changes would be the best route. Of course, that begs the question of which carts allow for alteration, and which ones are use as is.

There should be a major shift in the shopping cart technology available in the next couple of years (I hope anyway) as the older systems are showing their weaknesses. As more online businesses appear on the internet, better cart options (including better and easier customization) will be demanded.

I hope they are listened to by the shopping cart designers.

Wayne, do you have a shopping cart on your sites that works exceptinally well? Are you willing to sell or share the code for it?

I don't have any sites with shopping carts, but I am one of those people that will buy all of their Christmas presents for every family member online. It's from that experience that I speak.

For my own personal experience, I would say that I also probably abandon 75% of shopping carts. And the problem has nothing to do with ease of use or building trust. It has to do with three things: 1) A site that won't show me the price unless I start the buying process, or 2) I want to see how much it will cost to ship an item before I commit to buy it, or 3) I'm doing some preliminary shopping research and want to create a bookmark of sorts.

Of all those, #1 is the most annoying to me. These sites often include statements like "The price is so low we're not allowed to publish it on our website". Well then, don't cry foul when we want to actually know the price before we buy the thing, then abandon the shopping cart when we're not overwhelmed by the great deal.

So yeah, I believe that 75% of shopping carts are abandoned, but I also think that 90% of those shopping carts were never destined for the cash register in the first place. At least at my house.

The solution would be to have the price published up front, and an easy, early-in-the-process shipping calculator. Do that and I think the shopping cart conversion rate will go way up. However, I think the total number of shopping carts created will probably go way down. Which stat is more important to you?

Ok, I'll step away from the mic and give someone else a turn.....

Does anyone know how hard it is to program your own shopping cart? And would there be interest in an article on SEO Chat on that topic? I know we'd ordinarily publish something like that on one of our other sites, but I was just wondering.

Hi EGOL.

My shopping cart experience is from working with other people's sites. How's that for a cop out?

I currently have no shopping cart sites, but I might change that situation someday.

Wayne

Hi Robert.

There is no reason for any shopping cart or checkout system to not show the price prior to committing to purchase. That is simply bad, if not arguably unethical business practice.

One thing that is essential to good checkout percentages is to showall prices AND charges including shipping and handling early in the process. No one wants a nasty surprise.

The irony of the thinking that "gee, if I tell them that there is additional S and H charges, they will not buy", is that NOT telling them upfront loses even more sales. Honesty and price transparency is the best policy.

If the shopping cart doesn't include the feature of display of additional charges early, then it's not a good system. I would pass on it.

Wayne

I agree Manitoba. For a short stretch I couldn't believe how many sites I ran into that were doing that. In so doing they gave themselves the appearance of impropriety, and I changed from shopping mode to price research mode...I'll get their price and use it as a reference as I continue my search for that item.