eCommerce companies face a variety of struggles over the course of their existence. These businesses rely on customers’ interest in their organization to keep the entire enterprise afloat. It’s a delicate balance, as consumers have increasingly shorter attention spans and can get frustrated easily. The goal is to retain people’s trust and curiosity over time, encouraging them to continue making purchases. Unfortunately, online retailers frequently witness clients abandoning their ecommerce shopping carts after a period of time. This figure is a metric organizations should pay close attention to, as it points out part of a process that is not working as well as it could be. Let’s take a look at some examples of how online businesses can reduce their rate of shopping cart abandonment:
Make customers feel safe
Potential customers understand how easy it is to steal someone’s personal data online today. They’re increasingly skeptical about what information is truly needed when making an ecommerce purchase and which materials companies request for their own marketing and advertising purposes. If clients don’t trust a website or feel their data would be less secure through one site, they’ll find another that makes them feel safe and confident about their transaction.
To reduce shopping cart abandonment, ecommerce businesses need to create a fill-in form that promotes security and credibility, according to Shopify. If organizations have a valid reason to ask for certain information, they should make consumers aware of that logic. If not explicitly communicated, it should be self-evident to the client why the materials are necessary to the transaction. It’s important for online retailers to quell people’s fears when making a purchase through a website. Without that trust, the company could suffer.
Customers want to make sure their online purchase is safe and secure.Specify checkout progress
Everyone’s experienced it before: a purchasing process that seems never-ending, with a million steps before customers actually enter their credit card information. While it’s understandable why ecommerce companies make their transaction procedure very detailed – they want to collect as much data on the consumer as possible, after all – cases like these can really annoy potential customers. In some instances, clients may get so disheartened that they stop the process altogether. When customers desert their shopping cart and look elsewhere for similar products and services, online retailers feel the effects.
To combat these situations, ecommerce stores could include a progress indicator on each page of the transaction, according to eConsultancy. This informs buyers of how many steps they have left to complete and enables them to budget their time a little more accurately. Even if the procedure is long, customers may be more willing to continue if they know there’s an end in sight. Of course, if businesses can reduce the number of actions in the payment procedure, it would be extremely beneficial as well. Either way, a progress tracker will keep consumers focused on the task at hand.
“Consumers spend more time shopping on mobile devices than on desktops.”
Optimize for mobile
Today, consumers spend more time shopping on mobile devices than they do on desktops, according to Kissmetrics. That’s an important point for ecommerce retailers to understand, as failing to have a mobile website or application could mean fewer consumers visiting their website. Although having an online store that is available on smartphones and tablets is beneficial, companies have to make sure it’s fully optimized. Each page, especially those related to the transaction process, must adapt to fit the screen of the person viewing it. Without this capability, clients can become easily frustrated with the site and having to resize each individual page. As a result, they’re more likely to click away and look elsewhere for the same – or similar – goods and services.
To keep people on ecommerce sites for longer periods of time, encourage them to return for future purchases and improve overall satisfaction, online retailers should make sure their store is optimized for mobile devices from the get-go.
Utilize registration after purchase
As previously discussed, customers dislike long and drawn out transaction processes. Ecommerce companies need to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete that procedure, but they can also take another step to streamline purchasing for clients. Moving the registration portion of the transaction to the end will allow people to efficiently move through the steps of buying and sign up once they’ve had a simple and quick experience, according to Crazy Egg. Implementing account creation before the transaction only adds another tiresome step to the purchase procedure, whereas putting the action at the end encourages those happy clients to want to receive more information.
This step enables online retailers to still track customer activity, while making the account registration more convenient for consumers. At the end of the day, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.
Not every shopping cart that is abandoned is a lost sale, according to Business Insider. Many people will add items to their queue and come back to purchase and re-evaluate later on. However, any time ecommerce businesses can convert a lead the same day that person visits the online store for the first time is a win. To reduce the rate of shopping cart desertion, it would be beneficial for organizations to let customers know their data is secure, implement a transaction progress indicator, optimize all Web pages for mobile devices and allow consumers to create an account after they’ve made a purchase. All of these steps will improve client satisfaction and encourage people to return to the ecommerce site for future purchases.
