Now You Can Have Lower Shopping Cart Abandon Rates

Increase E-Commerce Sales

Posted by

Avoid these e-commerce shopping cart mistakes to lower your cart abandon rates and increase sales.

Did you know that on average 52.1% of people abandon shopping their online shopping carts?

Primary reasons for abandonment include high shipping charges, high cost of items, price comparison with other sites, saving items for purchase later, and cumbersome checkout processes that required too much personal information.

Here are the top ten (plus one) mistakes that websites make with their e-commerce sites.

  1. Call your Shopping Cart a Shopping Cart. Cute names like bag, handbag, or tote add confusion to what the customer is really trying to do. Also add a shopping cart icon to increase access.
  2. Use "Add to Cart" instead of "Buy Now". While buy now is a great call to action, less savvy web users hesitate to click buy now. Add to Cart is noncommittal and tells the person they can keep shopping.
  3. Give a noticable visual cue that items have been added to the cart. Whether you take them to the "view cart" page or have another visual cue, make sure it is noticable so they don't sit there clicking the same button, wondering if it really added to the cart.
  4. Don't get in the way of them ordering more. If you take them to a "view cart" page every time they add an item, they are less likely to purchase more. Especially if getting back to where they were is difficult. Give them an option to "Add to Cart and continue shopping" and a "Add to Cart and proceed to checkout" option.
  5. Show confirmation before cross-selling. People want confirmation that they successfully added to their cart. Don't show cross-sell items until after you have confirmed the newest item is in their cart.
  6. Don't require people to register before adding to cart or checking out. People HATE to register before they have truly committed to purchasing the product. Also, requiring more information than is necessary is a deterrant. Even something as simple as asking for an email address can keep people from purchasing because they fear they will be spammed.
  7. Use a method for removing items from the cart other than making the quantity 0. Less savvy users become frustrated when they can't figure out how to quickly and easily remove items from their cart. Give them an easily identifiable icon to click on to remove the item.
  8. Don't include instructions on how to use your cart. People don't read them. If you haven't made it simple enough, they'll just go somewhere else to buy.
  9. Don't require them to scroll to find the "update cart" button. When people add more items to their cart, they still want an easy way to update and don't want to (and won't) spend the time to search for the update button.
  10. Don't  require personal information before they know total costs. Again, people are hesitant to give out personal information until they know they want to buy. So, don't ask for lots of information before giving information about shipping and total costs.
  11. Show your site is secure. Display security items prominantly so you remove any hesitation about security and let them know exactly why you need their information and that it will only be used for this order.

Following these tips will help increase sales and lower your cart abandon rate.






Increase E-Commerce Sales

Recent Articles: