Overcoming Abandoned Shopping Cart Problems

Ecommerce business owners have several options when it comes to generating traffic. They don’t have many options to help them reduce the number of people who leave their shopping cart half way through the ‘buy now’ process. It can be difficult to understand why a person would start the shopping process, add 2 or 3 things to their shopping cart, and then leave without buying.

Here are some tips to streamline a shopping cart and improve sales.

Shopping Cart Platform

Most mistakes are made with the selection of the software. Cost does not imply that the shopping cart will perform as expected. Some free, open source shopping carts are more ‘user friendly’ and easier to navigate than hosted ones that cost several hundred dollars a month. However, buying a shopping cart without service and maintenance is dangerous.

Structure

There are several stages to a shopping cart. The most common reported reason for abandoned shopping cart is not letting a consumer know how long the process is, how many pages are involved, and where they are in the process. Many people leave the shopping cart because they are frustrated with all the pages involved.

Make sure there is a step-by-step tool that lets shoppers know when they are nearing the end of the buy-now process.

Up Selling and Cross Selling

The shopping cart is not the place to tell people they are only buying half the product. Many people are new to shopping online. Even with the amount spent online reaching the trillions a year, a large number of internet users have not started shopping online.

They abandon their shopping cart feeling confusion, feeling they have somehow ‘lost’ the shopping cart and returned to the catalogue section of the website, and feeling frustration at being told they must buy more to receive full value.

Collecting Personal Information

The fear of phishing websites has forced the issue of privacy. Most people do not feel comfortable filling out long pages of personal information just so they can make a purchase. There is no reason for a website to collect a person’s address, their income level, or whether they own their house.

Keep the shopping cart focused. It has one purpose to create a quick and easy method for people to buy a product. If you need to know where people live for marketing purposes, then retrieve the information form the shipping section of the website.

“Add To Cart”

The Add-To-Cart button is vital to a successful shopping cart experience. A good shopping cart will focus on one purpose, making the sale. It will not ask people to join a newsletter or become members.

The Add-to-Cart button must stand out, a bright color, and placed on the catalogue page, all review pages, and any other page associated with the product.

A “Buy Now” button should be on every page of the website. It should give shoppers the opportunity to jump straight to the payment gateway so shoppers can escape the whole process and complete their transaction.

Credibility

There are several ways to build credibility. The most common is the use of SEALS. These are the small icons at the bottom of the shopping cart that promise the shopper their private information is safe, that the shopping cart is SLL safe, and others that verify the shopping cart’s legitimate status.

Fixing these elements will set the stage to decrease the number of abandoned shopping carts on your website and help to increase sales.