What are the Best Techniques to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment?

         

     

 
      The "Shopping Cart Abandonment" means a visitor initiated the buying process, but did not follow through on the purchase. People start by clicking on "Buy Now" buttons on your products and adding to the online shopping cart,  but, they dropped the website before the transactions is completed. If there are enough unfinished transactions, your business is leaking a good deal of revenue. The shopping cart abandonment rate is calculated by dividing the total number of completed transactions by the total number of transactions that were initiated

Here are the guidelines to reduce online shopping cart abandonment

1. Meet the shoppers expectation Early : The online shoppers care about what they are buying, how much to spend, how long it will take to get the product and how safe and what information to disclose etc. So,  if you meet his expectations as early at the purchasing cycle will dramatically reduce the cart abandonment. Don't make them surprise about out-of-stock, shipping cost  and forced to account creation etc..

2. Design and User Interface : To build trust and rapport with your customer, it is important to give them great experience on your website. Make sure your site is intuitive and easy to use. If the shopping cart is not intuitive and does not have a clear call to action, it is going to frustrate your shoppers.

3. Follow up on Open Carts : Slow carts lead to cart abandonment. Make sure the back end and front end performance where it should be. If the customer is on the cart page and sees something they have questions such as higher prices and shipping, they will most likely frustrated. Have a live chat to answer the immediate questions.You can win back those people who have already decided to abandon their carts. The follow up strategies encourage customers to complete the transactions. Providing the offers encourage the users to keep shopping or to complete the checkout process.

Email Notifications : Getting the email address of your shopper is essential, especially if you want another chance of recovering unfinished transactions. In fact, you should send first emails within the hour of the user abandoning their cart. If you wait him longer, the lower the chance of completing their transactions. According to eCommerce optimization service, the best conversion rate optimization(20.3 percent) happens within the first hour.

Exit Offers : There are a variety of offers that you can provide to  your customers like discount, freebies etc. By providing the special offers when user attempts to close the window or leave their shopping cart will entice the user to keep shopping or complete the checkout process.

4. Provide the Secure Transactions : According to the survey, 38% of online shoppers are concerned about the website not being safe or secure enough. If there are any inconvenience to your shoppers, the online shopping of your customers gets frustrated.

Display Trust Logos :  The visual markers are badge or seal with the image or check mark showing that the site has been verified.  There are variety of trust badges for ecommerce stores. SSL seals from Symantec, Norton , etc., showing that communication between your website and browser is encrypted. The accreditation badges like the Better Business Bureau, Google Trust Score showing that your business has been verified. A studies show that, the seals from familiar brands like PayPal, Norton and Google are most trusted. Using the familiar brands in your ecommerce store makes the user more confident about putting their credit card information into your forms.

Display Reviews and Testimonials : Including reviews and testimonials are the other way to boost trust with your shoppers. Most customers would like to review on sites product pages.

Offer Multiple Payment Options : Customers are less inclined to make a purchase when they have limited options. It is important to offer multiple payment options so that your customer has the flexibility of choosing how they pay.

5. Optimize the checkout Process :  If you want to close sales, your checkout form has to be in still confidence. The Poor checkout experience remains a significant drag on eCommerce sales. Simplifying the checkout steps makes the user to complete the transactions easily. The complicated checkout process is one of the most common reasons why people abandon their online carts. Follow these steps for best results,

Remove Mandatory Account Registrations :  Small business owner's website can't afford to lose potential transactions by forcing the online shoppers to register on their website just for the checkout purposes. It's best to make the account registrations optional.

 Use social Sign-Ons : social sign in services like facebook login allow users to stream line the registration process and provides retailers with valid identification and useful information.  Registrations are valuable source of data for ecommerce retailers and the major cause of abandoning shopping carts.

Use Progress Bar Indicator : Progress indicator helps the user an idea about which step they are currently in and how long it take to complete the process. People prefer the progress indicator when completing their task. Indicate the different steps clearly to your online shopper like,

     Cart > Customer Information > Shipping Method > Payment Method

Use Fewer Form Fields : The studies show that, the greater the number of form fields, the poorer the usability of checkout experience. Avoid the visual clutter and make the checkout process as simple as possible. The fully optimized checkout flow should be at maximum of 7 fields.

 Back End Integration of ECommerce Site :The goal of the ecommerce website is to provide shopping experience smooth and transparent, you should never view your ecommerce application as an isolated sales channel. But, your website should be coordinated with your traditional backend systems. In an ideal world, you'll need to implement a full, seamless integration between the two systems.