How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment | Ecommerce Conversion Hacks
Shopping cart abandonment is one of the major challenges for every eCommerce portal. In many instances, every day numerous shoppers choose the products on the eCommerce portal and then do not complete the order for reasons innumerable. This is a worrisome aspect for all eCommerce owners. There are several features and apps available to reduce shopping cart abandonment. These features are available as add-on and can be purchased and installed on the standard eCommerce websites. The ready-to-use eCommerce platforms such as Shopnix offers several in-built features to follow-up such issues. However, there are several other ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Let’s look at a few of the most important and simplest methods to reduce shopping cart abandonment.
Avoid surprises
Although people love surprises, this doesn’t hold good for the check out pages. If the product page displays one price and the check out cart displays another, then there is a very high risk of shopping cart abandonment. The buyers may feel cheated or mislead as these factors or additional costs were not mentioned while adding the product/s to the cart. They may also feel that the taxes and shipping charges are quite high if they were not informed in prior while choosing the products they like.
Therefore, it is important to provide all these details on the product page itself. All the details related to the pricing including the product cost, discount offered, taxes applicable and shipping charges (if being charged) should be clearly mentioned on the product page. This allows the buyers to understand the total cost of the product and helps them make a decision whether to buy it or not. If shipping is free, then it needs to be pointed out in bold.
With the Shopnix platform, these details can be easily added on the product display page. There are separate boxes to enter the actual price, tax percentage, discount to be offered, shipping cost of the product and the selling price. Once entered, all these details are visible to the buyer while viewing the product.
Have a ‘guest checkout’ option
Next way to reduce shopping cart abandonment is by having a ‘guest checkout’ option enabled on the eCommerce store. Many a times buyers avoid ‘signing in’ to an online store as they feel that their email id’s may get bombarded with unwanted marketing or promotional materials. Hence, the moment they note that ‘signing in’ is mandatory, they may abandon the shopping cart; often, never return or refer the website too. Having the ‘guest checkout’ option, where it is not mandatory for a buyer to sign-up to a website is a welcome option for such individuals. This option gives them the confidence that their email id will not be filled with promotional mailers from the eCommerce store that they purchase. Such an option is available on several eCommerce platforms including that offered by Shopnix. You can activate this option to instill confidence among buyers and reduce shopping cart abandonment to a great extent.
Use secure payment gateways
Another common reason for shopping cart abandonment is unreliable payment methods or unsecure payment gateways. With the increase in cyber crimes where cyber criminals setup fake websites to collect credit/debit card data and steal money, majority of the online shoppers are now wary of buying online. The buyers may abandon the shopping cart the moment they feel that the payment method or payment gateway is unsecure. Therefore, it becomes highly necessary to have a secure payment gateway in place to reduce shopping cart abandonment.
There are now numerous payment gateways which offer secure transaction and provide all details of the transaction to the buyer by email updates. Registering with any such payment gateway can improve the credibility of your online store and increase the confidence of the buyer.
Additionally, having an overall secure website (with https:// prefix) also instills confidence among the online shoppers. Shopnix now offers a secure website at no additional cost! So go ahead and get your online store registered through Shopnix today! You can also easily tie-up with free to register, yet secure payment gateways for your online store too!
Offer free shipping
Extra shipping costs is often considered as a hindrance for online sales. While many may not mind paying an additional cost for getting the products home delivered, majority of the online buyers expect free delivery even for products which costs less than Rs.100! Hence, charging additional shipping charges can often lead to shopping cart abandonment. There are few ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment due to this reason. Firstly, you can explain the need to add shipping costs for the products being sold on your website. You can have a online banner displayed over the top portion of the page mentioning that shipping charges may be applicable and why shipping costs are extra. Next, you could provide offers such as ‘shipping free for orders above X amount’. And, lastly ensure that the products listed on your website offer enough margins so that you can waive off the shipping charges.
So, addressing the issue related to shipping costs can help you reduce shopping cart abandonment in majority of the cases.
Track and follow abandoned orders
Shopping cart abandonment may happen for many other reasons than those listed above. In several cases it may be due to poor internet connectivity, accidental closage of the webpage, or interruption during the shopping process, etc. The buyer may subsequently forget about this and may not complete the transaction. In all such instances, reminding the buyer about the abandoned cart may often result in completed transactions. Hence, sending a reminder (manual or automatic) with details of the order can help reduce shopping cart abandonment. Discounts may also be offered in such instances where the shopper/s may be encouraged to complete the order and avail of any attractive discount offers.
One of the features that helps you track abandoned cart in the eCommerce platform offered by Shopnix is ‘all order record’. All the orders, whether the payment was successful or not is recorded on the platform. This helps you to follow up with the incomplete orders.
These simple measures can help you reduce shopping cart abandonment.
