5 Ways to Reduce the Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate at Your Online Store

Why do shoppers on your e-commerce website abandon the shopping cart before making a purchase? Finding the answer to this question and making changes based on it can cause your revenue to jump considerably. As a web development consultant, my approach is comprehensive and involves studying the online store in detail and making recommendations for the improvement of the design and functionalities. Here I share tips on how to avoid some of the major checkout mistakes which lead to cart abandonment.

Be Clear About Costs
Being presented with unexpected costs at the time of checkout is the most common reason why shoppers just leave instead of making a purchase. The solution is to clarify all costs before the visitor reaches the payment page/section. Make sure that they are included on the shopping cart page. Ideally, you should place them right below the product price. Shoppers should also be able to find them on purposefully created information pages.

When it comes to online shopping, people are most sensitive about shipping costs and delivery times. Ideally, these should be present on the shopping cart page. If you offer free shipping and/or express delivery, it pays off to include this on the product pages to give visitors greater motivation to buy. If you offer several shipping options priced differently, describe them in detail to help shoppers make the best choice.

Offer a Guest Checkout Option
Unless you have a large loyal customer base, most of the visitors to your online store will be one-time shoppers (who you can turn into loyal customers). They just want to buy one or more products easily and quickly and leave. Forcing them to go through an account creation process before making a purchase is highly likely to put them off. Being more flexible will give you tangible results.

Avoid Distraction
Is your checkout page filled with offers which are not related to the items inside the shopping cart? Do you have large flashy fields for entering coupon codes? These are common mistakes which practically urge shoppers to leave the page with the prospects of them returning being quite vague. Make the checkout page clutter-free. Use minimalist design and include product photos. The checkout buttons should be large and brightly coloured.

Ideally, the coupon code field should not be the first thing which the user sees at checkout. Shoppers who have a code will take effort to find the field so you can make it less obvious and attractive to avoid putting everyone else off.

Use a Checkout Progress Indicator
The idea is to indicate the number of steps which have to be taken for making a purchase. The fewer they are the lower your shopping cart abandonment rate will be. To help shoppers feel more at ease, you can combine two steps into one provided that you will not have a page which is too long and requires the entry of too much information.

Integrate Multiple Payment Options
People want to buy products from you so why would you put them off by not offering a payment option which is suitable for them? Generally, the greater the diversity is the better. Still, it is more effective and cost-efficient to study your target audience and give them exactly what they want.

Take measures for optimising your shopping cart and checkout to increase your conversion and revenue.

If you are looking for productive e-commerce solutions, get in touch with me to receive consultation.

Author: philipov

My mission and passion in life is to consult clients and create award-winning software solutions for businesses together with my team of talented programmers, designers and marketers at Whiz.

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