Cart abandonment is an issue that is most commonly known in association with eCommerce websites. This is known as when a shopper picks out items with the intent to purchase them, makes it all the way to checkout, and leaves the site without completing their transaction. Running an eCommerce site is much more complicated than simply having a great Lakeland web design and expecting customers to buy your products.
You have to apply how customers behave and think in regular stores to the online platform, and try to figure out how to get them interested in products. Cart abandonment is a serious issue for eCommerce store because this indicates a significant loss in revenue for them. So it’s important to understand why customers abandon their carts and what you can do about it.
There are a number of reasons behind cart abandonment. Some users report that they are put off by a long and confusing cart checkout experience. Other users have reported that they will abandon a cart if the total calculated upon final checkout is significantly higher than they expected.
Requiring users to create a new user account just to checkout and buy something from the eCommerce site is another significant cause behind cart abandonment as well. The level of security that the website offers for their payment information is another cause of concern as well. If a user feels unsure about the level of security that the website offers, they may be reluctant to provide their credit card/PayPal information.
Fortunately, knowing and understanding these causes behind cart abandonment can help you with the development and design of your eCommerce site in order to help counteract these issues. If the main concern is a complicated checkout, then you have to design your checkout strategically.
Only ask for the information that is absolutely needed for a customer, and break it up so that it doesn’t look so overwhelming to the user. However, don’t break it up to the point that they have to complete ten pages worth of forms. Make the checkout process as simple and intuitive as possible.
You must always show transparency towards the customer, especially in eCommerce sites. While they shop, have an element on the page show their updated total on their purchase, and always indicate the shipping fee upfront, and don’t hide any extra costs that the customer will have to shoulder, only for them to be bombarded with these upon checkout.
User signup requirement is a bit of a tricky one. Customers don’t like having to make an account when they went through all that trouble of shopping. For one, it would be preferable to have more signups on your site. However, you can streamline this by integrating email or social media signups to make it easier for them to signup with little additional effort on their part.
Remember what we said about transparency? This is also important for website security concerns. Product and website reviews can go a long way to validate the legitimacy of your website. Providing information about your company and staff should help ease customers’ doubt as well.