Recent studies indicate that a vast amount of online businesses are failing to attract consumers to make actual purchases online.
The current checkout abandonment rate stands at an average rate of 67.4%. While a number of online ‘window shoppers’ contribute towards 16% of abandoned carts, there are many avoidable factors which contribute to this high percentage.
There is a lot to consider when running an online e-commerce business; while a website might tick all the boxes when it comes to offering unique, well priced products with an exceptionally designed website to match, the layout of the checkout system itself yet another vital final hurdle which can make or break a sale. Any hint of doubt which surfaces in the mind of a consumer will lead to instant abandonment.
Here we look into some of the leading factors which lead to checkout abandonment:
Unexpected Price / Competitor Beats Your Price
One of the most common reason people abandon the shopping cart http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate is the price of products. There is no doubt that thousands of online shopping stores are available for customers to buy products and if the price is not competitive it may not sell. When most of your products are highly priced against your competition you may loose the customer forever due to loss of trust on your pricing.
Its super easy for people to search on Google for price of a product and compare them. Google shopping search results are also improving in recent past. This gives people more choices and they are going to choose the best price on the web.
How To Avoid Unreasonable Pricing?
There are few ways you can make the pricing reasonable for the customers.
- If you are not able to compete on product price may be you can offer options like free shipping or store pickup for free that can improve chances of customer choosing you over paying for shipping cost on a competitor website.
- Frequently search for product prices on web and make sure your prices are competitive.
Casual Users
As more and more devices are evolving, many casually browsing visitors land on your website. It is unlikely that they may buy something however it may still look like abandonment on your website statistics.
How Can We Convert Casual Users Into Customers?
Quite honestly nothing much can be done about it. However if your website has the basics done right and is attractive to the casual users, it may result in more number of returning customers from a big chunk of casual users.
Complicated Checkout Process
Having a complicated checkout process is going to annoy your visitor. Each and every step needs to be well thought and provide enough information to the user about what is going on in the process. If user is required to do more than 2-3 clicks for completing order than you may have something wrong in your checkout process.
How To Improve Checkout Process?
Below are some ways you can improve checkout process.
- Consider using one click checkout options for returning customers.
- Use user profile information for populating shipping and billing information.
- Save user preferences from previous orders and try to use them as default values for future checkouts. For example order confirmation email, phone number frequently used shipping address.
Site Speed
Consumers are often pressed for time and spoilt for choice. Many online purchases are made quickly in between other commitments. Consumers will not tolerate slow page loading times; research indicates that on average a consumer will wait 3 seconds for a page to load, if it does not load within this time frame, they will simply navigate elsewhere, 80% of these consumers will never return to your site.
Each and every page must load quickly to ensure the consumer’s attention is maintained. This is especially vital at the checkout stage, any doubt placed within the consumers mind at this point will lead to a lost sale.
How To Speed Up My Website?
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Use A CDN
Make sure the images and videos are loading fast on your site. You can easily host them on a cheap CDN and get good performance.
If you are looking for more reliable CDN services you may be interested in checking out our exclusive comparison of Akamai vs Incapsula.
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More Tips To Improve Site Performance
This is a big topic and best place to start with is this article about speeding up your website.
Poor Website Design
With the sheer amount of competition between brands online, it isn’t always easy to attract customers to your website, especially difficult for smaller companies with smaller budgets to negotiate. Even once a consumer has discovered your site, they will then make an instant judgement based upon their initial thoughts about the design of your website and the ‘feel’ of your brand which will lead to them exploring your website further or navigating towards a competitor. 96.2% of online consumers state that visual design appearance of a website affects their purchasing decisions.
From here if they decide to stay and browse your products, your offerings must be well priced, well presented, and offer all the information a customer may wish to know such as product sizes, colours and company return policies. Products are assessed within 90 seconds, therefore product presentation is key. Multiple product views and alternative images can increase sales by 58% and a further 31% of consumer’s state they are influenced by product videos. Videos generally lead to 1 in 2 consumers feeling more confident about a purchase of a product.
Product descriptions and imagery are fundamental; a staggering 25% of returned products can be explained by the customer citing that the ‘product wasn’t what was expected’; therefore the product description and images did not clearly demonstrate the product in the correct manor. Product photography must be clear and represent the product. 360 degree photography can also be hugely beneficial for online retailers.
How To Improve The Web Design Of My Site?
The Solution involves a lot of efforts, below are some guidelines.
- You Must Hire a professional web designer. Trust me its going to pay of much more than you will ever expect.
- Try to stick to latest trends and technologies for web design. If you are using outdated designs it may not sell. For example this decade is for HTML5 websites, if your website is not compatible with HTML5 you may be lacking a lot of good user experience features on your system.
- Go Responsive – this is age of mobile phones, tablets, laptops and high resolution monitors. Your site must be responsive for all platform. It can be easily browsed and must provide the best possible experience on each platform.
- Choose the right eCommerce platform. There are dozens of free ecommerce solutions available on web. Not everything will suite you. For example Magento is popular choice of millions . You must stick to the platform that solved the problem of your customers. Whatever platform you choose make sure you get the best out of it.
- Improve the user experience – At the end it may not really matter if you have extra ordinary technology in your store but user experience is not good. Improvise on the user experience and your sales will skyrocket.
Lack Of Information
8% of consumers feel frustrated when shopping online that there is no visible contact deals in which to contact the seller with queries. This reduces trust and leads to abandonment rates while a further 11% dislike the unclear delivery details – when will the product be delivered? What will it cost? How will it be sent?
How Improve The Product Information?
This is a simple fix.
- Try to present all information available to the user on on product details page.
- Make sure you watch for frequently asked questions about product on your website or on web. Try to answer those questions on product details page.
- Include product dimensions when possible.
- Include as many picture as you can. Take pictures in multiple angles to provide perspective.
- If possible try to include video demonstration of the product.
Insufficient Product Reviews
85% of consumers will consider online reviews before committing to a purchase. It is important reviews, customer recommendations or testimonials are clear for customers to read. Of course one bad review will also do tremendous damage, so ensure customer service is top notch and follow up with customers to gain reviews after purchases.
67% of consumers will read 6 reviews of less before considering a purchase, therefore it is wise to display a number of individual product reviews.
How Improve The Product Reviews?
This is a important step in a ecommerce store improvement. Following things can be done.
- Try to ask your customer to review the product after they receive it.
- Reward your customers for providing feedback. This will encourage more people to write reviews.
- Try to get detailed and genuine reviews instead of short ones.
- Address negative reviews problem quickly. Try to improve the product and connect with the unhappy customer to get more details on disappointment.
Coupons And Deals
57% of consumers will make a purchase after discovering a coupon code. Coupons can significantly increase sales and lead to 4% improved customer satisfaction.
How To Improve Coupons And Deals?
- Offer deals and coupon in timely manner. Many products are seasonal and a deal on them at right time can do wonders for your business.
- Keep an eye on season for product.
Promote the coupon with affiliates and coupon websites.
Poor Shipping Options
59% of consumers will consider shipping costs and 44% will abandon a cart due to high or unfair shipping costs.
Delivery times are considered by customers, but only 24% of consumers feel next day delivery is important. Shipping costs are something that the consumer will highly consider, if the costs add too much to the overall purchase cost, the consumer will seek the same or a similar product elsewhere, no surprise considering 53% of consumers state that low shipping rates can be a key reason for swapping online retailers.
How To Improve Shipping?
- When possible offer free shipping. Encourage buying more stuff by offering free shipping on a order over a price.
- Provide multiple options for shipping in terms of speed and cost.
Payment And Security Problems
While consumers have now become accustom to shopping online, it is still vital consumers feel secure when entering their card details. More than 80% of consumers feel more secure when they recognise trustworthy card logos prominently displayed within a website, the card logos displayed must of course be accepted within the payment process of the website.
59% of consumers will abandon their purchase if their preferred method of payment is not available, and 40% state that they feel more confident when more than one payment method is available. It is therefore vital to offer customers a range of payment options, display relevant security logos and accepted card logos.
Overall, any online entrepreneur or brand must consider these factors. The age old saying ‘keep it simple’ applies online. Pop up boxes, asking for unnecessary information, asking for the same information twice, and hidden charges will only cause your customer to become frustrated and navigate elsewhere.
By providing a clear, efficient website with clearly displayed products and an easy to use, fast checkout system which does not bombard your customer with newsletter sign ups, account registration and demand too much unnecessary personal information will improve sales. British retail giant ASOS inserted a guest checkout option in 2011 which lead to an increase of sales by 50%. This highlights just how consumers behave online, they like simplicity and speed.
How To Fix Payment And Security Problems?
This is not as easy as it may sound. But you may still do some things to be better on payment and security.
- Make sure you are using SSL for your payments.
- Use security audits by third party companies to assess any vulnerabilities.
- Use trusted solutions like Paypal, instead of going to a cheaper option.
Hope you find this article useful in improving your website sales. Please don’t forget to share your thoughts in comments.