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13 Ways to Avoid Cart Abandonment

The main complaint of business owners with an ecommerce website is shopping cart abandonment. This is where a customer has visited a website, added products to their cart, but has left before completing the purchase order.

Abandoned shopping carts are a huge problem, demonstrated quite clearly by the latest research from the Baymard Institute (September 2014), which shows that on average, the rate of cart abandonment is 68%.

Reducing this statistic, even by a few percentage points, can mean a significant increase in your bottom line. So to that end, here are 13 strategies, aimed at reducing shopping cart abandonment:

1. Product images: To help shoppers follow through on the decision to buy, you need high quality product images on both the category and the cart pages. Adding a product image on the cart page reinforces their desire to purchase, particularly if they are wavering.
2. Security logos: Some shoppers are still hesitant about making online purchases with their credit card, so make the decision easier for them by prominently displaying secure payment logos on your website.
3. Contact details: Including a contact phone number, physical address and email increases the credibility of your website and reduces cart abandonment.
4. Managing the cart: Shoppers quite often change their mind and want to remove one item from a cart and add another. So build this function into your cart, before they reach the payments page.
5. Payment methods: Did you know that over 9 million payments daily are made using PayPal? Clearly, many online shoppers prefer to use PayPal rather than credit cards. So be sure to include a variety of payment methods at checkout.
6. Customer service: Including a phone number for customer support or an online chat facility, can catch shoppers before they abandon their cart.
7. Checkout as a guest: Don’t force shoppers to register before checking out as this can cause many shoppers to abandon their carts and leave. Allow them to checkout as a guest.
8. Free shipping: This is a big factor in abandoned carts, particularly when the cost of shipping is greater than the cost of the product. Even if you include the cost of shipping in the price of the product, the fact that you are offering free shipping can be a huge incentive to buy.
9. Clarify shipping early: Don’t hide shipping times and costs until the checkout page, as the cost and timing of shipping can be a big factor in abandoned carts.
10. Customer reviews: Many online shoppers will only buy after evaluating customer feedback, so include testimonials and customer reviews about your products prominently on your site – think like Amazon!
11. Refund policies: It is important to be transparent and to give shoppers every reason to trust your ecommerce site. So make sure that your refund policy is clearly in view and not hidden in the footer. Also emphasise your guarantee, particularly if you offer an unconditional guarantee.
12. Provide sufficient information: Poor navigation and a lack of product information are two major causes of cart abandonment. So have an easy to navigate menu system and plenty of product information on your website.
13. Mobile friendly: Is your ecommerce site mobile friendly? With the increasing use of mobile devices to make online purchases, if your website cannot be viewed easily on mobile devices, then you are leaving money on the table.

If you apply all of these 13 strategies to your ecommerce website, you should see a significant decrease in abandoned shopping carts and a subsequent increase in sales.

At Cornerstone Digital, we have an in-house team of experienced ecommerce consultants, so if you need help addressing cart abandonment, call us on 02 8211 0668, email us at info@cornerstone-digital.com.au or complete our online enquiry form.

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Megan Kerr

Meg is a Project Manager/Producer at Cornerstone with a special interest in conversion rate optimisation. She has a business analysis background and thinks the web would be a better place if everyone looked at their web statistics daily.