the engine house

Although web cart abandonment rates are falling year on year, businesses looking to maximise their profits online still need to work hard to ensure that their customers aren’t put off making that all important purchase. In this article, Toby Parkins, Managing Director of web development company, ukneweb, outlines some ways e-commerce owners can reduce cart abandonment and drive increased sales on the web.

The term ‘web cart abandonment’ refers to consumers ending their purchase somewhere between adding an item to their shopping cart and final payment being made. There can be a number of reasons for this occurring from complicated processes at the checkout, to consumers feeling unhappy with the information being requested.

What makes cart abandonment so frustrating for e-commerce owners is that all efforts to draw the customer in, offer the right product and get them to place the item in their basket have succeeded only to lose the all important sale at the last hurdle.

Not all reasons for abandonment are under your control, there will always be those people who dash to the phone, realise the credit card is maxed or just decide they didn’t really want that item after all but understanding the reasons under your control can help leverage additional value from your site.

Although things are improving year on year (web cart abandonment rates fell from 59.8% in 2006 to 52.1% in 2007 according to Marketing Sherpa Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2007) e-commerce owners can still go along way to drive levels downwards and increase site profitability.

Ask yourself would you willingly accept any other source of such a loss of revenue to your business? Can you really afford to ignore losses exceeding 50%? What profits could you expect if you improved your checkout and cart processes?

If you are a typical e-commerce owner I expect you would like to ensure the highest levels of returns from your site. You may have worked really hard on SEO strategies, paid for sophisticated features and bespoke programming, brought in designers, copywriters and the works all to lose the sale only moments away from the money hitting your account.

So what causes potential customers to retreat from a sale?

Popular reasons for cart abandonment include; unexpected charges at checkout, products out of stock, requirements for the customer to register before purchase, limited payment options, postage or delivery costs too high, no clear delivery information, lack of contact details or complicated / time consuming processes.

Careful consideration and research is needed to fully understand issues. It may be that some areas can be addressed while at the same time causing an issue in another. It is important, as with most web developments, to test, evaluate and modify your systems on a regular basis to ensure that your site remains ahead.

Setting up tracking on your site to measure activity is vital to making the right decisions with regard to your shopping cart. You need to gather information relating to the following areas on an ongoing basis and especially before tinkering with any site processes;

• Abandoned Carts

Track the overall number of carts being abandoned.

• Abandoned Products

Track whether abandonment figures are the same for all products / product ranges?

• Abandoned Units

Establish how many units are being abandoned. Some research can be skewed by results from customers mistakenly placing multiples of a product into their cart.

• Where are they abandoning their purchase?

Set up tracking to establish the areas where the greatest numbers of potential customers abandon their purchases.

Once you are armed with this information you are ready to begin investigating the problems and making the necessary amendments.

Take the information gathered and use the site to make a number of your own purchases. Can you see any reasons to justify why customers are abandoning their items at these stages? Can you see how the process could be improved?

Take your research to recent or current users of the site and ask them why they stopped their purchase or how you could improve the usability of the site or shopping cart. Run usability tests on the products pages or the checkout areas to establish any known issues.

Once you feel you have all the information, try to summarise all your findings by category. i.e. Process too long or Postage charge too high. Use this list to plan a fix or series of fixes for each issue. It may be that some issues will cost too much at this stage to implement; however, delayed plans to deal with these areas should still be made with a schedule detailing when they will receive further attention.

Before carrying out any changes decide on a method of measuring the results of each fix and ensure that appropriate tracking is set up to catch the required information. Where your fix has not worked you may need to look at alternative plans to address the same issue.

This process shouldn’t be a one off. Customer habits change all the time and as such regular reviews, testing and implementation should be a part of any ongoing online strategy. Schedule times to regular monitor performance and tweak as necessary. It could be that minor changes in the sites usability reap huge rewards for your profitability.

Where you don’t have the time to monitor these areas yourself enlist consultants or your web development team to track details and suggest regular changes or upgrades. Many companies will offer retainers where they will identify issues or areas for development which could lead to increased profits for your business.

Below I have listed 10 more simple areas to watch with your website checkout process. These offer some basic guidance on how your site may be improved with a little bit of tweaking.

1. No Hidden Extras
Don’t try adding hidden costs at the checkout. Customers will feel you’re abusing their trust and will not only abandon carts but may never buy from you in the future.

2. Provide Information
Don’t surround your store in mystery. Make customers aware of the process involved in making a purchase, be sure to explain; total costs including postage, delivery details, availability, returns policy and telephone contact details should they have an issue at the beginning of their purchase.

3. Don’t ask for too much too soon.
Some websites still make the mistake of asking the customer to register when placing items in the basket. Allow your customer to feel ready to make a purchase and pay before asking for too much information.

4. Keep it simple.
Limit the number of choices that potential customers have to make when checking out. Higher drop out rates have bee found on those sites with the highest number of choices.

5. Offer payment options
There’s nothing more annoying than getting to the checkout in a store and finding out that they don’t accept the card your holding. Try and offer as many payment options as you can.

6. Ask for the minimum
Don’t be too greedy for information. Minimise the information taken to that required to process a transaction. Additional info requests increase your chances that your buyer will not complete the purchase.

7. Be contactable
Display clear contact details throughout the checkout process, such as phone number and email, plus provide a live online chat where possible. Customers like to know that they can contact someone should something go wrong with their order.

8. Show you’re site’s Secure
Ensure potential customers know that transactions processed through your site are secure and encrypted. Explain any company policies on protection of consumer information and privacy as well as displaying any safeguard logos.

9. Get their email first
Ask for emails near the beginning of the checkout process, preferably on page one. Sample customers who have abandoned shopping carts and email them to find out why they decided to abandon their purchase when they did.

10. Own your own checkout
Ensure that your checkout process is part of your system rather than forwarding checkout processes to third party sites.

This piece was originally written for catalog | e-business magazine - [published April 2008: Issue 151].

If you would like to see the finished piece you can view it on the ‘Press Coverage’ page of our news feed site by clicking here