You have a beautifully designed website that is attracting a lot of visitors. They come to your website, select what they need, but leave without completing the buying process. If you feel flummoxed, then you are not the only one. Cart abandonment is a persistent issue that continues to frustrate ecommerce retailers. So, how to reduce shopping cart abandonment? The good news is that there are ways you can integrate into your ecommerce website development that help to reduce cart abandonment. Read on to know more about this.
Reasons To Reduce Cart Abandonment
Some users fail to complete the shopping process and leave your website without paying for the selected products. This is known as cart abandonment. You can calculate the rate of cart abandonment using the formula:
Cart abandonment rate(CAR)={1-(P/C)}*100
Where P stands for the total number of completed purchases
C stands for the total number of shopping carts created
- If you study the formula properly, you will realize that CAR typically represents the value of your lost potential sales. The more the value, the more you should be concerned. Leverage the expertise of professional ecommerce web developers to conduct a website audit. Remember, CAR is a vital ecommerce KPI to track website performance. If you fail to track CAR consistently, you will lose multiple revenue generation opportunities. All this loss can have far-reaching commercial consequences like:
- Loss in potential revenue, as stated earlier
- Challenges in inventory management
- Reduced CX resulting in lower conversion rates
- Steadily increasing customer acquisition costs
But there is a ray of hope. You can reduce card abandonment by:
- Investigating the root cause of CAR
- Integrating best practices to overcome the challenge that it presents
Now that you know how important it is to track and reduce your CAR, let us proceed to the next section.
Reasons For Cart Abandonment
CAR is a pervasive challenge in ecommerce. When customers fill their carts, it is because they have an interest in what you offer. But if they leave without purchasing, it might be because:
- They got distracted; in this case, there is a possibility they might come back and complete the sale
- They encountered technical glitches that ruined their online journey and experience
- A lengthy checkout process requiring many steps to reach the final payment stage
- You are levying high additional costs such as shipping, taxes, fees, etc
- Offering limited delivery options that reduce the flexibility of consignment delivery
- Sometimes, even having to create an account can make customer abandon their cart
- Frequent website outages increase customer distress and lower customer satisfaction
- Errors in the final calculation gave rise to mistrust and lowered customer confidence
- Lack of well-defined relevant e-commerce policies like returns policy, etc.
Whatever the reason, you must investigate and implement a solution to reduce the cart abandonment rate.
Techniques To Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates
Cart abandonment might be inevitable. You might have to accept it as reality. But you can still make attempts to reduce cart abandonment. Connect with a good ecommerce web design company. Seek their guidance to understand which of the practices below you must apply to reduce cart abandonment.
Enable guest checkout
Mandatory account creation can be off-putting for many customers. While it may be easy to retarget customers, many one-time customers do not think it is a wise option. You do not want to lose out on these customers. Ask your ecommerce website development company to integrate a guest login option within your ecommerce website. Of course, you must give these customers the option to create an account once they complete the buying process. This win-win strategy will help you gain more customers, facilitate faster checkout, and enhance customer experience.
Optimize payments page
Your online payment section is an integral part of your eCommerce web design. Do not consider it a mere formality. It is a powerful tool for elevating CX and building customer trust. So pay attention to your payment page. Add trust signals like reputed and well-known security logos, using reputed payment gateways and platforms, etc.
Additionally, payment preferences differ from customer to customer. You must integrate various payment options, like credit/debit cards, net banking, online wallets, etc. Even these categories must offer multiple well-known payment options. This will further help inculcate trust and make the payment process convenient. It will also help you to improve your ecommerce conversion rate.
Simplify your checkout process
Analyze how long users take to complete the checkout process at competitor websites. Compare it with the time taken at your website. You are in a good position if your website checkout process time is less. But if it is more, you must understand that your ecommerce web development lacks quality and immediately needs improvement. You must immediately revamp the process. Know that a complex checkout process significantly enhances cart abandonment. Hence, you must leverage A/B testing to:
- Test different options
- Understand what works best for your website
- Implement it immediately
The number of steps or pages associated with your checkout process also increases cart abandonment. Statistics show that customers prefer single-page checkout processes. Multi-page checkout processes are exhaustive and frustrating because they delay the entire process.
More importantly, you must prioritize mobile responsiveness since mobile users now outweigh other device users by quite a margin. However, multiple-page checkout processes will make the app bulky and slow its loading time. This will further test customer patience and lead to cart abandonment. Thus, a well-optimized checkout process will significantly enhance customer satisfaction and reduce cart abandonment.
Offer incentives
Some commercial decisions also help to reduce cart abandonment. For example, incentives help lure customers back. So, customize your ecommerce website to offer incentives like free shipping, discount coupons, etc. Time your offers to pop up only when you notice a customer dropping off. These will help customers rethink their decision to quit midway. Offering a 100% money-back guarantee also works wonders.
Collaborate with an excellent developer to integrate these incentives into your ecommerce development. Update them periodically to keep the element of curiosity alive. Ultimately, you will attract more customers and reduce cart abandonment rates.
Use progress indicators and create CTAs
Clear, consistent, and precise CTAs are critical in encouraging customers to complete their shopping journey. The words that you use in your CTA are extremely important. Using words like “buy now,” “review your cart,” and other such phrases work better than ambiguous words like “continue.”
Progress indicators indicate your progress in your shopping journey. The presence of a progress indicator impacts customer psychology. A smaller number of steps attract customers. Hence, ensure your ecommerce shopping journey comprises of only a few essential steps before designing the progress indicator.
Build trust with a clear return and refund policy
Issues in product delivery are common when shopping online. Not addressing them properly might give rise to mistrust among customers. This will further increase cart abandonment. Hence, you must have a well-defined, clear, and transparent return and refund policy. Refrain from filling it with too much legal jargon. Use language that is easy to understand and position the policy to enhance its visibility and accessibility. This will encourage confidence among your customers and reduce cart abandonment.
Conclusion
You must implement the above practices to reduce cart abandonment during your ecommerce website development. Select your ecommerce website developer with care. Ensure they have experience in building e-commerce websites. Such web developers are better equipped to guide you in growing your business by reducing your cart abandonment rate.
