Why are people abandoning shopping carts on my site?
The question, Why are people abandoning shopping carts on my site, is one that has plagued E-Commerce website owners for as long as E-Commerce has been around. There are a number of reason people abandon shopping carts, and solving these problems is something that an expert E-Commerce Development Company can solve. Lets explore some reasons that people abandon a shopping cart and do not complete their transaction.
1) Poor Shipping Cost Estimates
When a customer is checking out, the last thing they want to be surprised with is a shipping cost that is obviously too high. Calculating shipping costs is not as straightforward as it sounds. Some studies show that 40% of shopping cars are abandoned because the shipping cost is too high. For more information on this topic see our post “How To Calculate E-Commerce Shipping Cost Algorithms”
2) The Checkout process is too complicated
Customers shop online because it’s easy. Customers want to spend time selecting the items they want to purchase, not figuring out how to pay for these items. For this reason it is important to have a simple checkout process that is intuitive and straight forward. When looking at your E-Commerce checkout process, step back and ask your self “if I had never seen this before, would I understand how it works”. If the answer is no, start trying to eliminate unnecessary steps in the checkout process, and then analyze how you can make the steps you deem necessary more simple and intuitive.
One thing that most E-Commerce sites forget to do is create a way for a customer to checkout with out an account. Make sure customers have an option to checkout as a guest.
3) Make sure customers can pay the way they want to.
Customers want to be able to pay the way they want to, so make sure you offer as many payment options as possible. A big reason people abandon a shopping cart is because they cannot pay they way they want. Imagine being a customer, finding all the items you want, and then finding out that the site your shopping on does not accept your credit card. In this case the customer is left with no choice but to leave.
4) Make Sure Customers Know your site is secure.
Customers have to trust you before they are going to give you sensitive personal information. Make sure that customers are reminded your site is secured at every step of the checkout process. If a customer gets to the checkout page, and forgets about the Verisign logo on you homepage, they will leave the site.
5) Load Times
Customers hate waiting. When a customer is checking out, and the shopping cart page is slow and un responsive, the customer will leave. To stop this make sure that the shopping cart page loads quickly, and that every step in the checkout process loads quickly as well. If there is not a solution to a slow shopping cart or checkout page, make sure to tell the customer that the site is in fact working.
These are just some basic reasons people abandon shopping carts on E-Commerce sites. To fix these problems, it usually takes a team of E-Commerce Experts to analyze that page. Make sure the company that is analyzing the page knows your business, and understands your customers.