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How to Reduce Cart Abandonment on your eCommerce Site

By Snap Agency October 4, 2013

As I’m sure many of us can admit to, abandoning an online shopping cart is a common occurrence. Becoming distracted by other sites, discouraged by a long check-out process, or becoming scared off by the requirement of registration to a site are all reasons to not complete the sale. Here we have outlined the best ways to reduce cart abandonment:

Make Sure the Pages Load Quickly.  

Online shopping is popular because of how convenient it is. If a page or website is not loading quickly enough, shoppers will become tired, frustrated, and begin to question if it is worth it to continue. Make sure your site works on all browsers, does not take too long to load, and keeps the shoppers attention.

Keep the Cart Live.

Many online shoppers like to place items in their shopping cart and come back to them at another time. Maybe they are waiting until pay day, or are buying a gift and want to hold on to the item before shipping it to a friend. Program your site so that the shopper is able to come back to the site on a different day and still find the items in their cart. Also, if they are unsure of the purchase, leave the site, and forget about it, this will be a great way to remind them of the product when they come back.

Enable Guest Check-Out.

Do not force the shopper to register to your site. This is a major turn-off for online shoppers and they would rather have an easy and painless check-out without having to cut through any red tape. Studies show that 23% of online shoppers will abandon their cart when asked to join. To test this for your site, try out guest check-out options and take a look at the conversion rates.

Reduce Cart Abandonment by Reducing Check-Out Steps.

Filling out a lot online forms can be daunting, time consuming, and can turn away an online shopper. Make it easy on your customer and reduce the steps of the check-out. Keep it down to 4 steps at most and include inline validation. This way the shopper can tell when the information that they’ve entered has been accepted as they go (address, email confirmation, card information etc.) and do not have to start from the beginning when something goes wrong.

Security Badges. 

Sometimes shopping online can be scary, and with technology today people will not always trust that they can be entering their credit card information all over the place. Make sure they know that you find their privacy important and that it is protected.

For more information on reducing cart abandonment and on ecommerce in general, contact us at 763-548-2297.