Pratip Biswas — March 7, 2020 Do you always finish your online shopping?
Probably not. And as it turns out 69.57% of people in 2019 didn’t feel like finishing their online shopping either. And the fact that in 2019 more than half online shoppers did not finish their shopping is a big reason for stress for the eCommerce store owners.
Source: https://sleeknote.com/blog/cart-abandonment-statistics
One of the biggest reasons for shopping cart abandonment in the eCommerce sector is the ‘window-shopping-syndrome’. In this case, users (who are more often just looking for some entertainment) simply surf the online store, add products to their cart and then leave the site without finishing their purchase. But this is not the only reason. There are still many reasons why the user might not go through with the purchase, and here are a few of them-
- Hidden charges are shown on the last step of the checkout process
- Finding a different and better product somewhere else
- The too-long checkout process
- Non-trustworthy transaction forms
- Slow loading pages
Now if you own an eCommerce store, then you are probably well aware of this problem. But do you have the solution to this? Well, if you don’t then don’t worry, cause below we are going to discuss the possible solution to the ‘shopping-cart-abandonment’ issue for our eCommerce platform.
Ecommerce Cart Abandonment: Possible Solutions
Just as there are many reasons for cart abandonment in eCommerce, there are many solutions as well. Here we are going to address each reason for this issue and talk about the solution that can solve them.
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Seamless Transition From Cart To Store
Shopping is rarely a linear process. Whether we are talking about retail shopping or online, the users are going to take their time browsing through products, compare two same products of different brands, add them to cart, move on to find another product, etc. while shopping online, customers want a smooth navigational flow between the cart and the product page, and when they don’t get that ease and efficiency, they might leave the cart and your website altogether.
Source: Photo by ?????? ???? | @marjanblan on Unsplash
Having a smooth transition between the homepage and the cart is not only necessary to retain customers, but also necessary for your website. It is one of the hardest features to include, but then again one of the most needed elements to integrate during the eCommerce web design process. That’s why as an online store you have to optimize the checkout flow in order to make it more efficient for the users to move from cart to product page.
Integrating a better transition from cart to the website will ensure that your customers don’t have to work too much to make a purchase from your website. And that will evidently cause a drop in the cart-abandonment rate!
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Include Product Image During Checkout Process
When shopping offline, the customer can actually see the product they are purchasing in front of their eyes, and that makes them surer of the product. However, this is not the case when it comes to online shopping. Users most often forget the finer details of the product they are about to purchase, making them go back to the product page, eventually making them feel more and more hesitant about the product they are buying. This hesitancy causes them to leave the website altogether without finishing up with the product page.
Source: https://dribbble.com/shots/5336682-Ecommerce-Website-Design
To prevent this from happening, you need to include small yet easy to recognize images of the product being purchased. This will not only assure the buyer of the product details and quality but also keep their attention on the product, therefore reinforcing their desire to buy the product.
The inclusion of images during the checkout process will ground the user experience and reduce the cart abandonment rates for your eCommerce website.
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Let The Shoppers Save Cart
It is an obvious fact that online shopping comes with better benefits and offers. And in order to take advantage of such offers, the users tend to add products to the cart, only to come back to it later for reduced prices. In such a case, not giving the users a chance to save their cart will greatly increase the rates of shopping cart abandonment.
Source: Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels
Online shopping is not exactly as straightforward as offline shopping. There are many distractions, both online and offline that might keep the user from finishing the checkout process. And when that happens, the user would like to save their ongoing checkout process and come back to finish it later. There are many ways you can enable the user to finish their ongoing purchase, such as-
- Creating an account to save their information (including cart information)
- Using browser cookies to save cart details (might have some security implications, so make sure you check the security details before integrating this)
- Letting the users save their login credentials on the browser to decrease the friction of continually having to log in and log out.
Rather than having to work for it, users should be able to save their online carts effortlessly. However, make sure that the users are well aware of the saving cart feature on your platform. Otherwise seeing their shopping details saved without their knowledge might be off-putting to a lot of users out there.
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Show A Progress Indicator
When standing in a line at a retail store, the shoppers are well aware of how long it will take them to finish with their purchase. In the case of online shopping, however, there are no lines. And that’s why most of the time, not knowing how long it is going to take to finish with the checkout process, the users leave the website without buying anything.
A prolonged checkout process causes nothing but an annoyance to the users and causes them to leave the website. And to prevent this from happening, you have to include a progress indicator that’ll let the users know which step they are on the checkout process.
Adding this small feature will not only remove the uncertainty about how long the process is but also inform the users about the steps they have to go through in order to make a purchase on your platform. Additionally, you also have to make sure that the check out process includes as few steps as possible. Having to go through too many steps will make it look like it is too much work, discouraging the users from buying anything. So before you deploy the progress indicator, combine the checkout steps that can be combined and create a compact checkout process.
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Integrate Multiple Payment Option
Many users are still wary of online payments when shopping online. There are many different ways of paying online during shopping, such as credit cards, online payment gateways, like Paypal, stripe, google wallets, etc. Every user prefers one payment method over another, and if they don’t find that payment method on your shopping platform, then there will be a high chance of them leaving their cart without buying the things added to it.
Source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/business
Whether you hire freelancers or a dedicated eCommerce website development company to design and develop your website, make sure that multiple payment methods are integrated. Integrating multiple payment methods ensures that the users are able to pay using their preferred methods without having to compromise. It will increase the user’s comfort using your platform, as well as increase the conversion rates.
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Have A Clear Return And Exchange Policy
Online shopping involves a lot of trust in the buyer’s part since they are making their purchases based on only an image. They can not touch and check out the product in real life before buying it, which gives rise to a lot of hesitancy and mistrust. And these two combined can increase the bounce rate for your eCommerce website.
To remove the hesitancy, you need to have a strong and clear return and exchange policy. This will assure the user that even if the product they are buying is not fulfilling their expectations, they can return it or exchange it without any extra hassle. Being sure that they would not be stuck with a bad quality product, the users would be more likely to finish shopping on your platform before leaving it.
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Be Clear About The Product Cost
If there is one thing that’ll definitely put off any online shopper from a shopping website, it’s a hidden cost. The buyers online do not like it when they go through the entire checkout process, only to be shown added and hidden taxes and charges at the very end of the check out process. This will definitely cause more users to abandon their shopping on a website than all the other causes combined.
Source: https://www.unifiedinfotech.net/portfolio/london-rag/
To stop this from happening to your platform, you have to be upfront about the price of different products on your platform. Make sure that no hidden taxes and charges are imposed on the buyer at the very last step of the check out process. Giving the users detailed information on what they are paying for will not only earn you a better reputation but better revenue as well.
There are still many other ways you can reduce the shopping cart abandonment rates for your eCommerce platform. But the above-mentioned ones are the absolute foolproof ways for you to make sure that the users on your platform finish their shopping and do not leave their cart behind without making any purchase. So before you hire any eCommerce web design company, make sure that they are well aware of the above-mentioned methods of conversion.
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