Abandoned Online Shopping Carts: One Approach to Learning How to Decrease Abandonment Rate
No online merchant likes a purchase to be abandoned mid-stream. You have probably spent a lot of money on adwords, key words, pay per click campaigns and other marketing methods to get a customer to your online site and the worst statistic is to see, that after all of that hard work, a customer leaves your site in the middle of a purchase.
Why Do Customers Abandon A Shopping Cart?
While there a lot of factors attributed to shopping cart abandonment, the most common are:
1. High shipping costs
2. A customer coming to a site for a special offer that is “not so special” once they come to the site and read the fine print in regards to the offer, and
3. Complexities related to checkout (which often times are the fault of the shopping cart technology you are using)
Just because you did 90% of the work to get a customer to come to your online storefront, the last 10% of effort to get them to make a purchase is the most important. So it is imperative that any online merchant focuses on what happens when a customer comes to their online storefront before spending money on marketing campaigns to get a customer to their site.
Any shopping cart technology that you use will say it is not their fault, as they are merely processing a transaction. The fact remains that shopping cart abandonment is a problem and the technology side of the check out process may be a part of the issue. But it probably is not the only issue…so what might the problems be? Here are some examples:
1. The check out/transaction process may be cumbersome
2. Language you used in your marketing campaigns to get customers to your storefront may not be consistent to what you “actually” offer on your site and thus you are perceived as being “dishonest”
3. You are marketing products that are no longer available, or
4. It simply takes to many clicks to purchase a product.
And these are just a few trouble spots.
One Way to Find Out Why Customers Abandon Their Shopping Experience
I often find it interesting that executives sit in a room and hypothesize about these issues when they simply can ask their customers to help them out.
Many companies are hesitant to ask their customers for input, because they feel it may be intrusive. That may have been true, to some degree, in the “old world” way of brick-and-mortar shopping, but In the world of the internet, customers expect it. They actually love it and many just can’t wait to have their opinion heard. If you think I am joking, check out companies built around reviews, such as www.PowerReviews.com , www.Buzzilions.com and www.epinions.com
And if you only want to follow the leader, online survey tools and feedback have become a popular choice among large online retailers such as WalMart and Petco.
Companies use simple survey tools to collect information from would-be customers who didn’t make it through the virtual checkout line. By asking a brief series of questions about why the customer chose to leave the site prior to completing the transaction and collecting some key pieces of demographic data, retailers can obtain information that can inform and improve their e-commerce strategy.
A friend of mine emailed her sample questions and advice: Here it is:
”In order to retrieve credible data that can be analyzed and sorted for key trends and issues, online surveys must be short and sweet. Some tried-and-true survey questions include:
• Why did [you] decide to leave the website? This question can be open-ended or include choices such as cost, browsing purposes and user experience.
• What can [we] do to encourage a future purchase? This question can be open ended or offer similar options mentioned previously.
• What is your biggest concern about shopping online? This question may be open-ended or give choices such as: security, online price versus in-store price, etc.
• How frequently do you complete purchases online?
• How frequently do you comparison shop online?”
She also went on to add:
”Many online surveys also allow retailers to deploy hidden fields within the survey – fields which provide visibility into SKU numbers, Web pages visited and products viewed – all without customer knowledge.
Retailers may also consider inquiring about customer reactions to incentive offers. Sometimes promotions drive customers from Web site due to strong messaging that may seem like pressure to complete a purchase. Other times customers are driven to a Web site by an incentive offer, only to find that it was not the offer they thought it was once they read the terms on the site.
Using feedback directly from customers, information obtained via hidden fields and demographic data, companies can get a good sense of customer profiles and make deductions and inferences about why customers are leaving prior to purchase. As companies begin to learn about their customers and understand the reasons behind their actions, they can begin design plan of improvement. However, the only way the truth can come out is to get direct feedback from shoppers themselves. After all, the customer is always right.”
Survey Tools: Where Can I Find Them?
Big companies spend millions on consultants to help them better understand the marketplace. Now, small businesses can grab a piece of the action – and expand beyond the simple suggestion box – by designing their own online surveys. They can choose from a dozen or so low-cost Web-based offerings, with prices as low as $10 per monthly subscription.
Some of the more popular packages include the following:
Each company provides resources to help users design and distribute a survey, and some include tools to automatically generate charts and graphs to analyze the data.
HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:
1. There is no magic answer as to why people abandon their shopping cart before completing their purchase...maybe they had to walk the dog! BUT, you can learn from your customers through simple surveys.
2. Surveys are NOT intrusive, most people can't wait to give their opinion, especially in this day and age of the internet and bloggers..so use them!
3. There are cost effective tool based survey applications in the marketplace available to you that you can customize to tailor to your site....see above!
Yeah, i agree. There are some reason why shoppers abandoned them. SHoppers hate when they see a high shipping and it is very hard to pay because of complexity. I have visited a site, http://www.rollingpricesback.com , where, it is very simple to pay out and they have low cost shipping. I recommend that online malls should also follow this formula and strategy.
Posted by: Shannon | August 08, 2007 at 12:38 AM