One of the biggest issues faced by online businesses is shopping cart abandonment, an event when a shopper adds items to the cart but leave before completing the purchasing process. A high cart abandonment rate can affect the revenue and conversion rates of a business. As of 2019, the average documented online shopping abandonment rate sits at 69.80 percent.
Shrinking the abandonment rate to zero is virtually impossible, as some shoppers will inevitably abandon the carts before they even reach the checkout page. Reducing the rate to manageable levels, however, is possible by improving the online buying experience.
Here are a few tactics you can implement to bring down the cart abandonment rate of your online business:
Optimize Your Page Load Speed
Shoppers don’t have the time nor the patience to wait for the checkout page to load completely. If your website takes too long to show up, your customers may abandon their cart and take their business elsewhere. Worse, a slow-loading site can undermine your Google search rankings.
So make sure you optimize the pages of your website to be as quick as possible. This typically involves a series of tasks, including selecting a better website hosting provider, reducing image sizes and activating browser caching.
Reach out to a digital marketing agency that offers e-commerce SEO and web design solutions to help you with this project.
Having fast-loading pages can improve the buying experience. What’s more, shoppers will be more inclined to purchase additional products from your site, as won’t have to wait too long to get what they want.
Build Trust in Your Online Transaction Forms
Some e-retailers look at transaction forms as a mere formality in the customer purchasing process. Your business, however, should not take this process for granted. When you ask shoppers to complete and submit a transaction form, you’re asking them to trust you with their sensitive personal info, such as credit card number, phone number and address. Understandably, some customers are hesitant to offer these details unless they know that your site is secure.
The good news is that you can offset shopper hesitation by making your transaction forms more secure. You could, for instance, place security logos somewhere near your forms.
Make sure that these logos are easily recognizable. Examples include:
- Verified by Visa
- MasterCard SecureCode
- VeriSign Secured
- TRUSTe CERTIFIED PRIVACY
Provide Multiple Payment Options
When you’re assessing your checkout pages, you don’t want anything to come between your online shoppers and a seamless shopping experience. If your virtual storefront is only providing a few payment options, you’re placing obstacles between your sales and your shoppers.
So don’t simply accept credit cards as payment options. Give online consumers other choices to pay for their ordered products. You could, for example, include Google Wallet, Apple Pay and PayPal in your payment choices. You could also include Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, especially if you have online shoppers who prefer this option.
By providing several payment options, you’re getting rid of a potential reason for a shopper to abandon their cart and look elsewhere.
Come up with a Solid Return Policy
Creating a return policy is important for online shoppers, as they don’t have the luxury of looking at the product in person or trying on clothing to see if it fits properly. A return policy also gives peace of mind when they buy items from your virtual storefront.
Once you have finished making this document, add a return policy link at the first stage of your checkout process to inform shoppers and encourage them to purchase your goods.
Don’t let a high cart abandonment rate undermine your company’s revenue. Apply these suggestions to encourage shoppers to complete the online purchasing process.