Secure Ecommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates Rising

There’s a reason why Amazon.com continues to invest so much effort in tracking customer behavior on its site. You can bet your bottom dollar that every little tweak that Amazon.com makes to its site is because it thinks each change will impact sales in a positive manner and curb secure ecommerce shopping cart abandonment rates. If there’s one thing we can learn from Amazon.com, it’s that it’s important to continuously  adapt to changing customer trends.

A recent survey by Forrester has shown that up to 88% of consumers have abandoned secure ecommerce shopping carts during the checkout process. The reasons are far removed from those we addressed a while back in a previous post. This time around, it’s not a lengthy checkout process or lack of certain features that’s turning customers away: It’s (hidden) cost.

Top on the list of reasons why customers are abandoning carts is high shipping prices. Although the shipping price ultimately may not impact their final decision, it may still be a good idea to give the customer an idea of how much shipping will cost. At least this will save the customer time and thus give them a better impression of the store.

As a long term remedy, you might want to consider a flat rate shipping fee for all your products. One shopping cart tip that might also work is to try to factor in part of the shipping cost into your product cost. Test it and see which works best for you.

According to Webcredible, another reason why customers are not completing the checkout process is because the overall price of the product is too high. Many online stores are guilty of hiding additional costs from the customer right up to the very last stage of the checkout process. As a result, a store runs a very high risk of losing customers’ trust and it also risks damaging its reputation.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes when designing your checkout process. People have more web know-how than ever before and are not likely to take too kindly to “surprises” at the end of a checkout process. If your prices are on the premium side of the scale, a quick shopping cart tip would be to be upfront about it. Explain why it is so. Is it because all items are individually checked to ensure quality? Or perhaps your store has a very customer-friendly return policy. What ever the reason may be, people appreciate honesty.

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