When shopping online, over 75% of potential buyers abandon shopping carts without becoming customers.
Having got visitors onto your site and this far into the payment process, there are still fundamental elements that can stop a potential sale from going ahead.
There are 2 major hurdles to point out:
STEP 1: Getting customers to ‘Add’ products to your cart
STEP 2: Continuing the momentum for them to go ahead with the purchase and proceed to the checkout ‘Buy Now’.
Reasons why shoppers won’t go ahead with their online purchase:
We have all been there, you’re checking your analytics that shows 20 people have added products to their cart, yet only one transaction has gone through. Some reasons for this will be beyond your control and other factors will be down to your website and the user experience.
See the list below as a guide.
Website usability/navigation
• Website navigation was too complicated
• Not mobile/tablet ready
• Can’t make changes to shopping cart easily (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Not enough information with product
• Wrong currency and couldn’t change currency (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• No guest checkout (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Unexpected price rises at checkout (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Checkout process took too long (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Website timed out (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Site crashed (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
Security and Trust
• Not having SSL enabled*
• No testimonials or product reviews
• Too many security checks (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Worried about security and safety of card details (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
*From October 2017, Google chrome browsers will display a green padlock and ‘Secure’ text. (Look at the top left of this website for example. All websites without SSL with have a ‘Not Secure’ warning.
Delivery
• Delivery costs too expensive (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Delivery dates not flexible enough (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Delivery not clear (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Returns policy not clear (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
Other factors to consider
• Browsing only
• Payment declined (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Found better product
• Found easier to use website selling same product
• Got distracted (leakage from shopping cart to checkout)
• Too expensive
What you can do about it
It’s essential your website is up to date
All products are represented in the best way with reviews
Breakdown the login processes – can it be improved
Run an audit of your purchase process and test it fully through each stage
Split test your pages accurately and run optimisation tests