A customer visits your eCommerce store. They go through your inventory and puts 3 items in the shopping cart. Then they abruptly leave the site without finalizing the purchase. The cart abandonment. Does this scenario sound familiar?
It happens more often than you think. In fact, 68.8% is the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate based on 34 studies. But while this percentage is quite high, Business Insider Intelligence estimates says 63% of all abandoned shopping carts can be recoverable. Let’s see what are the most common reasons why customers leave your store and what you can do to fight it.
Insufficient Product Descriptions
Being unable to feel the product before buying it is the greatest drawback for online retailers. Online shopping cannot provide the sensory part of the product with the exception maybe of visuals or sounds. So, let us see how one can a turn a disadvantage into an advantage:
First, a concise yet thorough product description is half the battle you face when cataloging your products and making them sound attractive to your clients. The use of simple language is required as obscure descriptions won’t provide the information needed and will leave the visitor confused.
Overly emphasized descriptions, on the other hand, will potentially scare away potential buyers, especially if you sell simple items such as water bottles. You should also provide high-quality photos of the product, preferably taken from every angle.
Poor Customer Support
The description is not the only decisive buying factor. Once a visitor sees the item they would like to buy, he or she may have questions about it that are not in the description or listed in the FAQ section.
The older methods of customer help included only the option of email contact and telephone number, and while these approaches are still useful, newer types of support channels have emerged.
For example, a visitor almost always wants a fast response, so consider implementing an eCommerce search bot. The search bot can interact with people through messaging chat apps to help them find the perfect product instantly.
Complicated Design
Complicated design can prove to be the biggest stumbling block when closing a deal through the online platform. For instance, websites that have small buttons scattered all over the place will just irritate potential customers as studies show that when the design is filled with a lot of text and images, people won’t know where to click and how to navigate.
Therefore, simple design means more customers. No need for 10 buttons if 3 will suffice. No need for a landing page filled with unnecessary pictures, because 46% of shoppers used their smartphones to buy products, and 21% used their tablets in 2015. With this high percentage of mobile users, it is wise to keep the design simple so that the loading time is as short as possible.
Forgetting Mobile
The safest choice to retain the visitors is to go mobile. This process may take longer than making a regular desktop site, but it pays off in the end. Mobile surely attracts more customers. Even though not everyone will make a purchase, the mobile option improves conversion rates.
With the aforementioned statistics, it is now clear that going mobile is a crucial factor in the online shopping experience. Lack of responsive design means losing 67% of visitors that are more likely to buy at a mobile-friendly website, according to a Google survey.
Mobile search can also pose problems on eCommerce sites, especially if there’s no automatic indexing or autocomplete in the search box. Luckily, you can integrate mobile site search options on the website in minutes.
Long and Confusing Checkout
After optimizing the site and getting the customers to visit your eCommerce store on both desktop and mobile, you have to consider that every buyer wants a fast checkout process.
A simple 3-step checkout works best, because the longer it lasts, the less patience the user has. Moreover, asking for a minimal amount of personal details will keep customers happy and make them come again. The rule is quite straightforward: keep it simple. Your online shop should offer account-free purchases to simplify the checkout process.
When the checkout is a hassle, people will hardly choose your eCommerce site to buy. There’s no need for 5 different windows popping up when he wants to finalize his purchase. They may look spammy and unsafe. What’s more, asking too much private information and the obligation to sign up in order to shop scares away potential customers.
Unexpected Costs
Unexpected costs are the most important reason people abandon their shopping cart. It can include additional fees, taxes or costly shipping that appears at the very end of the checkout process. Visitors don’t like to be lied to, nor when the companies hide something from them in order to make more profit.
Whether it be taxes or shipping, try to adjust the product price so that the end pricing is not 30 or 40 times more than the product itself. To be on the safe side, show all of the costs up front. Not only the customers will see what they were expecting, but also makes them trust you more.
Conclusion
A customer will leave your eCommerce store for a variety of reasons. You can eliminate most of them if you think through the overall marketing strategy.
For example, adding clear product descriptions and a search bot makes it faster to decide if the item is right for the buyer. These factors, along with simple design and fast checkout, may contribute to finalizing the purchase.
Last but not least, a crucial factor in the equation which we often forget is an exquisite mobile-responsive design. Mobile-responsiveness, even though it looks insignificant, is sometimes the only way for your buyers to reach your shop.