Each cart abandonment for your business is the loss of potential revenue.
For e-commerce business owners, optimizing the checkout process is as crucial as making important decisions in front of the stakeholders. It’s the stage where the businesses either win or lose.
Just like other important metrics such as ROI, cash flow, and customer acquisition cost (CAC), card abandonment rate is another key metric that directly impacts the bottom line. Research indicates that almost 70% of customers add products to their cart but don’t place their order and leave the website or app.
There can be several reasons behind this, such as a lack of payment options, a sudden change in the customer’s mind, revealing hidden costs, a time-consuming account creation process, an unclear return/exchange policy, or a confusing check-out process.
You can easily calculate the cart abandonment rate by dividing the total number of purchases by the total number of created online shopping carts. This will indicate how your business is performing in terms of converting potential customers into sales.
If the cart abandonment rate is pretty high, it means all the marketing efforts that you put in to bring the potential customers to your website are of no use. Hence, your marketing team must put effort into understanding and filtering out the root causes behind a higher cart abandonment rate, and they should come up with the right strategies to fix it.
This article briefly discusses the cart abandonment rate, along with the proactive measures that can help businesses to potentially offer a seamless online shopping experience for all their customers—ultimately leading to better sales and revenue.
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The Psychology Behind Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment (or basket abandonment) occurs when online shoppers add items to their cart but leave the website or the application without completing the purchase.
It is often considered an indicator of some potential issues with the checkout process. From website functionality to payment issues, customer hesitation due to unexpected costs like shipping fees and COD charges, there can be multiple reasons why customers abandon their carts.
Understanding the psychology behind why your target customer may be abandoning the cart can help you to trace down the root cause and make necessary improvements to reduce the cart abandonment rate. Several strategies, like conducting surveys, data analysis, and A/B testing, can help in identifying the specific pain points that lead to cart abandonment.
Remember: Customers only like the surprises that are beneficial for them, not for your business. So, put your main focus on improving the user experience throughout the checkout process.
What to Avoid on Your Website to Ensure a Low Cart Abandonment Rate?
Before making improvements to your website, you should first know what to cut from your website that might be causing customers to abandon their cart. Below are the key mistakes that generally increase the chances of cart abandonment rate and should be avoided immediately.
- Hidden fees
- Complicated check-out process
- Fewer payment options
- Slow website loading speed
- No COD option
- Confusing navigation
- No estimated delivery time
- Poor mobile optimization
- Lengthy and mandatory account creation process
- Additional shipping charges
Each of the above-mentioned issues creates hesitation for customers during the checkout process. When users may feel rushed, pressured, or unsure, they always consider abandoning their cart as a top priority. By eliminating these issues, you can make it easier for your end customers to complete their purchase and ultimately increase the conversion rate.
Strategies to Ease the Check-Out Process & Reduce Cart Abandonment
Reducing the cart abandonment rate is not a one-time fix; it’s an ongoing process of understanding the customer journey throughout the cycle.
A smooth and frictionless checkout experience plays a crucial role in converting potential customers into actual buyers. Even small potholes in their journey can negatively impact all the efforts spent on marketing, branding, and customer acquisition.
By simplifying processes and removing unnecessary hurdles, businesses can significantly reduce cart abandonment. Let’s take a look at some of the proven strategies that you can implement on your website to optimize the checkout experience and turn abandoned carts into purchased orders.
1. Simplified Checkout Process = Smooth Order Processing Experience
Each hurdle faced by your potential customer while purchasing through the website or application acts like a roadblock that stops and pulls them back from purchasing the order. Multiple steps, repeated information requests, or unnecessary pop-ups often distract the user, and it increases friction and frustration in their mind.
The check-out process should feel effortless. Aim to reduce the number of steps in the check-out process. Make it short, distraction-free, and intuitive. Ask for only necessary and relevant information, and avoid giving time lapses to customers during the check-out process.
Opt for auto-fill features and address look-up tools that automatically enter the user’s data linked with their mobile number. The simpler and faster it is, the more customers are likely to pass through it.
2. Offer Guest Post Checkouts
If you’re running paid campaigns that bring potential customers to your website, then make sure to offer a guest post check-out facility. They are in a hurry to buy, and asking them to fill out the form and verify the email address breaks the momentum.
Don’t make it mandatory for the users to create an account first, and let them place their order. Just set a form to collect the address and contact details, and once the order is placed, then ask them to create a new account to track their order.
This approach surely turns out to be a measurable improvement in reducing the cart abandonment rate. In short, the key takeaway here is don’t let the account creation process stand between the customer and their purchase.
3. Be Transparent About Pricing – No Hidden Costs
Be honest and authentic.
Avoid surprising your customers in the middle of their journey with hidden charges. If there are additional charges to fulfill the purchase, like delivery charges or taxes, then make sure to clearly communicate these upfront instead of showing them at the last stage.
This will make the customer think twice about making the purchase or not.
Wherever possible, display all the applicable fees, extra charges, shipping costs, or minimum order value right on the product page or home page (as early as possible). As soon as your customer is aware of such costs, the more likely they are to proceed with the order purchase, as compared to showing them such charges at the last moment.
And avoid a negative tone in showing such content as “Delivery charges applicable on orders less than ₹499″; instead, show something like “Free delivery on orders above ₹499.”
Remember, transparency isn’t about pricing and honesty – it’s about building trust with your customers. Be upfront and show them that their time and value matter for your business—this will ultimately lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty in the long run.
4. Highly Optimize Your Website
Your website is the first and best salesperson for your business.
Just like the shop owner always greets the new customers entering their shop, your website should also do the same. Your website interface should be seamless and user-friendly. Customers must know where to navigate for what they’re looking for.
Not only the home page or the product page, but also the checkout page must be highly optimized for both PC and mobile users. Responsive designs, high-quality product images, detailed product descriptions, proper payment gateways, and clear CTAs are all essential elements for a successful website.
Buttons should be large enough to tap; they shouldn’t be overlaid under the content, and loading times should be minimal to ensure a smooth shopping experience. Also, consider integrating mobile-native payment options, such as Google Pay or Paytm. The simpler the payment option is, the more likely customers will complete the purchase without any hassle.
5. Display Trust Signals & Security Badges
Today’s customer often fears being scammed online, and they even hesitate to share sensitive information if they don’t trust the website.
Visual trust elements such as SSL certificates, secure payment icons, and customer reviews can help you set the foundation of trust with potential customers. Additionally, displaying secured gadgets from reputable and worldwide-known organizations can add an extra layer of trust in the shopper’s mind, and will further enhance credibility.
These trust elements force their brain to consider your website as a trusted source and to go ahead with the purchase without any doubts or concerns about the legitimacy of your business. By incorporating these visual trust elements, not only will the conversion rate and sales increase, but also the overall credibility and reputation of your business will improve.
Conclusion
Cart abandonment is the challenge that every e-commerce company struggles with. Dealing with it isn’t just about fixing checkout errors—it’s about keeping yourself in the shoes of the target audience and removing all the hurdles that interrupt the checkout process. Always remember that every single detail matters when the customer is close to making the purchase. So, remove all that unnecessary friction, and let the sales and revenue grow.
At FirstAdz, we have already helped thousands of e-commerce brands to identify the drop-off points and convert them into opportunities for increased sales and revenue. Next can be yours—so connect now with our marketing experts and get a free blueprint of how we can fix the cart abandonment for your brand.
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