Shoppers are coming to your site, and they want to buy your product, but your shopping cart design is putting them off. This may be a problem that you are having.
Recent studies show that typical e-commerce websites lose about 75% of their shoppers during the transaction phase that involves the shopping cart. This statistic may be a bit high due to a couple of very bad websites, but it is still true that many websites lose a lot of their customers because they have not paid enough attention to their shopping cart. Luckily, all that is required is a few small changes, and you can lower the amount of the problem on your site significantly.
The Less Steps The Better
By making your customers undertake many pages during the transaction process you will surely lose some. You should make sure that you collect only necessary information. You should look for other configurations that decrease the amount of steps that your customers have to go through. Shockingly, this is the last thing that you should do. If the transaction requires a lot of work and time, this will affect your business. You do not have to decrease the checking out steps, but you should make the others a priority over this step.
The Indicators of Progress
In physical businesses as well as e-commerce ones, the biggest problem for conversions is the uncertainty. This is easy to see if you think about physical stores. BestBuy stores have made one sole line for every cashier, instead of the customers having to select a cashier to line up for. The reason for this is not complicated. Conversion rates are affected by uncertainty. People like to know what to expect. So by having progress indicators at each step of the checkout transaction, you will notice that you are retaining a lot of your customers. Even when there is a 10 step checkout method, by informing your customers of their point in each step you will make sure that more of them complete the entire process.
Have Many Pictures
People are attracted to things that engage the senses. They like to look at things on the shelf, take them down, and look at them. Since this is not possible with e-commerce stores, you have to find ways to make up for this. One method in which you can do this is to have lots of pictures, not just in the catalogue but also in the carts. People shopping, especially those that are new to online shopping want to double check that they have chosen the right selection. A lot of these customers will get confused if they have to use the ‘back’ button in order to see these. By having a picture of the product that is to be bought in the shopping cart, you can reduce the amount of people that you lose.
Give Total Estimates As Soon As Possible
A lot of shoppers do not trust e-commerce sites with regards to shipping. It could be a result of telemarketers who sell poor quality products cheaply and then make a lot of money through the shipping. So, it is important that you resolve the shoppers’ concerns of undisclosed costs as soon as you can. You can do this by giving your shoppers an estimation of the total cost as soon as it is clear. There is nothing wrong with attracting customers using low prices, but it is important that if there are some higher costs involved you let them know as soon as you can to let them get used to the idea.
