SEO Make Money

E-commerce website owners typically have an opportunity to drastically increase the amount of money that they are making through the website by focusing on reduced abandoned carts. Many online shoppers will place an item in their shopping cart and then leave the site before purchasing. If they wanted the item to start with something must have discouraged them from the purchase. But what was it?

Abandoned carts are very common because it’s easy to shop online, and buyers often have second thoughts and decide to not make the purchase after all. In this article we’ll look at some ways that you can reduce the likelihood of shoppers to change their mind after adding an item to the cart.

1. Hidden details or surprises

Shoppers hate to be surprised by hidden fees or details that they did not expect. If they put an item into their shopping cart with certain assumptions and then they are surprised by something during the checkout process, they are likely to abandon the cart.

2. Shipping Costs and Taxes

Although there is nothing you can do about the amount of tax that must be charged, there are some things you can do to reduce the amount of sales that are lost due to shipping charges. No buyer wants to pay for shipping, but it’s often a mystery what the shipping charges will be until the checkout process. Give your shoppers a way to know (at least approximately) what they will be charged for shipping before they get to the end of the checkout.

3. The process takes too long

If there are too many steps in the checkout process or too much information is required, the buyer may choose to leave simply because it is taking too long. Cutting down the number of steps and streamlining the process can make a really big difference in the experience for the user, and ultimately in sales.

4. Comparative shopping

Shopping around for the best deal is very easy online. For this reason it’s pretty common for an online shopper to place an item in their cart and then decide to visit some other sites to see if they can find a better deal. While you can’t change the fact that it’s easy for them to do comparative shopping, you can offer a lowest price guarantee to put their minds at ease.

5. Not all the products they want are available

Because almost all items that are bought online will require some kind of shipping charges, many buyers will prefer to bundle their purchases so that they are getting multiple items at once, rather than paying for shipping several different times. If this is the case, they may abandon their cart if some of the products that they want are not available at your site. This could apply to products that you do not carry or that are out of stock.

6. Buyer’s remorse, second thoughts

Sometimes there is nothing more to it than just a hesitance to buy, especially with higher-priced items.

7. Confusion

Sometimes a buyer will leave the site because they are confused or frustrated about what they are supposed to do. This is less common now that most people have made purchases online, but you will still want the process to be as simple and clear as possible so that you are not confusing people who want to buy your products.

8. Payment options

One of the decisions you will have to make when running an e-commerce website is what types of payments you would like to accept. If you are not offering many options you may find that people are abandoning their shopping carts because their preferred method of payment, such as the type of credit card they use, is not accepted.

Steven Snell is a web designer and has experience with e-commerce web development. He runs CartFrenzy, a gallery that showcases the best e-commerce websites.