We’ve all gone through it. Before the final payment page we chose to abandon the shopping cart. What triggered it? Shipping rates too high? Additional tax? I usually enjoy shopping online for the best deals but the nightmare usually hits when I see the shipping charges. If the charges were reasonable, I wouldn’t mind paying and completing the checkout process. But when shipping costs more than the product itself or looks totally unreasonable, I confess I’m one of those who would gladly abandon the cart or abort the order. Any buyer would do the same.
Make Shipping Charges Visible
So what can you do as an online seller to cut down on all these aborted orders by customers? I’m not saying that all aborted orders were due to shipping prices but the bulk of them usually are. Some times there could be a glitch when it comes to paying or the customers’ credit card may have been bared by the bank.
Well Amazon basically offers free shipping if you spend $25 and above. However, many sellers out there can’t afford to give free shipping unless they factor in the shipping fees into their product pricing. But that would make their products look more expensive than what other sellers are offering! So what can be done?
Sellers could try and minimize customers from abandoning their shopping cart during the online checkout process. The first would be to charge what the normal postal service would charge. Make it visible so customers could see what shipping companies are charging. Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. They are looking for the best competitive product and shipping price for the products that they want to buy.
Shipping Calculator
Use a shipping calculator so that customers could straight away find out how much shipping will cost before they start the checkout process. That’s to avoid the element of surprise so at least they know roughly how much they need to pay for shipping.
Offering free shipping sounds good but you would need to do plenty of research on what your competitors are offering if you’re selling the same products on top of making sure that you’re not making a lost when you offer this option. Consumers aren’t stupid. They’ll be making comparison all the time to get the best bang for their buck.
Make Checkout Faster
Add in an express checkout option. Some customers are totally not interested to share their details knowing that they will be bombarded by email promotions from online sellers. To them, it just adds to the spam that’s piling up in their inbox. The less steps that a buyer has to go through, the happier they will be as they want to quickly pay and get it over with. Imagine if you have a long check out process and somewhere in between there’s a glitch.
Offer Different Payment Options
While PayPal may be a popular payment gateway, some consumers may prefer other payment options. Being able to accept major credit cards will help instead of having only one payment option.
Showcase Your Discounted Best Sellers
Best to do this at the main page. Some times I feel as if I’m buying a budget airline plane ticket when shopping on some sites as they tend to offer too many cross-sell items. Try to focus only on specific items and not the entire store! Also give people the option to contact you to request for further discounts for bulk purchase or international orders.
These are just some of the most basic steps that one could take to avoid shopping cart abandonment by shoppers. Take the necessary steps and see how it works out for you. Don’t forget to get feedback from customers. Happy selling!
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