With the holiday season quickly approaching, online retailers are gearing up for heavy traffic. The biggest problem those retailers will face is shopping cart abandonment. It is a major point of friction for eCommerce, with around 67% of carts are abandoned during the checkout process.
To help retailers really make the best this holiday season, we’ve made a list and checked it twice: 7 ways to help reduce shopping cart abandonment for the holiday season.
1. Simplify Your Checkout Process
Online shoppers want a quick checkout process, especially during the busiest season of the year. Don’t force your customers to create an account with tons of fields to fill out. Offer an Express or Guest Checkout to speed up the process, get that sale, and then follow up for account credentials afterwards.
Research by User Interface Engineering shows that 75% of people who are forced to register first, never complete the purchase. In the same study, customer purchases increased by 45% after forced registration was removed.
2. Get Rid of Distractions
Reduce the number of outgoing links around both products and the shopping cart; your header and footer on these pages should be clean and focus on the main objective of the page. To help the shopper through the process, emphasize call-to-action buttons like “Next Step”, “Complete Order” or “Purchase” so that they have clear direction. Make sure your calls to action are concise, consistent, prominent, and color contrasted. Also, never place your Checkout button next to Remove From Cart; it creates a moment of hesitation for the shopper that may lower sales volume or kill a sale altogether.
3. Build Trust
Online shoppers look for secure websites when purchasing products online. It gives them peace of mind. Always use a secured checkout, display any third party security certificates, offer easy to find product guarantees and returns policies, and clearly list all charges including taxes and shipping. Regardless of taxes or shipping charges, customers want to know about these fees before filling out all their purchase information. Showing additional costs at the last second is an easy way to aggravate customers, and get them to abandon their cart.
If possible, estimate shipping costs early or try to offer free or flat rate shipping. 55% of abandoned carts are because of shipping costs.
4. Use Visuals
Shoppers want to see what they are buying, research shows that adding a picture of a selected item increases conversion rates by 10%. Include image thumbnails in the cart page so customers know they are buying the right item.
5. Use Clear Direction
Customers like knowing where they are in the checkout process. Add a progress indicator on the checkout pages to show how close they are to the end. It’s a good idea to use multiple short, above-the-fold pages instead of long scrolling forms. Don’t forget to offer checkout support along the way, such as live chat or a customer service phone line.
6. Make Order Changes Easy
Making changes needs to be easy for the customer. Changes to items or details on the checkout page should be simple and intuitive with visible “Edit Item” options. It’s also a great idea to introduce return-to-shopping links to make it easy for your customer to add more items – just don’t forget to save the items already in their cart.
7. Provide Multiple Payment Options
Sometimes shoppers don’t complete a purchase because their preferred payment method isn’t accepted. Allowing customers to choose different payment options decreases shopping cart abandonment and lets you reach customers who may not have bought from you before.
With these 7 recommendations your eCommerce store will be in optimal shape for the holiday season and peak traffic times for online shopping.