According to global remarketing specialist, SaleCycle, 74.6% of online UK shopping carts end up abandoned. It's a problem that affects online businesses large and small. So how can you bring these customers back to make a purchase? It’s time to optimise your checkout for conversion.
1. Display security badges
Building trust in the digital world is difficult, especially if you don't already have a strong reputation to draw on. A security and trust badge is the ideal way to overcome customer uncertainty and guarantee purchases are safe.
2. Share genuine reviews
More than half of customers are heavily influenced by online reviews – many more so than recommendations from family and friends. For maximum conversion, put reviews on your product detail pages so customers see them before they have a chance to bounce off to a competitor site.
Reviews are also a great starting point for optimising your store in other ways. Monitor and analyse them, including any on sites like Google+, to identify what your customers love and, more importantly, what you can improve.
3. Offer help
Providing easy access to quality support boosts your credibility.
A live chat option allows you to find out how you can help customers – and exactly what you need to do to turn a browser into a buyer. 34% of cart abandoners are browsing – often for big-ticket items that demand careful consideration. A little more information from a live chat can be enough to sway their decision.
If you can’t offer live chat, make sure your contact information is easy to find instead.
4. Add guest checkout
SaleCycle estimates that 34% of abandoned carts belong to customers who didn't want to open an account to complete their purchase. In other words, making accounts compulsory could be costing you around a third of your sales.
Of course, you don’t want to discourage users from signing up. Just make sure you offer a guest checkout option too.
5. Streamline checkout
People are impatient and easily frustrated. Even one extra step in your checkout process can be enough to make a customer think twice. Streamline the stages and you’re sure to see cart abandonment drop.
6. Offer well-known payment options
Trust is everything when it comes to payments. Ease your audience’s concerns by offering enough reputable payment options to give your customers freedom of choice and a strong sense of security.
Gone are the days of being limited to Mastercard and Visa; now you can offer an abundance of payment options from Paypal to Amazon Pay and finance options from Hitachi to Klarna. And you should – around 6% of customers abandon their cart because of a lack of payment options.
7. Extend delivery options
According to SaleCycle, 23% of customers abandon their cart because of delivery options and costs.
Allowing your customers maximum flexibility in their busy, stressful lives is essential. Consumers are changing, we work days, nights and weekends. As a result, named-day and even same-day delivery are becoming more popular.
No matter what level of flexibility you offer, be transparent about delivery costs before the checkout stage. This will reduce the number of people who abandon their shopping because of higher-than-expected shipping costs.
8. Offer free shipping
A retailing group study revealed that unconditional free shipping is the number one deciding factor for consumers looking to make a purchase. 73% listed it as “critical”. No surprise then, that more than 50% of ecommerce merchants now offer a free shipping option. And you should too.
9. Use exit popups
Exit popups help to prevent abandoned carts before they happen – by using algorithms to determine when someone is about to leave your site. Just as someone is about to click on the URL bar, a popup featuring a targeted message appears.
This is your chance to keep the potential customer’s attention. Offer a discount to sweeten the deal. Collect their email address for future marketing campaigns. Or best of all, combine the offer with the sign-up request to increase the quantity and quality of data you're likely to collect.
10. Send cart abandonment emails
Automatically emailing everyone who leaves items in their cart allows you to continue the conversation with customers who showed interest but didn't commit.
A simple nudge can be enough to bring customers back to complete their purchase. While a well-crafted email can strengthen the customer relationship, build loyalty and help you understand what stopped the customer from converting in the first place.
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