Have you watched “The Intern”? Do you remember the scene where Jules (Anne Hathaway) sitting with her team when they saw some clients put items in their carts? The next moment was “nay” – they abandoned their carts. The same thing can happen in real life to your business. It’s great when someone adds items to their cart but stay alert: 68% of customers abandon their carts before checkout according to research by CWCS Managed Hosting.
Of course, you can’t completely stop your customers from re-considering their carts, but there are some other reasons you can control to reduce the rate of cart abandonment. The Baymard Institute claims that e-commerce sites can improve conversion rates by 35% thanks to better checkout designs. If you’re losing online sales are being hit, here are some potential reasons and how to fix them.
Your website is slow or crashes
Instant gratification is the norm now: a CWCS study found that 57% of customers leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. And it’s even worse if your site crashes: it makes you look less trustworthy, and 24% will abandon their carts if it happens. That’s why it’s so important to build your e-commerce site on a stable platform and optimize its speed. There are many tools to help you check your site speed – you can use two tools of Google to check your website speed on a laptop and mobile:
It’s hard to use
In addition to being fast and reliable, your e-commerce site needs to be easy to navigate. 25% of users abandon their carts because it’s confusing or complicated for them to check out. You should go through the buying process yourself or ask a friend to do it, then note any steps or points that may cause frustration to customers. If you use Google Analytics to track your website (and we highly recommend you do so), you can also look at the reports to know where customers are dropping off the most and make necessary changes to increase your conversions.
Your website isn’t optimized for mobile
Mobile-friendly is a ‘must’ for websites now as more and more people own smartphones and regularly use them to search and buy. Only 18% of people would recommend a business if they had a bad mobile shopping experience, so failing to make your site mobile responsive is a huge mistake. When choosing the e-commerce platform for your website, you should opt for the one that can work well on both mobile devices and desktops.
The payment step doesn’t seem trustworthy
Many people are particularly concerned about security when buying online, so they won’t buy from you if they have the slightest suspicion about your payment step. An easy way to mitigate this is to display trusted credit card logos on your checkout or payment page – 80% of customers say that they feel safer when seeing those logos on websites. Also, you should make your payment page look modern and neat, not like it was built ten years ago without any maintenance. You should accept a variety of payments on your site, too as 42% of shoppers will spend more if they can choose different payment options.
Your shipping fees are too high
High shipping fee is one of the most popular reasons for card abandonment. A Deloitte study found that 61% of customers saw higher-than-expected shipping prices. In the movie “The Intern” we mentioned above, right after seeing some customers drop off their carts, Jules asked her team to see if the shipping fees were too high and make adjustments if necessary. Also, include a shipping calculator early on in the checkout process to let customers know what to expect. If you can manage it, offer a free shipping policy, and communicate it clearly on your website, right when your customers enter your site – 69% of shoppers are more likely to buy from businesses that offer free shipping.
ConnectPOS is a all-in-one point of sale solution tailored to meet your eCommerce POS needs, streamline business operations, boost sales, and enhance customer experience in diverse industries. We offer custom POS with features, pricing, and plans to suit your unique business requirements.
