3 Tricks to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment
Online businesses have long since created a way for people to purchase items and products on the web, yet an unexpected road block has been discovered: shopping cart abandonment. Studies show that over half of the online shopping carts are abandoned at the stage when the customer is designated to enter in their credit card and billing information. We are able to get the customer interested, so what can online businesses do to urge the customers onward to the purchase?
We live in a world that capitalizes on efficiency -- inherent in that word are these three factors: conciseness, simplicity and usability. All three are intertwined in a successful online purchase.
1. Conciseness: Ask for the bare minimum; let us do the work for you
Consider the information that will need to be asked of the customer regardless of the way they plan on obtaining the product. It comes down to name, billing address, and credit card information. All three of these required fields should be placed on the same page with the “finish/ complete order“ button, or the light at the end of the tunnel.
Now what is needed to get the product to the customer? There are three ways, print-at-home tickets, will call, and sending the ticket to the customer's house. Depending on what the person choses, we're able to send them to the checkout with just that information needed. If you're planning on having a ticket mailed to your house, there is no reason why we'd need an email address.
Phone numbers, confirming an email, and comment boxes should not be required fields, if you don't need it- don't ask. The less the customer needs to do, the better.
2. Simplicity: Maintain a simple, linear site
At Thundertix, we break our checkout into two simple steps, therefore the checkout is further simplified to ward off shopping cart abandonment.
- How does the customer plan to obtain the physical ticket?
- The page with the appropriate information we need to get the ticket to our customer.
By breaking it into those two steps, we are able to fit a lot of information onto a couple of pages. If the customer is choosing to have their tickets mailed as opposed to email or will-call it's important that we allow for a “billing same as shipping” check box- don't burden them with reentering information.
The key is to avoid having multiple pages because it seemingly elongates the buying process, allowing more time for the customer to become distracted and abandon their cart without a purchase.
3. Usability: Explain the buttons
We must assume at times customers will make mistakes and need to edit their shopping cart. Keep in mind that buttons such as “back” and “continue”, albeit simple, can be daunting to a customer who doesn't want to lose all their information and isn't sure how far “back” this ominous button will take them. Buttons should be kept simple, but with enough direction to ensure that the customer won't be irritated when they push it and find themselves at a page they weren't expecting. Use buttons that describe where they are going, some examples are: “Back to Cart”, “Back to Billing Info”, or “Finish Order”. We want this to be stress free and easy to complete so that the buyer is excited about their upcoming even- not irritated that they had to go to hell and back just to buy the ticket.