Shopping cart abandonment is one of the main issues for online traders. According to recent research, three quarters of the world’s online shopping carts are abandoned, which means that you are potentially losing a lot of business.
But don’t worry! We’re here to offer you tips on how to offer a better online experience for your customers and consequently, help reduce the shopping card abandonment rate on your website.
- Be clear about your shipping costs
Imagine this. Your customer has picked the products they wish to purchase and is heading to your checkout to finalise the payment details and they find out for the first time that they will have to pay £5.99 shipping.
According to Kissmetrics, one third of customers cited unexpected shipping costs as a reason to not complete their purchase. The solution to this is easy. On every page make a reference to your shipping costs, (like the example below,) so your customers aren’t faced with any surprises when they reach the checkout to complete their purchase.
BONUS CONTENT: Receive a 6 point shopping cart abandonment tip sheet via email.
Remember, it’s not that customers don’t want to pay for shipping, they just don’t want to do it unexpectedly.
- Offer a good reason to open an online account with you
One aspect that can stop customers completing their purchase is that they have to create an online account first (although a study by Forrester shows that 72% of B2B customers want to self-service their own account and orders). However, having an online account can also be very beneficial.
Discover how K8 Web Builder is making online trading easy for our customers.
Our customer, William Wilson, who use our ecommerce website builder software, display clear reasons why creating an account with them would be beneficial. As long as you give clear benefits for doing this, people won’t mind taking that next step.
- Offer support if things go wrong
Giving multiple points of contact to your customers offers them reassurance that there is someone there to help if something goes wrong at any point during the purchase process.
You could include a phone number, email address or even a link to your social media accounts that deal with customer service issues.
To go one step further, you could even offer a live chat feature, where customers can ask questions and receive answers quickly. The main benefit of this being that they don’t have to leave your website (and shopping cart,) to have their questions answered.
- Show stock levels on your website
Whether you’re selling to plumbers, builders or people in the automotive aftermarket trade, they will all want to know that the part they want is in stock and that it can be delivered to them quickly.
As discussed in our previous blog post about omni-channel commerce, 77% of B2B buyers want to see real-time inventory information online. If stock levels aren’t clear when a customer is browsing products on your website, imagine their frustration when they are at the point of purchase and they are then informed that their part is in fact out of stock. This will not only lead to them leaving your website, but also they are unlikely to use your business again in future.
