Best Practices to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment this Holiday Sales Season

 The eCommerce industry is growing rapidly because it is working on one agenda i.e. convenience. The customers prefer online stores rather than physical stores because they don’t want to experience the hassle of standing in a long queue and fighting with the public to pick up the desired products and then again waiting at the billing counter.

To avoid all these steps, customers visit online stores where they just need a system and internet connection. They visit the recommended store, search products and then purchase it after adding to their shopping carts. The best part is that they receive their order at their preferred address.

But what if the convenience which an online store should offer is sacrificed due to some reasons just like a physical store. Take a look:

• Slow website
• Security issues
• Desired payment options not available
• No free shipping or flat shipping
• Asking the customers to register or create account
• Not displaying shipping fees before
• Lengthy checkout process
• No out of stock notification

These are some reasons which make the customer irritated and force them to leave your site or abandon the shopping carts. The holiday season is arriving and this is the perfect time to take strong ways to combat the shopping cart abandonment rates.

You can actually avoid this by simply  going through some of these conversion optimization steps:

Streamline the Checkout Process

The customers already know what details are required during checkout processes and when the checkout process becomes long with multiple steps and pages, it makes customers leave the purchase and go elsewhere to buy the products.

The details which you need at the checkout step may be important for you to complete the transaction but it can be a tedious task for your customers to provide all those pieces of information. You can create a short and quick checkout process where the system can find the location with the help of Zip code and the customers only need to complete the details with few clicks.

Support Numerous Payment Options

Non-availability of multiple payment methods is one of the main reasons for the cart abandonment. There will be customers who use payment services different from what you offer in your store. What if they visit your store to make a purchase? They will leave your store at the checkout stage for the known reason and there could more similar customers

However, try to offer as many payment options to your customers or visitors as possible. By offering more payment options you will offer convenience in buying for more customers which will ultimately help in preventing the cart abandonment rates.

Do Not Surprise with Hidden Charges

The customers like the surprises which are appealing to them and not the one which makes them shocked rather surprised. They welcome the discounted offers but they don’t appreciate the hidden charges whether it is the shipping cost or others.

If they have entered the checkout page and then they encounter that there are some unmentioned charges, they immediately abandon their carts leaving frustrated.

You can avoid such circumstances by offering a simple calculator or an estimator to their shopping carts. So that they can calculate the total of their order even before they proceed to the checkout.

Provide Live Chat Support

The carts are also abandoned because of the lack of some helping person to guide them in the real time. It may happen that they got confused with the product details or price structure and because of no relevant information, they left the purchase process in between.

The feature of a live chat support helps the customers with any queries, different processes and makes a comfortable shopping experience for them. A live chat representative can explain the product details, shipping process or the checkout in a much simpler way to avoid any confusion.

Save Customers’ Cart Details

There can be some situations when the customers unintentionally or intentionally leave their shopping cart. But if they come back to your store to check their shopping cart for the added items and they don’t find any of the items, then they will surely abandon the cart.

This situation can be prevented by implementing the auto-save feature in your store and shopping cart so that even if the site gets closed, the details/products are saved automatically.  

Final Thoughts

To create the most satisfactory shopping experience for your buyers and reduce the shopping cart abandonment rates, you have to take some effective measures for this holiday season. However, you need to start reviewing the checkout process of your store together with other buying processes.

Are you also encountering high cart abandonment rates? Do you need a competent resolution for this issue? Feel free to approach our eCommerce Business Experts for a business oriented solution!

Author Bio:

Darshit Parmar is an eCommerce Business Consultant at M-Connect Media. Darshit, as an eCommerce consultant has offered various eCommerce businesses with the perfect UI and UX solutions. He has also assisted and advised many worldwide clients to help their business reach to the next level.