Shopping Cart Abandonment Cure – 9 Tips to Improve your Conversion

The Shopping Cart page is probably the most important page that your e-commerce store has, but it is often overlooked. It is one of the final pages that determine if you will make a sale or not. By improving your shopping cart experience, you will be able to increase your conversion rate.

What are the best practices for shopping cart page design that reduce drop off during the checkout steps?

Top reasons why people abandoned their shopping carts

Let’s examine the top reasons why people abandoned the shopping cart page and how we can resolve them. (1)

9 Tips to Improve your Conversion

1. Guest Checkout – this option is a must feature for any store. I know it is tempting to try and force the shopper to create an account, but it is a sure way to lose them forever. Never force account creation, you should encourage it but always allow your customers an alternative checkout.
2. Free Shipping option clearly labeled – if you offer a free shipping advantage over a certain amount then make sure that the free shipping benefit is clearly visible through the site. Another possibility is to encourage shoppers to get the free shipping by adding “x” amount to their cart.
3. Estimated Delivery Date – It is important to be able to specify at least a range for when the package will arrive so that if someone needs something in 5 days, but you can deliver in 2 weeks only, there are no false expectations.
4. Return Policy – make sure that there is a clear indication of how to return the merchandise if needed. This information will allow those shoppers who are unsure about their choice to feel more secure about the purchase.
5. Payment Methods – make sure to offer a wide variety of payment methods. It is also important to clearly show them on your shopping cart page. If you are using the Paypal services, then make sure they are integrated well into the store and follow best practices for Paypal checkout (2).
6. Website Errors – It is important to check your online store with desktop and mobile devices regularly. It is a good practice to schedule a bi-weekly checkup and always test the site following any updates.
7. Simple Checkout Process  –  a great checkout process might be very complicated behind the screen, but it must be as simple as possible for the shoppers.  Make all the necessary information clearly visible, and present easy options to change the items in the cart.  The “Create an Account” checkout option should be very easy to follow and require only necessary information to complete the transaction and return to the site next time.
8. Security – make sure that all your security badges are present on the shopping cart page. It is nice to have them in the page footer, but they must be prominently visible on the shopping cart page.
9. Calculate Total Before Checkout – It is a good idea to allow the users to mouse over or single click on the shopping cart icon to display a small pop-up with the total. This functionality helps to avoid a big shock to the shoppers once they land on the shopping cart page.

Shopping Cart Examples

 Rebook  Shopping Cart Design

The screenshot example below presents the essential features that help to reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Great Example of Mobile Shopping Cart Page from MODCLOTH

Bad Shopping Cart Example

The Bay

This shopping cart does not provide clearly visible essential information which helps to reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate.

Don’t design based on the cart from the 90’s

Shopping cart abandonment statistics hold important insights that can be used to improve conversion to sales (3).

3 More Tips to Improve Conversion

Learned from the Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics

1. Invest in shopping cart abandonment campaigns – what seemed out of reach just a few years ago has now reached the mainstream. The automated shopping cart reminder emails are easy and inexpensive to set up.
2. Increase promotions and in-cart offers on Tuesday for immediate redemption so if a person has expressed interest in completing a sale just give them that extra push.
3. During 8-9 PM make sure to have a live chat as well as additional incentives to complete the sale.

Conclusion

The beauty of an online store is that there are a lot of inexpensive ways to improve your sales. Unlike a traditional store where major renovations require significant capital, online is much easier store to renovate for much less money. It is important to invest in monthly tuning, improving and analyzing in details your data. Do not forget your shopping cart page; it could be your key to unlocking additional sales.