Demand for shopping online continues to grow, and the customers expect their shopping experience to be seamless. As a result, the primary task of the business is to offer the customer the best shopping experience possible, which is achievable with shopping cart optimization. Usually, shopping cart optimization is related to the smooth checkout process and by optimizing the cart and the checkout at once, you’re winning new customers, and getting more returning ones. So, when you decide to increase conversion, think about shopping cart optimization first.
What is the Average Rate for Cart Abandonment?
For starters, we talk about cart abandonment when the customer adds items to the cart and then leaves without completing the purchase. Perhaps, the checkout page is not working smoothly or the shopping cart is not well developed to the point that the customer wants to finalize his wish to purchase the items. It means that either technologically or from the point of the design, there is something wrong with the shopping cart or checkout page.
It is usual for customers to abandon their carts. The percentage of cart abandonment is as high as 68% and the research made during the last decade clearly shows that businesses lose trillions because of abandoned shopping carts.
Though abandoned shopping carts do not necessarily mean refusal to buy the items added to the cart, this still means losing a successful sale. At the same time, when the customers abandon the shopping cart, they still remember the effort spent on searching and finding the items. The chances are high that the customer completes the purchase but there is a need to use remarketing emails and improved checkout to bring the customer back.
Why is Optimizing Your Shopping Cart Important?
The checkout process starts when the customer has filled the cart and is ready to complete the purchase by placing the order. At this point, the customer feels the urge to complete the purchase, and this urge should be maintained until fulfilled. As soon as customers usually spend some time choosing, picking the size and the color, and thinking about the products, they want quickly complete the order. At any moment, when customers feel the process is difficult, they might easily abandon the cart and bounce back from their purchase. Also, take care of ecommerce features for your business.
How to Perform Ecommerce Shopping Cart Optimization in 8 Steps
When it comes to optimizing the shopping cart, there is a need to do several steps, including but not limited to:
- Including detailed product summary
- Adding live chat
- Improving navigation between cart and store
- Using bring thumbnail images for products
- Making checkout mobile-friendly
- Optimizing loading speed of the page
- Making payment process easy
- Creating a representing a solid refund policy
Detailed Product Summary
When a shopping cart of your customers is filled with products, you now have only one mission that is to lead them directly to payment. Customers are aware too, so they usually want to check the chosen products for sizes and details. At this point, if you help your customers to make the check easily, they are much more likely to proceed to checkout.
That said, the customers will have an easier time checking their order if the image, exact name, and product specifications are included in the list of products added to the shopping cart. The details of specifications, such as special options and important features, as well as the size, color, and quantity of the products should be clearly stated in the shopping cart. With this information, the check is done easier, and the customer is more likely to proceed to the checkout page.
Add live chat for real-time conversations
Statistically, adding a live chat feature to your store increases the conversion, i.e. more people are compiling their orders and finishing the checkout process successfully. The thing is, the live chat provides the opportunity to clarify something about the product right away, and therefore the customers are more likely to purchase the item when all the information is clarified in a few clicks. In addition, having a live chat working on your website increases the development of the trust between the customers and the brand.
Make navigation between cart and store effortless
As a rule, customers want to add the product to their shopping cart and continue browsing for the rest of the inventory. So, practically, the easier the customer gets back to searching the product catalog, the more items the customer will purchase. That said, it is crucial to make sure that the customers do not need any effort to return back to selecting the products to add more to the shopping cart. Moreover, when the customers are ready to complete the purchase, they should be able to do so in a minimum number of clicks.
Exact and bright thumbnail images
Having exact and bright thumbnail images does the same as the detailed product description does. It allows the customers to see if they made the right choice. When it comes to proceeding to checkout, the last check of the chosen items goes smoothly, ad bright thumbnails help a lot with this. So, the clearer your shopping cart is to check the items, the higher the chances are that the customer finishes the order.
Make checkout mobile friendly
As far as we all know, the websites should be working smoothly on all devices, including mobile devices. The same applies to the checkout page too. When it comes to finishing the order and switching to the checkout page, it must work well on mobile devices. Today, the majority of purchases are made from mobile devices, and this makes it even more important that checkout works smoothly from mobile.
So what to look for? The most common difficulties with mobile-friendliness include the text being too small to read when browsing from a mobile device and images too little to see the details. Oftentimes, it is difficult to see the details of the products and the delivery options when checkout and shopping cart are not optimized for mobile. Moreover, customers are more likely to return when they noted the online store as the one optimized for mobile.
Optimize page load speeds
Page load speed should be optimized so that the user sees that the order went through very smoothly. The idea here is to reward the behavior of the customer by the rapid response of success. The fast-loading page satisfies the need to confirm the accepted order and facilitates the happiness of your customers, with no space for doubting if the checkout was successful. The customers usually remember the feeling they had when they placed the order. Having everything working smoothly and successfully will bring you more returning customers.
Make paying easy
Paying process should generally be the simplest and the quickest part of the shopping process. As soon a the customers decide to buy, they should be able to buy and pay immediately. It is instant gratification that helps your customers to be happy about their decisions. That said, ensure that the payments that your customers make are quick and secure. When the payment process is protected, the customers are going to trust you more.
Create a solid refund and return policy
Having a refund and return policy in the right place and showing it to the customers helps to establish connection and trust with your customers. As soon as the customers do not have a chance to try your product or see it in person before buying, they should have the ability to return it or exchange it if there is something wrong with the product. Ideally, a checkout process should inform your customers about the return and refund policy so that they might feel totally safe about their money and the quality of the products.
Conclusion
The abandonment of the shopping cart is a common issue in eCommerce. Usually, when it comes to shopping, customers tend to abandon their carts if something did not go smoothly. Though, they often go back and complete their orders. Therefore, to reduce the abandonment rate, there is a need to invest in shopping cart optimization and checkout process optimization. The best choice to do this quickly and professionally is to get professional help. For example, SOFTLOFT company is the team that is focused on the development of eCommerce and our professionals are ready to help with any process on the way to business success. Just contact us to get the help that you need.
