If a subscriber clicks through to a landing page, chooses a product and then abandons the cart, the good news is that the reasons for this are well known. Therefore you can make changes to reduce the failures. With over two thirds of carts being abandoned, if you retain an extra quarter you have increased your profits significantly. In order of percentage, these are:
1/ Hidden costs
Research shows that a customer finding the total cost exceeded the amount they assumed they would have to pay is the main reason and you can probably sympathise with them. However, this is a basic marketing error. You must be up front. Make it clear before they click through what the total cost will be.
2/ Just looking
You normally don’t just browse and then put items in a cart. It might be because they were wondering what the total cost would be. See 1/ above.
3/ Cheaper prices online
We’ll cover pricing in a later article but the essential is not to opt for a race to the bottom but to nail your sales other ways.
4/ Too dear
Oh dear. 1/ and 2/ repeated.
5/ Not in the mood
This is where people just gave up for no particular reason. They are the untouchables.
6/ Process problems
This covers the next five reasons given. These are criticisms of navigation, crashing websites, taking too long, too much security and then concerns about security of payment.
If your website crashes then find out why. Did you underestimate the demand for your product. Warn your host. Many will up the bandwidth limit for a couple of days without penalty. As for navigation being difficult, this is easily solved. For the process length, go through the purchasing process yourself and see if there are problems. If you have a particular demographic, then use someone similar to check.
If your processes are longer and slower than your competitors then remember you will be judged against them rather than an arbitrary period.
As for the criticisms of the security, too much/too little; sometimes you just have to accept you can’t please everyone.
See http://www.statista.com/statistics/232285/reasons-for-online-shopping-cart-abandonment/
