The Perfect Shopping Cart

The shopping cart is more than a tool for customers to check out. It is critical in your effectiveness to getting customers to make purchases. Much effort is made to encourage shoppers to fill their carts, but too often the carts are abandoned. Research shows 88% of online shoppers have put items in their basket and left without completing the purchase. The lost revenue can be staggering. Imagine if you have revenues of $10,000 and an abandoned cart rate of 50%. If you could reduce that rate a mere 5% the result would be an extra $1,000 in sales. All it takes to reduce abandoned cart rates is an awareness of what pushes customers away from your site and a willingness to implement proven elements for keeping them on the path to purchase.

Of course there will always be abandoned carts due to many factors you can't control. Known traits of shopping behavior show 67% of online shoppers that have abandoned a cart check out multiple channels for pricing before purchasing and more than one third use the web for price research before making an in-store purchase.

Two reasons shopping cart abandonment—factors effecting consumer purchase motivation and the challenges posed by web site design. Following are the major reasons for abandonment*:

• 57% - didn't want to pay shipping charges
• 48% - total cost of purchase was more than they thought it would be
• 41% - used shopping cart for research
• 19% - didn't wan to wait for the product
• 18% - purchased product (products) offline
• 15% - checkout process was too complicated
• 12% - other

The perfect shopping cart is not a single list of elements that would work for all carts or industries. However, what the perfect shopping carts have in common are:

1. Elements that increase customer confidence
2. Provide the right information at the right time
3. Make the shopping experience easier

Here are some examples we use to reduce shopping cart abandonment.

1. Make the shopping cart present and accessible throughout the entire shopping experience
2. Allow customers to save their cart to return later
3. Show the tax rate as early as possible
4. Provide links on every page for information about shipping, returns and customer service

When designing an e-commerce site we use these principles to guide us:

1. The shopping cart must be present and accessible throughout the entire shopping experience
2. The shopping cart must build trust with the customer
3. The shopping cart must be easy to use and reduce known purchase barriers
4. The shopping cart should be used to increase the order size by informing, merchandising, and making clear that your products are unique and different while value priced.

How we accomplish these principles would fill a book. Suffice it to say, each Web site design is unique to each customer, their products and their market. We pride ourselves in achieving the best possible solution each and every time. Let us help you build an on-line e-commerce presence with a perfect shopping cart designed for you.

 

* Forrester, October 2005