Avoid Abandoned Shopping Carts & Get Sales

Sales are starting to roll in from your ecommerce store but what about those customers who abandoned their shopping cart.

A recent survey by BizRate.com shows that consumers abandon 30% of all online shopping carts without making a purchase. Business-to-business is not much better as shoppers abandon 26% of shopping carts. So is there an opportunity to catch some of these customers before they leave without purchasing? By looking at this important aspect and trying to understand it one can make efforts to boost online sales.
Abandoned shopping carts happen for all sorts of reasons; from "surprise" costs which only appear at the checkout, through to complicated checkout procedures. It's a great shame to go to the expense of bringing a customer in, only to lose them at the last hurdle. Here are some suggestions for keeping your shoppers right through to the end:

Excessive shipping costs - There's no doubt that shipping costs need to cover packing materials and transportation, but squeezing extra pounds out of the "handling" charges is annoying to customers and costs sales. In fact, high shipping costs is the number 1 reason why consumers abandoned carts.

Since shipping or postage is unavoidable, how do you soften the blow? It's helpful to offer multiple shipping options to meet any need for speed. Standard postage might be more agreeable to a customer than express delivery, and therefore rescue the sale. Your customer will be grateful just for the choice. Equally, if you plan to sell low-ticket items (say £5), you might need to consider whether online is right for you at all; after all, you can't compete with the high street if shipping constitutes 50% of your charges.

Information Will Close the Sale - BizRate.com says the second major reason online shoppers dumped their carts was that they changed their minds. This could be interpreted as though the site didn't work hard enough to close the sale. On each of your product pages, give information that makes the consumer feel so good about their purchase that going through the checkout process seems well worth it:
Make sure your ecommerce provider has some talent for adding zing to your product descriptions. Why not test them by giving them a brief product description to play with or look at some of their work to see how they write for other website's.
Make sure the product descriptions answer common questions.

Include customer comments or reviews about products; providing third-party validation. Otherwise consider linking to third-party product reviews.
Use high-quality photos - this can really help consumers feel comfortable about making an online purchase.
Provide and link to associated documents or brochures that the product manufacturer provides. Or, where possible, link to the manufacturers website.
Ask for the Credit Card Number Last Giving a credit card number over the web is still a bit daunting to many consumers. Wait to ask for credit card numbers until the very end, and make sure customers can see the total amount they'll be charged (including all charges for shipping, gift wrap and tax) when they are asked to enter their card number. Ensure that on the payment page, your phone number is clearly visible. Most users will not buy from a company with no contact details, and you will appear all the more helpful if someone is on hand during working hours to talk customers through the payment process.

Deliver on Time - Following through with on-time delivery is crucial to building long-term customers. But according to BizRate.com, nearly 25% of online sales last holiday season did not arrive when expected. Since plenty of online purchases are for time-sensitive dates (birthdays, Christmas etc), that is of course wholly unacceptable. One solution is to set delivery expectations to allow for a day of error, so customers will have their expectations met.

Following these general tips will up your chances for better sales and more chances of a repeat visits. And remember that you have spent money to get those customers in your store and abandoned shopping carts are a shocking waste of that time and money. Every effort to prevent customers from doing this is a step in the right direction.