How To Improve Ecommerce Shopping Cart Conversions

For any eCommerce business shopping cart, the conversion rate is very important. The shopping cart page is the one that brings actual revenue to the business. Even a 1% increase in conversion rate will add lots of dollars to the company’s revenue.

Shopping cart conversion rate is also important for reducing shopping cart abandonment. The average abandonment rate for e-commerce shopping carts is around 68%. This indicates that 7 people abandon the shopping cart out of 10 people who start the purchase process.

So, reducing the shopping cart abandonment rate will definitely impact your eCommerce revenue. Also, a smooth, easy checkout process will push the customers to avoid shopping cart abandonment.

Let’s look at few actionable tips that you can use to improve the shopping cart conversion rate of your checkout pages.

Why customers abandon eCommerce shopping carts?

1. The main reason customers abandon your shopping cart is due to usability issues or the price.
2. Another top reason for people abandoning shopping carts is the complicated processes during checkouts or problems during account creation.
3. Another biggest reason is the readability issue of your website.
4. Payment gateway problems are another reason for shopping cart abandonment.
5. Non-availability of multiple currencies for making payment. For example, some shopping carts only accept payments in U.S. Dollars but people prefer their local currencies for making payments online.

You can always improve conversion rates when you do this:

• Try Single-Page Checkout – There are debates about a single page or multipage checkout, which performs better but, there is no sure answer for this. In some websites, single-page checkout performs better and in cases, multi-page checkout performs better.

Single-page checkouts have the following benefits:

• They are shorter and encourage customers to complete the purchasing process.
• In single page checkout, all the required fields are available on a single page, this avoids all unnecessary complications.
• Only a few clicks are required to complete the transaction. Researches reveal that the lesser number of clicks have a higher number conversion rate.
• Single-page checkouts do well with the lower order value.
• The less time the customer spends on the checkout page, the more the transaction gets completed.

Here are few things you must keep in mind when you design the checkout page:

• Limit the number of fields you ask the user to type in.
• Use smart forms for the city, state, zip code, etc.
• Use google autofill in forms.
• Auto-detect the type of credit card using the first 4 digits.
• Skip the compulsory Sign-up process.

Today many customers do not like to share their personal information online. So, don’t ask too many questions on your checkout page.

People may love your products but they may not love to share their personal info. So, limit the questions about user’s personal info.

Enough to buy them, but few of them actually want to create an account and start a relationship with you.

A usability study revealed that 30% of users exit their shopping carts as soon as when they are asked to sign-up at the time of checkout.

It’s better to ask users to opt for sign-up after purchase, for example on the thank you page. At this stage, you might have collected vital info from the user on the checkout page. You may fill this information automatically on the signup form and ask only a few questions to complete the signup process.

Also, on your shopping cart, you must assure your users of the security of their credit card information.

If you assure them that their payment information is completely secure, this will push them to complete the transaction.

Similarly, an easy return policy also pushes the customers to complete the transaction.

Another important thing that improves shopping cart conversions is free shipping. A study reveals that Free Shipping worth $6.99 appeals more customers than a $10 discount offer. The study could not find the exact reason for this but this remains an amazing fact.

Here are a few tactics you can use to improve your forms:

1. Google Autofill

Take the advantage of autofill feature from Google. Today many users use Chrome or Android and they will have Google’s autofill feature enabled. You take this advantage by supporting the autofill feature on your shopping cart forms.

2. Mobile-First Design

With ever-growing smartphone users, you must design your shopping carts mobile-friendly. Focusing on a Mobile interface-supported shopping cart, the conversion rate will improve rapidly.

Some tips to use on your mobile-friendly forms:

• Use large buttons which are tappable easily. In the mobile world, it is very much important for you to concentrate on the feasible tapping of the buttons on your shopping cart.
• Align the form fields vertically. This makes navigation easier.
• Make easier date selection. Date selection is very tedious in some shopping carts which makes people get bored off quickly. So, make it simple.
• Use a smaller number of images. This makes forms load faster on a mobile platform. Actually, there is no need for images on the checkout pages. Even if you want to show the image of the product that is being purchased, make it very small for the sake of identification.
• Ask for credit card info at the end. If you ask early, the customers will have some doubt in their mind and this may lead to shopping cart abandonment. When you ask for payment information at the beginning of your checkout form, it creates an unnecessary doubt in the mind of people who are worried about their credit card safety online.

Let’s summarize the key factors that improve shopping cart conversion rate:

1. Single-page checkouts Forms. Many online customers love single-page checkout forms. It makes mobile users complete the transaction in a simple process.
2. Shorter checkout forms give a better conversion rate. In today’s digital world, people want everything fast, so keeping your checkout forms shorts increases the shopping cart conversion rate.
3. Skip mandatory sign-up. This avoids shopping cart abandonment from lazy customers who are reluctant to enter their personal information online.
4. Provide free shipping. This encourages customers to complete the transaction.
5. Assured security features that ensure the safety of your customer’s credit card info.

If you implement the above-listed features on your eCommerce shopping cart, check out pages, it will surely improve your shopping cart conversion rate and avoid shopping cart abandonment.