How popular is online shopping?
And is there room for
improvement? Let’s check out some
pros and cons of automated shopping and see.
Digital carts offer convenience
for people around the globe
24 hours a day. Yet an estimated
4 percent of shoppers make purchases, up from 3.5 percent in 2003,
reported by DoubleClick, an online marketing company.
And approximately 30 percent of
shopping carts are abandoned, according to recent surveys by
BizRate.com, a shopping search engine.
The main reasons for shopping
cart abandonment are*:
· High shipping prices (72%)
· Comparison shopping or browsing
(61%)
· Changed mind (56%)
· Saving items for later purchase
(51%)
· Total cost of items is too high
(43%)
· Checkout process is too long
(41%)
· Checkout requires too much
personal information (35%)
· Site requires registration
before purchase (34%)
· Site is unstable or unreliable
(31%)
· Checkout process is confusing
(27%)
To decrease shopping cart
abandonment and increase sales, simple minor improvements in
automation can be highly effective. Here are some tips that work
best for clients and workers alike of OhioHelp.net, an Ohio-based
company that specializes in helping businesses worldwide with their
marketing, public relations and freelance writing services.
TOP TIPS FROM OHIOHELP.NET
1. Calculate all handling charges
and fees in with your price
whenever possible, so that you
can offer no-cost shipping.
And check for specials like Flat
Rate packages with Priority
Shipping.
2. Don’t have people
pre-register, fill out lengthy forms, wait
for email confirmation, find
their password / user ID and
figure out how to log in again
and continue to fill out more
detailed forms and click through
a half-dozen pages. Ugh!
People want to shop, buy and go.
Period.
3. On EVERY page of your site,
shopping cart, receipt and Thank
You or other automated reply,
list complete contact
information. Include a specific
person to follow up with,
business phone number and postal
address (no P.O. Box) and
a direct email address like diana@ohiohelp.net
(i.e. not
info@ohiohelp.net). Then if the
Internet connection fails,
the site goes down or any number
of other technical issues
occurs, the shopper immediately
has concrete information for
follow up.
4. Set your product order numbers
at one (1). In other words,
when someone clicks a purchase
button, have the cart say one
(1) item purchased when they
preview their cart instead of
zero, making them select “1”
again.
5. Include a no-cost gift in the
shopping cart, with the receipt
or in the Thank You email,
especially with large purchases.
Let your customers know you
appreciate their business. And
ask for referrals!
6. Test special product and
package prices with offers on a
“Thank You” page or with a “Thank
You” email.
7. Accept multiple payment
options when possible; credit cards,
faxed and telephone orders, print
checks, money orders,
echecks and 3rd party solutions
like Paypal. Note: many
businesses use American Express.
8. Choose a progressive shopping
cart software solution like
ProfitAuto at
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