Minimising failed orders

[DeniseD]

We seem to get a lot of failed orders through PayPal where it says that the customer left the checkout without entering payment details. We are new to this selling business so I thought I would ask is this generally normal or does anyone have any tips that might minimise this - we are loosing a lot of potential sales.

Thanks.

denise :D

[downsouth]

lots of people simply add things to the cart to get a delivery cost, total cost

Have you thought about displaying your delivery prices in a more visable location?

How short is the checkout process? too many steps to payment might be causing customers to quit

[quikshop]

We seem to get a lot of failed orders through PayPal where it says that the customer left the checkout without entering payment details.

We've always found that by adding an alternative payment choice along side Paypal such as Protx, Worldpay or another trusted UK payment service provider, checkout conversions increase noticeably- there are plenty of Internet shoppers out there who do not trust Paypal.

The other point is Paypal's payment page. Its not immediately obvious that you can now pay without a Paypal account - and that's a deliberate design feature, they want your customers to sign up to them :rolleyes:

[deniser]

The other point is Paypal's payment page. Its not immediately obvious that you can now pay without a Paypal account - and that's a deliberate design feature, they want your customers to sign up to them :rolleyes:

This is the biggest problem we had - people used to ring up and say "I haven't got a Paypal account - what should I do?"

The other problem is that it recognises email addresses of its customers past and present so if you have ever had a Paypal account associated with that email address then it won't allow you to pay by any other means and customers get locked in a confusing spiral of not knowing their password, cards having expired and not being able to get out. So they understandably give up annoyed.

We eventually got fed up with this and signed up to a proper merchant account as well so people have the option - for those who use Paypal regularly, they do prefer this payment method because it is so quick and easy.

If you don't want to go to the expense of this yet, there are 3 things you can do:
1. Display a prominent note explaining that you don't need a Paypal account (although not everyone will read this)
2. Display a phone number for people to order over the phone instead
3. Email all the failed payers - we did this where someone had registered but not purchased - to say something along the lines of "We noticed that you had difficulties at checkout. We are writing to you in case you need assistance. You don't need a Paypal account to order from us - just click on "Don't have a PP account" and enter your card details in the usual way"."

We did find that we retrieved about 75% of orders by emailing them provided we did it quickly enough and before they found the product elsewhere. But it was a hassle.

[Christiane]

Not everyone has a Paypal account and I find less than 1/3 of my customers choose this option. I also offer credit/debit card through protx and cheques/postal orders.