Dropped Carts

[Bazza18182]

A question on dropped carts...

A few dropped carts are understandable but we receive a very high number every day. To give you an idea about 30% of our traffic views the cart page while our conversion rate is only 4%. Our shipping is good value or free and we accept all cards (inc. PayPal).

What other reasons am I missing that people may visit the cart and not convert? Or is that just the way people shop?

Any thoughts/ insights or suggestions would be appreciated (we use Magento).

Thanks

Harry

 

[Esk247]

4% isn't generally too bad for conversions, depending on traffic of course.

Are people getting stuck at the cart bit, where they have to pay? Is something confusing them?

Found our cart doesn't work too well for some people, looks fine to us, but a lot of people get confused about payment methods so they just click off the screen and don't go any further.

Might require some more user testing from friends and family on that part of your website, just to check that it reads well for other users.

 

[wayzgoose]

I would say your cart page looks far too busy and intimidating. I know there's always been a push for single page checkouts but I prefer the old standard 3 or 4 page - each stage simple and expected. I found yours very confusing unless I took time to study it. Not what you want.

Edit: Also found some of your text a bit small and a typeface I'd rather see on paper, not a web page.

 

[fairdealworld]

I'm in agreement with wayzgoose. My apologies that I'll have added to your drop rate by putting something at random into my 'bag' just to see how the check out page looked.

The checkout page looks very sophisticated but is very 'busy'. Could I use it if I really wanted something - yes I could - but I'm really good at scanning and extracting information from an array of written stuff. Most people aren't and that includes even many highly educated people.

I was muttering this morning when buying from one of my suppliers (my biggest supplier by a long way in fact) and going through their page by page check out procedure. It irritates me as I know the procedure off by heart as I order from them at least weekly, most customers just don't and need more guidance and simplification to get them through the check out procedure.

The other thing to look out for is if just one error on your site is leading to customers believing they can't check out. I experienced this with another supplier recently, the supplier uses Paypal for their check out. As I added things to my basket Paypal started to display a message at the top of the cart to the effect that there was a problem with supplier's website which prevented check out. Because I know the supplier well I'd contacted her about the issue before starting on the much more time consuming process of emailing her an order and she was about to try to contact Paypal. Then I thought it all through and went back to the website and fiddled around a bit with putting things in the cart and was able to go back to my supplier and say actually you could order anything except one specific item and it was that which seemed to be triggering the warning which would lead most people to believe they couldn't order from the site at all.

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Bazza.

Firstly, by far the best thing you can do is do some testing. No two websites have the same target audience, so whilst best practices are good as a start, you should try testing different layouts and gradually improve your conversion rates that way.

That said, check out this post:
http://www.thewholesaleforums.co.uk/blog/conversion-rates/

In particular, points 5,8,10 and 11 might be helpful to you.
(full disclosure, this is a guest post I wrote)

It may also be helpful to try out crazyegg, it's a sort of eye-tracking (well, cursor tracking really) application for websites.

You can use it on your cart page to see where a user's attention is going. That should help you get some ideas for improvements to your cart.

Finally; if you have any friends, get them to try buying something, don't instruct them, just watch them...

Basically, people don't like parting with their money, so even little things can have a surprising effect on conversion rates. You never know until you try!

 

[Bazza18182]

Thanks for the replies everyone! Some great things to look at. Agreed! The checkout needs simplifying. I will get on it and revisit this thread to see what you think! I see Crazyegg has a free trial- going to give it a go now- great tip!

 

[seoswat]

i wouldnt rush into making any drastic changes,

firstly fully understand your metrics you and seeing.

i.e if someone adds a product to the cart - does something drop down on that page and display the cart (does that count as a view in your stats system), or does it redirect you straight to the cart if someone adds a product, then they might very likely want to continue shopping - which again judging by the stats and metrics you are viewing, would be not be considered a conversion.

Also look at where your traffic is coming from, depending on the type of product you sell (dependant on demand) you might very well have people reguarly checking pricing structures (this can be done via automation)

I just wouldnt jump straight into making changes without fully understanding the full process of what happens on your website.