Research in from the US from the etailing group and PayPal/comScore indicates that shopping cart abandonment for internet retailers has risen over the last 12 months. The biggest factor - and this isn’t news to us - is high delivery charges. A whopping 46% of shoppers gave this as the reason for abandonment.

There are 2 aspects here that all website shops need to consider.

- Are your charges too high, could you reduce them or even eliminate them altogether? Free delivery may be a model that could work for your type of product (you might be able to claw back some of the cost you incur by increasing your product prices). You might alternatively consider ofering free shipping above a certain basket value. As delivery charges are clearly such an important factor in the online purchase decision, it is worth taking the time to pitch this correctly. You could trial different delivery prices and see how they impact on conversions. Above all else, you must be competitive with the main website shops in your sector. Using free delivery can work very well as a promotional tool which you could use to drive customer acquisition or  encourage repeat purchase via email marketing/voucher codes sent to your customer database.

Free Delivery as a Promotional Tool

- The second aspect on delivery charges is making sure that you communicate them upfront on your website shop. Delivery charges along with delivery timescales and returns policy must be very visible to the customer at the earliest possible point on their shopping journey. Consider incorporating delivery charges on your home page and on every product page. That way you will reduce shopping cart abandonment and also make a positive impact on the shopping experience offered by your website shop.

Other reasons highlighted for shopping cart abandonment in this research were:

- Customers couldn’t find their preferred payment option. This is why it makes sense to offer alternatives to debit and credit cards such as cash payment options (visit PayPoint to see their cash payment option www.PayPoint.net)

Cash Payments Option

- Items unavailable at checkout. You don’t need us to explain why this is bad, bad, bad……

- Customers couldn’t find customer support. Another one of our ‘bugbears’. Failure to prominently display your tel/email contact details is not recommended.

Display Contact Details

- Security concerns - make sure you display clear security information, SSL certification and logos.

Comodo - SSL