Posts Tagged ‘shopping cart abandonment’

Reduce Cart Abandonment with Postcode Address Finder

Monday, May 17th, 2010

With cart abandonment reduction becoming an ever more important consideration to online trading, etailers are ever more having to become more savvy to the do’s and don’ts with their ecommerce websites.

The time it takes for a customer to complete the checkout process is an important factor; getting the balance right between collecting enough information to efficiently fulfill the order and further market to the customer versus making the whole process take as least time possible is a fine line. The more time a customer spends filling in personal information or credit card details provides more time for them to change their mind and abandon the sale.

Tiger Commerce’s new Postcode Address Finder (PAF) tool is a great new addition for merchants looking to help reduce cart abandonment. The tool means customers only need to enter their postcode and then click on the ‘Find Address’ button, pick their address from the list and their address information is then populated into the other fields automatically.

Tiger Commerce's Postcode Address Finder

Tiger Commerce's Postcode Address Finder

The PAF tool benefits include:

- Reduce e-commerce cart abandonment - PAF reduces the check out time by over 30%

- Save time and money - Saves over one minute of typing time during the checkout process

- Increase data accuracy - The address going into your customer database will be correct

- Avoid the cost of missed deliveries - Helps ensure online orders are delivered first time, every time

- Improves customer service - Improves trust in your website by creating a more professional feel whilst also giving your customers a more personalised experience

IMRG Logo

"Inaccurate addressing cost the e-Retail industry £146 million in 2009."

“A recent survey conducted by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) in partnership with Postcode Anywhere revealed inaccurate addressing, through missing postcodes, cost the e-Retail industry £146 million in 2009″.

For further information on enabling this tool within your Tiger Commerce ecommerce site, please call 0844 770 6877.

Christmas insights for ecommerce websites

Monday, December 7th, 2009

In the final run up to Christmas, we thought it was worth rounding up some relevant insights for ecommerce website owners:

- According to GSI Commerce a quarter of people are now willing to spend more than £1000 on a product online this year compared with just 12% in 2008. This underlines the rise in consumer confidence in online shopping.

- GSI also report that consumers are not yet ready to purchase products via social networks such as Facebook (only 9% said they would be likely to do so). But don’t give up on social networks…….if we go back to our first point above, who would have said 10 years ago that 25% of consumers would be willing to spend more than £1000 online on any one purchase?

- GSI say that email promotions are most likely to provoke shoppers to make an impulse purchase and that Free Shipping (we’ve talked about this on this blog many times before) is the most important factor in their purchase decision.

Free Shipping As A Promotional Tool

Free Shipping As A Promotional Tool

- In a separate survey from BDO Seidman in the US, 55% of ecommerce website owners said that email promotions would be at the top of their list for Xmas marketing and Free shipping was the second most important marketing activity (just above search engine optimisation).

- McAfee, the web security specialists, in an analysis of shopping cart abandonment (100m ecommerce visits were analysed) have found that on average there is a delay of nearly 34 hours between a consumer’s first visit to an ecommerce website and the time that they actually make a purchase. So have faith…..all those abandoned shopping carts may just turn into sales!

Delivery costs are main reason for shopping cart abandonment

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

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

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

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

Display Contact Details

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

Comodo - SSL

Comodo - SSL