Imagine going to Target, filling your cart with products, then ditching it by the door and walking out empty-handed. That’s what ecommerce shoppers do more often than not. Unfortunately for Internet merchants, most are Looky Lous who never actually buy what they put in their carts.
This year alone, online shopping cart ditchers will bail on some $4 trillion dollars worth of potential purchases. The proof is in the virtual wasteland of deserted online shopping carts. A staggering estimated 69 percent of them get abandoned, according to the Baymard Institute, kicking e-tailers where it hurts.
Why do so many online shoppers leave without paying? Research points to everyday frustrations that most of us can relate to -- unexpected shipping costs, payment security concerns and, yuck, the hassle of having to create yet another new user account. And the list goes on.
Related: The Candy Trigger By The Checkout Line (And Why We Fail With New Habits)
To fight back, to nudge shoppers to purchase what they put in their carts, eliminate the aggravations that send send them packing in the first place. Your best bet is to perfect your checkout page. How? Make it as quick and easy as possible for existing customers to login and pay, and for new ones to checkout as guests. Offer multiple shipping options and be upfront about the costs. Reassure shoppers and demonstrate how safe your payment processing is.
For more quick tips on how to craft, test and refine an effective checkout page, take a look at the infographic below by VWO, a Delhi, India-based provider of A/B testing software for online marketers.
Related: This Shopping Cart of the Future Creepily Follows You Around Stores
Kim Lachance Shandrow
Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributo...
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