subject: Improving Your Shopping Cart Conversion [print this page] Improving Your Shopping Cart Conversion Improving Your Shopping Cart Conversion
One of the biggest brands online today, Expedia, recently divulged that a single tweak to their online shopping cart increased their sales by 12 million. Simply by removing the field for "Company" after requesting for the name made a huge impact on their conversions. Apparently, people confuse the company field for the bank name.
With that, you'll see how easy shopping cart mistakes can cost anyone so much revenue loss. It is important to study your online shopping cart carefully and to continuously test it for conversions. Even the slightest mistake can cause friction, which leads to frustration and eventually online shopping cart abandonment.
So, the first thing you need to do is find out what your online shopping cart's conversion is. Look at the number of visitors to your website, then check the funnel to get the number of visitors clicking on your "Buy Now" button. From there, measure the ratio from the visitors to people who actually finish the purchase transaction. You should also compare the number of people who started on that conversion goal but never finished (clicked on the "Buy Now" button but later abandoned the cart). Compare this to the standard in your industry. If you see that it is noticeably less, then something must be dreadfully wrong with your easy shopping cart.
Check if your usability is good. If you were in the shoes of the buyer, do you understand what you need to do in the page you are in? Do you even know where you are? For this, good navigation is the key. You should also try bread crumbing withing your online shopping cart. If you have a five-step process to make a purchase, then show this in a graphical interface, then highlight which step they are currently in. Part of the navigation is providing links to the shopper to continue shopping. Don't lose out on more sales by forcing your buyers to stay in your shopping cart without offering you a way back into the retail interface.
Registration is another big turn-off for online shoppers. It defeats the purpose of being able to shop conveniently and to check out with an easy shopping cart. Let's put the registration issue in the real life context. Your online shopping cart is like your checkout counter. You go there to place items and to pay for them, but the person at the counter suddenly stops you to ask you to fill out a form with all your information first. Annoying isn't it? That's the same way with registration for online shopping carts While registration has some benefits that may include promoting guest loyalty, it is not enough to place it in the critical path to closing the sale and risking a loss.
