At the recent Retail Business Technology Expo alongside all the usual ‘buzz’ words of the moment such as working in ‘the Cloud’, retail Apps and ‘m-commerce’ was the age-old problem of sales conversion, in particular, how to reduce the number of online shopping baskets that never quite reach the point of checkout.
According to research conducted by customer experience marketing specialists, Epsilon, sales that are lost through incomplete purchases or ‘abandoned shopping carts’ present a huge missed opportunity for online retailers. Some of the main reasons cited for abandoned online purchases are the complexity of checkout processes and the high cost of shipping and handling costs. However, another factor may be consumers’ changing shopping habits. Two-thirds of consumers polled in a survey conducted by Forrester Research last May, said that they preferred to shop around before committing to a purchase.
This is indeed a troubling issue for many retailers as more and more customers turn to the web as their primary shopping destination, but what seems to be happening with is that customers are using their shopping baskets as more of a ‘favourites’ place than a firm decision to pay. The challenge for retailers therefore, is to find ways of enticing customers to take the plunge and actually make a purchase.
As for an answer, Maria Keech from NitroSell, the embedded c-commerce application within Cervello, offers her top tips to maximise online purchases.
1 Page Checkouts minimise time and effort, no lengthy forms and pages of registration to go through, which might be off putting to customers.
Guest Checkouts – so you don’t need to register, if you just want to make a one off purchase, then its quick and easy.
Smart data capture – If a registered customer has started an order and aborted/ abandoned it then having a solution which captures this data means that the retailer can contact the customer and find out why they didn’t complete their order. This helps provide valuable market research to retailers enabling them to understand why their customers are leaving without completing their transactions, such as, charging too much delivery, making the process too tricky. Retailers can then re-think their proposition.
So at your next sales review, why not look at your level of unfulfilled purchases online and see if there is room for improvement. It could make a huge difference to your bottom line.
