Decrease Cart Abandonment by Avoiding these 3 Checkout Conversion Mistakes

In a blog by Annex Cloud, it is mentioned that the percentage of abandoned carts ranges anywhere from 50% to 80%. And the majority of consumers won’t come back to complete the online transaction unless you provide an incentive for them to complete the purchase.

That is the common dilemma for e-commerce companies – how to win back prospects. Moreover, the emphasis should be on figuring out why customers are leaving in the first place.

Fortunately, there are simple solutions you can implement for the three common checkout conversion mistakes to decrease cart abandonment and increase conversion rates:

Mistake 1:  Inconspicuous Shopping Cart Button

It’s one of the biggest mistakes when the shopping cart button appears inconspicuous among the images and text on the product page. What happens is that the shopper picks an item and adds it into their shopping cart, only to forget about it in the next 15 minutes because of an inconspicuous shopping cart button.

Solution 1: Use a dynamic shopping cart design that shows a pop-up each time an item is added. It should be prominently displayed to alert customers that they have put something in their cart. You can also create a small animation or pop-up that shows the cart’s contents and a ‘Checkout’ or ‘Continue Shopping’ CTA.

Solution 2: With basic CSS and jQuery skills, you can make the changes to your shopping cart more obvious. As the customer puts content into the cart, the button gets assigned a new CSS class to modify its appearance.

Solution 3: If you are using Shopify, you can check the theme store. Select from the wide arrange of available themes that emphasize the cart button.

Mistake 2:  Slow-Loading Shopping Cart

A mere one-second delay can create huge losses for your e-commerce business.  In the online word, slow loading pages are a fatal mistake.

You cannot expect your customers to refresh their shopping cart or have to wait to see updates in their items count, fees, or coupon codes. What’s most likely to happen is your customers abandoning your website altogether and switching to your competitors.

Solution 1: You can instruct your developer to create a dynamic cart for you using the following: Ruby on Rails, jQuery, jQuery UI, and integrate it with your online shop.

Solution 2: Use third-party libraries that support Shopify. Let your website render the cart in real time e.g. Cart.js.

Mistake 3:  Shipping Fees

Shipping fees are a major cause of cart abandonment. So instead of enticing shoppers with discounts, you might try offering free shipping. In a report by Big Commerce, 72% of females and 59% of males have decided to abandon their cart due to of shipping costs.

Shipping fees can turn off people, especially if they are large or more than the cost of the product itself. Also, people want to be compensated for making a big purchase, either with price discounts or free shipping.

Below are non-coding solutions you can implement to decrease cart abandonment:

Solution 1:  Make shipping free for certain locations.

Solution 2:  Offer discounts on shipping fees when orders reach a certain sum or amount.

Solution 3:  Offer free shipping the next time the customer makes an order. This is effective for creating loyal customers.

It’s important to be transparent about your charges. Specify free shipping terms and conditions directly on the product page above the CTA button.