Hidden Fees

It's undeniable that additional fees and high shipping costs are the biggest reason people abandon their shopping carts. The obvious solution to this issue is to lower these fees for your customers, but this will negatively impact your bottom line. These extra fees aren't just added for extra income - they offset fulfilment and other such costs. Therefore, the realistic solution would be to step back and think about how to streamline your logistics further. Look for ways to reduce shipping costs or eliminate additional charges for order fulfilment.

Additionally, customers complain that companies often conceal additional fees until they reach the checkout. Even if the additional fees are small, adding them at the point of checkout can discourage people from purchasing.

Consider:
Be transparent about the true cost of the order. In your initial price quote, you should have outlined all additional charges. Make sure that shipping information is clearly visible. You can include these details on your product pages as well as throughout your site (headers, footers, pop-up boxes, and banners).

Complicated Checkout

The complexity of the checkout process is another area that leads to cart abandonment. Baymard Institute 2022 Survey found that more than 1 in 4 visitors abandoned their cart if reaching the order confirmation page was difficult or frustrating. When asked to re-enter their credit card information, a third of customers abandon their shopping carts, and 25% give up when prompted to re-enter their shipping and contact information.

Consider:
Examine your current processes and see if they could be more logical and streamlined. The path to purchase should be clear and straight for customers - otherwise, they'll go to another e-Commerce site that is easier to use. By simply adding a progress bar, your potential customers can easily see what their path to purchase is. By doing this, they will know precisely how to complete their purchase - and there will be no surprises.

Another critical aspect of an e-Commerce is to enable "Guest Checkout", which allows customers to purchase products without having to sign up for an account. Ideally, a first-time customer should create an account before making a purchase. But how about provide them with the flexibility to purchase whichever way they want? "Guest checkouts" do not cause as much pain as losing a nearly-converted prospect that could abandon their cart. Ultimately, if your "guests" enjoy the experience on your site, they will be more inclined to give you all their personal information because they want to discover what else a membership can offer.

Final Thoughts

Beware of errors and glitches – especially during payment!

Regardless of how advanced technology gets, there will always be times when technical errors (of all kinds) interrupt the flow of a buyer's experience. Customers are unlikely to buy a product if the technical glitches interfere with their overall experience. Baymard's research found that 17% of customers would abandon a site immediately if it crashed, frozen, or became unavailable.

It doesn't matter what great stuff you're offering at your e-Commerce site; if your site isn't fully functional and bug-free, you're likely to lose customers.

You will enjoy immense growth opportunities if you partner with the right service provider. Get a better start with Zooloo. Our team is happy to assist you with your journey towards digital transformation. Please contact us at sales@zooloo.asia.

• Find some tips on B2B Sales Strategies
• Looking closer at Marketing Strategies
• Read about The Digital Transformation Journey
• Learn more about our “Digital Backbones”

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