You’d be surprised how the simplest little things can deter people from completing an online purchase. Watch to see what the most common reasons are and how you can respond.
Are you trying to figure out why people aren’t checking out on your online store? Let’s talk about that.
f you have an e-commerce store, you may have noticed that there’s a big discrepancy between the number of people that add items to their cart, versus the number of people that actually checkout.
And by checkout, I mean go through your process, provide their shipping information, payment information and confirm their order.
Depending on your website, there could be any number of reasons, but I want to touch on a couple of the more common reasons that there are.
Shipping
The first reason is shipping. After they hit checkout, that’s usually when people will see shipping costs, and for some, that can be a number that just scares them away or makes them want to come back later and rethink it. One thing you can do to mitigate against that is to offer free shipping. Look into ways of incorporating your shipping costs into the actual product cost so that you’re not surprising people at the end.
The big players out there, a lot of them are using free shipping, so I encourage you to look at that. Amazon offers free shipping options, and these tactics by big retailers are reshaping how the consumer thinks about shipping.
Forcing users to create an account
Some websites, when you get to the checkout part, they force users to create an account, create a password, confirm their account by checking their email, and unless you have a valid reason why you need people to create an account, don’t make them do it. Let them checkout anonymously, or offer them the option to create an account.
Lengthy Checkout Process
How many steps are you making people take before they actually get to complete their purchase? Try and make it as simple and minimal as possible. If you have multiple forms, condense them into one screen, remove any fields that you don’t feel aren’t absolutely necessary, and keep it super simple so that you don’t deter people from completing their order.
Website Errors
If you’re getting to the checkout screen, and something doesn’t look right, there’s an error message, the prices don’t match up, the taxes are wrong, shipping rates are wrong, any of those reasons could lead people to just say “I’m just going to go to another online store and make my purchase there”.
Payment Methods
Are you accepting all the major payment methods that your target market expects to use? Poll your existing customers to see what payment method they would like to see on your website. Some sites out there force users to use PayPal, and a lot of folks out there don’t have it. Even if PayPal let’s you use that major credit card, it might not be obvious to your users who want to use a credit card, but without PayPal.
I know these aren’t all of the possible reasons, but these are the more common ones, and they’re generally really easy to fix. I hope you found these tips valuable. Audit your checkout experience, make sure you’re doing the best that you can do, and good luck!
