Forum Moderators: buckworks
I lose the other 20% on shipping calculation, so thats not entirely bad (Was much worse before estimates were obvious on the product detail pages)
So basically my success rate is only 16.2% on my funnel tracking - so my cart abandonment is roughly 83.8%. Thats crazy.
If 58% of my cart abandonment is merely people not wanting to login i find that absurd.
How does it hold on your sites? We used to allow anonymous purchase on our old platform but it made for a terrible support nightmare from order management & customer support side. We weren't really getting great funnel analytics on that system either since the process wasn't standardized through a single purchase workflow like it is now.
My business is doing well, but i'm surprised how much abandonment there is during login.
Over the last 10 business days our funnel has had a conversion rate of 78.12% and the failure rate seems associated with fraud abandonment of 4.2% (processor rejecting the Ip address) so over all the past 10 days our true success rate ignoring fraud is closer to 82%
I can't stress it enough:
1. You can see our "Total prices" without checking out.
2. You can estimate shipping without checking out
3. You can see ship time or closest warehouse without checking out.
4. Our toll free number is prominent - on every page
5. Our Checkout is SSL through a tier 1 ssl provider
i honestly don't think passwords will make or break a deal as much as some people swear by.
I will say this though the reason I enabled the log in was from customer request as we do tend to have quite a few return orders I assume from our customer service so we will see as in the sector I am in there are a kazallion other sites.
Checkout processes can always be improved ....nevermind the login vs no login debate. I think that ByronM presents a good argument here with the cost of fraud and customer service that an account can help thwart with the question being: "Would the additional conversion rate outweigh the additional costs?".
I posted a while back asking for anyone who had access to studies for ecommerce sites that had made the switch to anon optional purchasing and what the impact was.
One of my clients actually would collect all of the same information (minus a password) to enable "guest" purchasing, but still refused to do it, without actual studies behind it. The only thing I could point to was the overwhelming opinion of my unscientific polling of everyone I knew that preferred guest purchasing and would abandon a cart to just go to another site that offered the same product with an easy checkout system.
My argument is that if you're providing the same thing that another site is, it is all too easy to abandon a shopping cart with barriers to go to another site that doesn't have them. That's the power of internet commerce I guess.
I wish I had access to some studies on this so if anyone has any, this thread has a much larger audience than my original thread so I'll post the request again. Any takers?
zuko
ByronM
Wow some changes. Good points below as well, only one I don't have is number 5 but I have bought it and waiting on my accountant to get the information to them for validation.
1. You can see our "Total prices" without checking out.
2. You can estimate shipping without checking out
3. You can see ship time or closest warehouse without checking out.
4. Our toll free number is prominent - on every page
5. Our Checkout is SSL through a tier 1 ssl provider
i honestly don't think passwords will make or break a deal as much as some people swear by.
Perhaps not. I can only tell you what I think and that is that I try to avoid registration and the creation of passwords wherever possible. In that respect I don't think that I am that much different from most people.
But then wasn't it your own statistics that told you otherwise?
Checkout processes can always be improved ....nevermind the login vs no login debate. I think that ByronM presents a good argument here with the cost of fraud and customer service that an account can help thwart with the question being: "Would the additional conversion rate outweigh the additional costs?".
Thats exactly how i feel after getting further into this issue. Whats the ROI on a customer who is anonymous vs one who authenticates when the actual checkout process is the same and seamless either way - especially in comparison to your competitors. - Which one comes back, which one enjoyes the experience, which one recommends you to his or her friends?
Do you recommend to your friends a site you used once and forgot forever after or do you recommend the site you trust, login to frequently for your purchases and feel you have a better relationship with and be honest here - how many of these sites that you use frequently do you always shop anonymous with?
Making money is fairly easy. Its keeping it thats hard. When you sell a product with a year long association with it - having a login is the best way to keep that association and have some consistency.
Funnel abandonment is difficult to track because some people just do it no matter what (habit from poor ecommerce design) or it could be a bot doing it or many other things. Its also hard to track because most analytic programs don't associate the funnel back to the purchase that may eventually happen at a later date. (nearly impossible to do)
The reality is my checkout process is no different form/function wise over that of an anonymous cart with the exception of a password being involved. In fact its less individual order based and entirely customer centric and to me thats what it should be about.
Lose sleep over customers who aren't worth it in the long haul or have a system in place that makes your customers feel part of your inner circle and gives them everything they need when they need it?
I'm a believer in defining your own market and building success there. IF you let the customers define it for you then your playing catchup to someone elses success.
Site XZY may do 25 million a year in sales on an anonymous cart but have an average rating of 2.5 out of 5 and a consistent debt ratio that is astronomical.
Site abc may do 15 million a year and require logins but has an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 and a debt to income ratio XZY would dream of.
Which company is chasing someone elses customers and bottom feeding at a terrible cost to itself and which company is defining his market and actually making a living? (won't always hold true but it would be interesting to scale this out to the very end of the transaction in which its entirely based on the longetivity and success of the company and not just the point in time sale)
[edited by: ByronM at 4:41 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2008]
But then wasn't it your own statistics that told you otherwise?
Statistics aren't everything.
We dropped NexTag and our conversions shot way up. Nextag was sending garbage traffic and we got garbage results that impacted our bottom line from an ROI perspective and it showed heavy on the funnel. Since ending that relationship our funnel conversion has skyrocketed.
Some people will always checkout out of habit to get them everything they can know in advance and some people checkout to get a price only to come back 10-15 days later. Our purchase pattern is leaning heavily towards a 3 day conversion so it would be nice if we could go back and correlate the failed funnels to a purchase at a later date and then remove them from the factor and get a better average of true abandonment/never come back/chose someone else type customers.
it would be nice if we could go back and correlate the failed funnels to a purchase at a later date
That's what cookies are for!
Right, but from a simple reporting process it doesn't correlate back.
I know from looking at the customers LOGIN that i can see they took xyz to purchase and the path they took to purchase it. Our commerce system will associate that whenever available.
Still doesn't make up for the people that buy on a pc, shop on there laptop and lookup the order at work or whatever other funnel destroying method there is ;)
Statistics aren't everything.
Wasn't this whole debate based around the statistics you provided? :(
Wasn't this whole debate based around the statistics you provided? :(
You can derive a lot form statistics/analytics but you can also derive a lot from public opinion.
Having a few negative responses doesn't mean thats the overriding factor. Obviously some of the people who would hang out in this forum are passionate about how they expect things to work but i went off line and did the mom, dad and neighbor test.
Not a single one of them questioned the login and thought the process was painless, easy and efficient and they felt the experience was great.
I've got a few more random customers i've asked to take a short survey and i'll see what they say.
until i can prove people have login-a-phobia and simply aren't going through the cart checkout because thats what they always do i'll leave em at that - numbers i have and can learn from.
Did you expect me to cave in and go login-less for my cart? :)
I'm stubborn but mostly from experience. I couldn't manage the anonymous checkouts from our previous cart system because it was a pain tracking multiple orders from multiple warehouses and looking up multiple events for what was a single customer.
We just launched on our new platform last month so 6 months from now ill probably bring this issuee up again with some better statistics and more experience from my stubborn point of view.
[edited by: ByronM at 7:29 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2008]
Incidentally, it's not just shopping that causes a problem for me. Five minutes ago I got an email about a conference focussed on my subject. I went to the relevant website and saw a link to "Pre-announcement as PDF". I clicked the link and was presented with a registration screen that wanted all my details.
Their link told me I was going to be able to see a PDF. It diod not tell me that I had to provide all my personal information to get it. Deception springs to mind.
Get your free user name and password.
Your personal access code will be forwarded to your e-mail address within minutes.
Excuse me? Aren't you trying to sell me a place at your conference? Why should I have to register to let you tell me about it?
I immediately clicked the back button for all the reasons that have been discussed above.
Just plain crazy!
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 8:14 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2008]
On the flipside 2 customers replied to my short survey and they said they never thought twice about logging in and they were happy about shopping experience. They consider logging in as part of being "secure" much like they would login to other services that handle financial transactions.
Whats wrong with a system where is stores you details, but takes email address (no password) and requires the user to enter the correct credit card details again to proceed with the sale.
Also be upfront about what is required to buy products on your site. I hate things like paypal where they hide the important details of the signup process on the final page of the process.
I'm personally sick to death of sites where you need to create an account and password just to do anything. Because you later on have to remember if you've been to this site before, and which password/email/username you used.
You remembered your username/password to this site right?
Whats wrong with a system where is stores you details, but takes email address (no password) and requires the user to enter the correct credit card details again to proceed with the sale.
Its not the credit card details i have problems with. Anonymous orders tend to have major problems spelling out their address details, forgetting apartment numbers, missing a digit on their address and whatnot.
Creating an account seems to make people more aware that were not looking to just get an order and run but provide a long term business relationship.
Who will you turn to for warranty repair, returns, additional orders, replacements, newer versions and newer models.
Are you going to return to the site you used once and forgot because it didn't make much of an impression or are you going to turn to the site that provided great service, has an easy facility to re-order and track those orders both online/offline and over the phone?
Whats wrong with getting a password to go with that email so a customer can lookup details according to the email address?
For obvious reasons you can't simply validate a customer by their email address. You have to have something that associates them with the person that ordered. We use a password. I guess you could use whatever other personal information you wish. Some will ask for the last four digits of your credit card to validate an order and give details. Would you rather do that than use a password you're probably already familiar with?
[edited by: ByronM at 12:57 pm (utc) on Mar. 18, 2008]
You remembered your username/password to this site right?
This is not a valid comment. We join forums and similar sites voluntarily and before doing so we know that we will have to log in. That's quite acceptable.
I don't understand, ByronM. Was it not you who initiated this thread, wondering whether people hate logging in and telling us that you were losing huge amounts of sales because you require a login? And now you post that the problem is us, and that we personally don't want to log in, we must be some real oddballs, because your mom and neighbor don't care about logging in? Why did you even ask, then? Why didn't you just go ask your mother in the first place? Moms can usually be trusted to tell their kids exactly what they want to hear.
Oh, so a random test of people on a forum is better than a friends/family test? I didn't even tell them what i was testing for and not a single person i've talked to YET has said my logins are causing a problem.
My sales aren't low, were not failing, were moving inventory and getting a good roi on our marketing efforts.
So i asked if people have login-a-phobia and got an amazing amount of response of people that DO yet people i've PM'd here my URL have gone in and tested it and said it looks great, i wouldn't worry about it.
So yes, i started a debate and learned something from it. Are you telling me i can only start a thread like this if i give up and tell everyone else that they're right and i'm wrong?
I took this discussion to other forums and even our local chamber of commerce meetup and got the same response - NOT a single person said "logging in" would have broken the deal and they didn't feel like it was a "Task" or a "chore" to do when i asked them about the shopping experience on my site.
This is not a valid comment. We join forums and similar sites voluntarily and before doing so we know that we will have to log in. That's quite acceptable.
So a shopping site couldn't feel like community to you? Even one that offers reviews, feedback, forums and blogs as well?
Shopping isn't about buying and running as much as it is about being educated in what you are buying and i'll continue down the path of making our site a hopeful mecha of that knowledge.
Oh, so a random test of people on a forum is better than a friends/family test? I didn't even tell them what i was testing for and not a single person i've talked to YET has said my logins are causing a problem.
Of course they didn't, LOL! They were friends and family.
It's a waste of time to ask others for their feedback when all you want to hear is your own thoughts.
So a shopping site couldn't feel like community to you?
A community? Absolutely not.
I work on the assumption that shopping sites are there to part me with my money and that's fine by me when I want to buy what they offer. All I want is what I ordered quickly and with the minimum hassle and effort on my part.
Forgive me but I haven't got time to develop friendships with the site owners and/or other customers. ;)
Added: By the way, I have no statistics on this but I would be willing to bet that I am in the vast majority here.
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 1:33 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2008]
that I am in the vast majority here.
BDUU, at least you are not alone.
the way you ask customers to create an account and the fields you request are big factors.
I knew what the shipping costs and total price would be before I started the checkout process. Once in the checkout process I knew all of the steps to completion (huge plus that a lot of eCommerce sites fail to do). The "login/create account" step was the first which only prompted me for an email address, then billing/shipping which included the password.
There are sites out there that do this poorly, where to even start the checkout process your account needs to already be completed.
I think the main goal with any eCommerce site is to be profitable. If anon purchasing would drive up the cost of fraud, customer support, tracking, etc... then that eats into your profit. In those cases, make the account checkout process as easy and user friendly as is possible, and I think ByronM's site does this. It wouldn't stop my purchase.
My only recommendations for sites like this is to
1. consolidate the login/"billing and shipping" pages to shorten the steps to checkout
and
2. make sure that a returning account can automatically override their original password if they forget their original password, preventing the headache task of having to check their email client for their original password, in essence, taking them away from your site.
Again though if anyone has this, I'd love to see some studies on account vs anon purchasing. It's difficult to make a financial decision (or convince someone to do so) without the proper information behind it.
Sorry you got such opinionated responses ByronM. We're all very good at what we do, and we wouldn't be that way (or here for that matter) if we didn't all believe that. But that's just my opinion.
- zuko
It's a waste of time to ask others for their feedback when all you want to hear is your own thoughts.
You're Funny. The best way to think through something is to put it out there and get responses. The angst of some people against "logging in" doesn't fit our process at all, so i'm not going to change it willy nilly.
I sampled people I know and random customers and my friends who shop online ALL THE TIME (mid 30 somethings) NOT a single one mentioned "logging in" as a hassle nor a deal breaker - even AFTER i mentioned why i asked them the questions it wasn't on the tip of their tongue to even mention logging in or creating an account as an issue.
A community? Absolutely not.I work on the assumption that shopping sites are there to part me with my money and that's fine by me when I want to buy what they offer. All I want is what I ordered quickly and with the minimum hassle and effort on my part.
Forgive me but I haven't got time to develop friendships with the site owners and/or other customers. ;)
Added: By the way, I have no statistics on this but I would be willing to bet that I am in the vast majority here.
I think Amazon and Newegg would prove you wrong. Hard to doubt fortune 500 sites doing billions a year that have larger "communities" than even this highly agnostic webmaster site.
I mean you would have to be lying to yourself to think that amazons core shoppers don't feel part of a "community" - they're paying for prime, they're participating in the blogs, forums and product reviews and discussions. They're making educated purchases based upon other community members recommendations, purchasing habits and lists as well.
The same goes for newegg - they're rating/recommending products and participating in a large & growing forum and community group.
YOU may only shop for batteries or clothing online but many people shop entirely on community driven ideals that they're making an educated purchase based upon the communities experience.
You may not be alone, but i'm willing to be there are a lot more people passionate about what they buy than those who are bothered by it.
I use Amazon semi regularly and I do use it in the way you mention but I have never really considered myself to be part of a community. If there is information on a website to help me make a decision then so much the better but we cannot all be Amazon. They are big enough to make their own rules.
My opinion of how this works on an anonymous little ecommerce website versus Amazon would differ considerably.
All you need from me is a shipping and billing address and my credit card with a secured gateway for approving said card without storing it anywhere.
That being said I think it is a good idea to allow people to sign up and have an account so that if they are a frequent shopper they don't have to keep entering the same info over and over again, but you shouldn't have to create one.
Think of it like those brick and mortar stores that have the customer programs. Every time you buy something they ask "Do you have a #*$!X card?" if you say no they ask you if you want one. That is annoying enough, imagine now you HAVE TO sign up to buy something... I know if I was told I had to sign up to buy the stuff and was faced with some long form.... I would leave my items at the counter and walk out. Why should it be any different at an online store? You can have people sign up but why make them? All the reasons I have seen listed here are to make life easier on the vendor not the customer.
[edited by: Demaestro at 4:27 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2008]
