Can't figure out my Checkout Cart Issues

New Checkout Cart isn't working

[spytecinc]

Hello,

I am having major issues with my new Checkout Cart and am at my wits' end!

Our Magento site previously had the standard Magento Checkout cart and our Checkout Cart abandonment rate was extremely high (about 3-4 of people who proceeded to checkout would abandon without purchasing). As I understand it, on most sites the number of people who abandon the cart once in the checkout is rather low as this is the end of the buying process. After careful research this week we had a new checkout installed, standard issue AJAX one page checkout, and I was eager to see our numbers improve. Instead, our checkout rate has gone down dramatically. Now about 1/10 people who enter our checkout cart are purchasing an item. We've done extensive testing, the checkout cart works fine. I've tried analyzing the cart for flaws from all angles but I can't for the life of me figure out why it would perform so poorly. I've read every thread on this site about checkout cart abandonment and I can't see anything that applies to our situation. I don't want to return to our old cart without figuring out what the issue is with the new one, but it's the holiday season and our numbers are suddenly way down. I can't image how or why anybody would prefer the older cart.
If anybody has any suggestions, comments or ideas I'd love to hear them. If anybody wants to see our cart in action, please take a look.
Thanks in advance,
Spy Tec

[Planet13]

I don't want to return to our old cart without figuring out what the issue is with the new one, but it's the holiday season and our numbers are suddenly way down.

Return to the old checkout immediately.

You can get all Sherlock Homes AFTER the Holiday Rush. But for now, get the cash in your pocket. The extra sales will help you hire some people to place test orders and give you insight into the new checkout problems - but do that at the SLOWEST time of the year, NOT the busiest.

I hope this helps.

[enigma1]

Welcome to the forums spytecinc.

75% abandonment rates are extremely high (90% is unacceptable)

Checkout page loading (including the ajax requests) needs to be fast. I remember comparing the magento one-step checkout on a dedicated server and was taking 6-7 seconds to load everything (4secs for the main page and then few secs to complete ajax). On the same server osC with a single page checkout was taking just over 1 second for everything and with secure connection. Yours takes around 6secs the first time subsequent loads take around 4secs. However this doesn't explain the poor cart rate.

I checked your site a bit initially with FF everything looked normal. Added an item to the cart checked few combinations checked out, all seem well. I then switched to IE. I started getting scripting errors from the product page.

"Object expected"
Code 0
Line 449
Char 1

I went back to the listings picked up another item and was able to checkout. I don't know the problem but surely for some products IE breaks. Also when I was checking out via paypal express from the broken pages I could see shipping charges added. This is also not good but maybe related with the previous issue. If I went to the cart page first and then go to paypal from there there was no extra charge. You may want to fix these errors and do thorough testing with browsers.

[Planet13]

You may want to fix these errors and do thorough testing with browsers.

ietester is a good tool for this.

[spytecinc]

Thank you all for your useful responses. I am going to look into the IE issue immediately, but I am not convinced that this issue would contribute to such an extensive abandonment rate. I am now thinking that the issue is most certainly our shipping rates. This is the only new information that is found on our checkout page. Our 2nd day and next day shipping rates might be high, and these few weeks probably have the highest demand for competitive expedited shipping rates. I think with our old checkout, even though it was much clunkier, because there were so many steps, I think many consumers got stuck in the checkout process and by the time they got to finding out shipping rates, many just wanted to finish the process. In that way it seems that if your shipping rates are expensive it's better NOT to have a one page checkout. It is certainly ideal though to have competitive shipping rates plus a quick and easy checkout page and that is what I am going to try to figure out for us.

On a side note, do any of you know what the average rate is from proceed to checkout to checkout success? I'd be interested to know what I should be aiming for.

[Planet13]

BTW: it might be a little late, but you should sign up for something like crazyegg.com since they can give you a heat map / click map for your checkout process. That way you can see where people are clicking, and that can help out a bit in diagnosing problems.

As for shipping rates, it is best if you can show the CHEAPEST one FIRST. In our system, for example, the shipping rates are in a dropdown list and they USED to be displayed alphabetically. Many people didn't even click on the drop down menu to see the cheaper shipping rates.

This led to a higher cart abandonment, and also led to some people picking the default higher (yet often slower) UPS Ground rates.

I think many consumers got stuck in the checkout process and by the time they got to finding out shipping rates, many just wanted to finish the process. In that way it seems that if your shipping rates are expensive it's better NOT to have a one page checkout.

Honestly, I don't think that is likely. It is possible, but I think it is more likely that there is some problem with the one page checkout that is causing it.

Hope this helps.