Forum Moderators: buckworks
1. Shoppers that have added items to their cart and then drop out before hitting the "checkout" button...
2. Shoppers that drop out after hitting the "checkout" button...
Are there any good places to find this information?
They change their mind.
The phone goes someone calls i.e they have an interuption.
The shipping is adding up to more than they consider to be reasonable.
Products were added just to see how much it would altogether, I do this on Amazon.
Customers do not like to register before they buy, they seem to want to only give the delivery details then go.
You accept paypal and they dont have an account.
Etc etc etc.
I once ran a site where loads of people went to checkout and then stopped, it was down to the wording on the buttons.
Strange but true
"Overall, our benchmark for apparel retail indicates that just 2.13% of all visits result in purchases."
"Buyers without a prior purchase history who were making their first purchase had a V2B (Visit-to-Buy Ratio) of less than 1%. Once a visitor made an initial purchase, however, the V2B ratio escalated to nearly 21%"
[techexchange.com...]
Any thoughts on this?
CompWorld
I need some solid cart abandonment statistics...
Do people really hate registering so much that they just abandon the purchase altogether? Is it now bad to consider have the people register before they buy?
I think it's always been bad. It drives me crazy. I don't want to register with you, I don't want to have to make an account first. I want the product(s), why slow me down when I'm trying to buy them?
No?
CompWorld
The times I am most likely to decide against placing an order with such a company is:
a) If I am unable to get shipping costs and information without registering
b) If I doubt that I will be ordering from them again in the near future.
c) There are other places with reasonably comparable prices where I can order from more easily.
I'm still annoyed by how clunky and unintuitive the checkout process was. My biggest gripes:
1. I could not see the shipping charges until after I had entered credit card information. That's bass ackwards. CC info should be the absolute last thing asked for, after customers have had a chance to edit and tweak their orders to perfection.
2. I tried to edit my order after seeing the total, to see how adding or removing items might affect the shipping costs. The system sent me back to the shopping cart as if I were starting over, and the shipping costs were no longer in evidence.
Sometimes, depending on the increments, you can add a few more things without bumping up the shipping costs. I wanted to test that but it was too frustrating. If it had been easier, they might have sold me more than they did.
3. When I tried editing my order, for the reason mentioned above, the system did not accurately remember the personal information that I had entered a minute or two previously. It remembered some things, but introduced errors in others, which is worse than not remembering at all.
4. This store had registration as an option, not a requirement. If I had had to register before buying I would not have completed my purchase. I HATE arriving at a checkout and being forced to register. I have abandoned more than one shopping cart for that reason.
This didn't happen to me just now, but one thing I know that sometimes causes people to abandon shopping carts is that it's extremely hard to figure out what countries the store ships to until you're half-way through the checkout process.
</vent>
Amazon etc are big sites you can find pretty much whatever you want there, so teh chances are youll buy from them again.
Smalltimejoe.com areyou ever going to find his site again? Let alone purchase from him?
I guess not. Let the customer enter his address, confirm order and pay.
Thats it.
I understand where you are coming from, but most major ecommerce sites (staples, amazon, yahoo shopping, etc.) Any even some of the smaller ones (egghead, onsale, intershopzone, computergeeks, etc.) all make you register before purchasing something. So, if all of these companies require it, why shouldn't any of us? There are benefits of membership (membership has its privileges), we can send them specials and site updates if they opt-in for it.
No?CompWorld
Do you know how many of the customers leave those sites without completing the transaction?
Also, personally, I'm inclined to be more "tolerant" when dealing with a big site such as amazon.com as:
- I know that registering will speed up the process for my next visit (eg "one click")
- I intend to come back and most importantly:
- I feel that they cannot afford to sell my data.
I often left a shop that required my giving out the credit card number. Do you know what they'll do with it? Of course, the waiter in the next restaurant could also write it down and abuse it - so this may be a bit irrational, - but real.
Again, I'd rather give my credit card number to a big company than to a small one.
The big one should at least be able to afford minimum standards of security for my data and have a strong interest in doing so (just imagine the reaction if someone managed to retrieve all credit card details from such a large website!).
In the end, it all burns down to the question: can you compete with the big shots on eye-level? If not, you can't afford to apply their standards to your site...
Laurenz
spot on
also does anyone have some cart abandonment stats or perhaps share there own with the board?
the only thing I can say is that I ran a site with an overly complex registration system around 3 pages worth!
That equaled 100% drop out rate. im starting to use a cart by 3d3.com, easiest system ive seen yet. You just give over your name address and payment details and bye!
The funny thing is when I phoned teh firm with the 100% drop out cart, I got the impression that they knew that this caused problems. Its seems they didnt care as long as they received their monthly subs from the cart holders.
There were so many complaints on their chat/support boards that they scrapped it altogether.
is this on one page only? do you have an "account section" for order tracking etc?
1. I only register if there is a tangible incentive, such as a discount. Some thoughtful sites provide a skip button.
2. I have to go to the trolley to discover the shipping costs when all I want to do is compare prices at several sites.
3. I have left the trolley to continue shopping and have been unable to get back because their is no link to the trolley. The only way is to buy another item, or go straight to checkout.
4. The site is so slow I have got fed up.
Just my 2c worth...
Harry
but it seems from what everyone is saying that "account login" and "registration" is a big no no in general
we may have to go back to the drawing board!
No there is no order tracking from customers side of things, I have never used this feature when buying from Amazon. So I imagine its pretty useless.
Your customer receives an email detailing their order and how to contact you.
That's just our setup. We've been doing it since 98 or so. We only get a few registrations per day, but there reason is no other way to process accounts w/o this necessary information.
CompWorld
No there is no order tracking...I have never used this feature when buying... So I imagine its pretty useless.
Not useless if people want to track their orders. I think it's good to send them their tracking info in an email and have a section on the site where they can do the tracking.
I see about a 30% abandoned cart rate with our stores.
Sometimes people like to price stuff online and then call in the order. Or they're just "kicking the tires" and never had any intention on making a purchase. Just like when people go to a mall. Not everyone that enters a store is going to buy something.
Registration is definately the biggest problem for some sites. Do they really need my DOB and gender when I'm buying a CD?
Rachel
Really, the only difference between this registration process and obtaining enough details to process an order is the password entry and perhaps the terminology ("by registering with......")
Would the general opinion be that removing the password fields and changing terminology would cause less dropouts?
But then, on the next purchase it'll say: If you've shopped here before, jsut enter your email and password.
The real issue I think is pressure. Shoppers don't like to be pressed. So don'T MAKE them do anyhting, let them always choose. And try to make it as silently as possible. The fewer choices, the fewer possibilities to choose NO.
SN
About registering, I never understand why any site forces you to register. If they want you to have an account, take all your details and the payment, and on the thankyou page allow the customer to enter a username and password if they want to set up an account! Best of both worlds...
Mmm, I'll try that thanks!
I must admit, there are a lot of people who forget their passwords. I guess some of them possibly didn't have the intention to return.
I guess people who do not wish to register may not necessarily be once only purchasers!
That way you should only get returning customers or people who really want to signing up.
However the same system drives me nuts because at checkout there is an option for previous buyers to enter their customer number which is on the previous invoice. This is supposed to be a quick method of obtaining your details.
Not a bad idea, but the problem is it doesn't work. The system has never found my details in its database. So I have the tedium of having to enter them all over again each time I use the site.
I think the moral is that whatever method one uses, nothing is worse than a method that doesn't work.
Harry
