Extra content on checkout pages

can good copy prevent abandoned carts?

[meg8]

Hi,
Going through my stats I noticed that I have a fair percentage of abandoned carts. The functionality of these pages seems ok to me but the surrounding copy is pretty awful, I've neglected it for a long time.

Before I start to re-write does anybody have hints and tips that have helped them to increase sales?

Cheers.

[grobe]

One reason people abandon carts is that the only reason they put the item in the cart to begin with is to find out what the shipping charges would be. Is it difficult to find this out at your site?

[lorax]

The reasons for low conversion and/or abandoned carts depend upon many different factors of which the copy you use, and its placement within your cart, are just one part. If you're not sure about what the causes are you may want to consider having someone do a conversion analysis on your cart to learn what problems exist. If you don't want to pay to have this done, get yourself a copy of E-Commerce User Experience (about $150 USD).

[incrediBILL]

carts are abandonded because of....

- lack of shipping charges shown

- checkout registration requirement, people want to shop and not join anything

- price, they found it better / cheaper elsewhere

A popup COUPON discount when someone tries to exit during checkout helps bring them back to your store.

What you need is an exit survey so when they leave your site you can just ASK them why they are leaving!

[Staffa]

I don't know your products, but I have often found that looking for software I have to access the shopping cart just to find out what the price of a program is (most annoying) ;o)

[incrediBILL]

Here's a follow up thought that popped into my head that has nothing to do with the cart page but does impact my final purchasing decision.

If the "About Us"/"Contact Us" pages don't have both an address and phone number, I'm outta there.

It's a credibility issue at that point as people that are hiding this information have always proven to be a problem when the sale doesn't go smoothly, such as delayed orders, broken merchandise, etc. The more open the site seems the more likely I'll order, the more they appear to hide the least likely I'll order.

Most importantly, phone numbers, addresses and a list of payment options on the cart page go a LONG way to making me feel more comfortable little do I know if the address is a PO box a mailboxes etc. or not, it's the perception that matters.

[meg8]

Hi, thanks for the feedback, we have the shipping charges shown at other places in the site but maybe people aren't seeing them. And the thing about the phone number is great, I have it on every page of the site, because I want people to ring me, but it's not prominent enough on the checkout pages.

Thanks everyone, I'll get updating,