Over half of customers prefer to buy from a site using guest checkout

In our latest Chart of the Day, we find that research by Worldpay suggests there are several key barriers to cart abandonment, including lack of guest checkout and lack of delivery option available. It's the most important thing anyone in E-commerce or digital marketing can focus on: how to cut abandonment rates and increase conversions. As digital marketers ourselves it's something we're working on everyday. The research found that: Over half prefer guest checkout Over half would abandon their cart if they cannot get the delivery option they want Almost 7 in 10 customers aged between 18 and 35 are more likely to purchase on their mobile phones Over half of customers are positive about one click purchasing Nearly 4 in 10 think paying online is too slow …

Ingredients to increase your Ecommerce conversions

Let’s take a moment and think about your favourite shoe brand – Is it really a brand or is it an Ecommerce store just like any other? How did it became your favourite? Well, the answer is straightforward. Of the online brands that initially spring up as an Ecommerce store, their evolution into an effective brand depends on what kinds of products and services they provide, and more importantly what they do to make their customers feel happy and satisfied. Then, a brand becomes more of a feeling that drives customers to your store.

Fundamentals of E-Commerce branding

Before you decide on a successful brand strategy, you must have a sound understanding of your own business. Start by brainstorming on following issues to discover what makes your brand stand out. Does your online business have a goal? Does your product solve any problems? What…

10 tips to create an effective Cart Recovery Programme

According to research recently released by Britain’s Retail E-mpire, the UK will become the world’s leading ecommerce exporter, with online sales generated by UK retailers from international markets expected to soar sevenfold to £28bn by 2020. However, according to our latest research, on average 84% of people who visit a site abandon their purchase before checkout, costing retailers billions in lost sales. So what can we do about this problem? Well first of all – let’s switch it around and look at it as a fantastic opportunity rather than a problem. Opportunities are always easier to action than problems – right?

The Opportunity for retailers

So we now have a lot of potential buyers who in many case simply need a small nudge in order to complete the purchase and the good news is, that these abandoned sales are 10 times more likely to convert…

Why do online shoppers abandon their Ecommerce shopping baskets and what can retailers do to re-engage?

What is frustrating American online shoppers and how can businesses minimise shopping cart abandonment, or encourage these buyers to return to their baskets? Over 1,000 ecommerce online consumer interactions, from Visual Website Optimizer (VWO, a website testing platform company), reveals these frustrations and also the positive drivers to encourage shoppers to purchasing their products post abandonment. The Ecommerce survey shows the main drivers for consumers abandoning their shopping cart from companies is 1. companies not being transparent about shipping costs and 2. consumers being forced to create a new account. It's interesting that abandoned shoppers can be converted, as 54% will purchase their 'basket items' if they are contacted with a discount. Download the full report from VWO.com's site (registration is required) to also find…

Which factors are the main reasons for shopping cart abandonment?

Cart Abandonment specialists, Cloud.IQ have released a new infographic with some fascinating findings regarding how and why our customers are abandoning their purchases and how we can leverage this opportunity to generate more sales. Some stats of interest: 88% of online shoppers who abandon online purchases before completion are open to being emailed by retailers afterwards.. 35% actually say they will actively welcome these emails For every £100 spent on driving customers to the site, only £1 goes into converting them To see all the stats and the full infographic, view it here.  …

A summary of 'add to basket' techniques from 50 retailers

The checkout process is crucial for e-commerce sites and a holistic approach is best to improve retail website conversion rates, for example using abandonment campaigns and analytics to review the online buying journey. At an earlier stage in the customer journey, reviewing design and messaging practices around the 'add to shopping cart' or 'add to basket button' can help move shoppers further down the funnel. We thought this was a useful infographic from Volusion based on reviewing the "Add to Cart" practices of US 50 shopping sites considering its shape, colour, size and design. The infographic is not providing a 'one size fit's all solution' and shows commonalities and tips on what is important to support conversion; it's tailored to the shopper, layout and branding of your website. It's interesting to look at examples…

Checkout abandonment statistics show where you should focus your site improvements

I'm often asked about average ecommerce rates by site owners looking to boost their sales. It's a year-round concern with this compilation showing that even for established brands during sale periods, the average add to basket conversion rate is around 12% during a visit with convert to order around half that at 5.6%. If this sounds poor compared to the conversion rate a physical retail outlet would achieve, that's a fair improvement on ten years ago when we used to speak of a "rule-of-thumb" for average Ecommerce conversion rates of around 2%. The improvement in averages since then suggests the value in conversion rate optimisation. That said, it's inevitable that online conversion rates will be lower than offline with price transparency available through comparison sites and many still researching online and purchasing offline (the ROPO effect).

Reasons for shopping cart abandonment?

To encourage…

A custom dashboard in Google Analytics you can use for checking your checkout process

If you have an ecommerce web site you know that the performance of the checkout is critical. If anything goes wrong with the checkout it will be costing you money. That’s why first thing every morning, before I even look at the sales figures, I look at my clients' ‘Checkout’ custom dashboards. It gives me an instant health check. I can clearly see if something has gone wrong with any of the stages in the checkout, such as the payment gateway or the address lookup system. Or if something is wrong with a promotional offer codes and people who use it are unable to buy… All I have to do is to take a quick look at this…

Dispelling the consumer myth of what is involved in creating an account

Overview

In one of my earlier posts I explored the different approaches to handling new customer checkout on e-commerce sites. The approach of forcing new customers to either register or create an account in order to checkout has been around for many years, and in the earlier post I outline why you shouldn’t force new customers to have to register at the start of the checkout process. In this article I provide 2 rare but extremely valuable techniques that retailers can use to increase their new customer conversion rate, with one of the techniques provided by ASOS who were featured in the original article.

Technique 1 – simply ask for a password during checkout

As I described on my original post, the difference between a guest checkout and a registration/account creation checkout can usually be narrowed down to just 1 piece of…

Best practice tips and examples for optimising your checkout

This article explores the variety of checkout options available, as well as common consumer pre-conceptions of registration, best practice tips and recommended approaches in order to optimise your checkout for new customers looking to place their first order. Before I press ahead into the meat of the post, lets set-out a few reasons why marketers should bother investing time and effort in getting new customer checkout 'right'. Abandoned checkouts have always been a huge problem for many brands, and they continue to be so Once you have a new customer, you open up many more ways to engage with them, nurture them and encourage them to ultimately spend more and increase their lifetime order value with brand You may well have invested significant amounts to acquire the new visitor/prospect to your site, and the more new visitors convert to customers, the better your ROI on acquisition…