So, you’ve extended your retail presence and set up an eCommerce website. It looks pretty good from the outside, but how can you be sure?
It can be tough to know where the problems lie within an eCommerce website. You may think your online shop is simple enough to use. But if you’ve noticed a few too many abandoned carts, this may indicate a clunky eCommerce store. And having a clunky eCommerce site can often do you invisible harm. But how do you know where it’s falling short?
Read on for our tips to identify problems with an eCommerce shop, and why you should prioritise running an online shop that works.
WHY CUSTOMERS GET FRUSTRATED
Running a poor eCommerce store has many negative ramifications on your customers’ relationship with your business. Many factors contribute to user frustration when shopping online.
HIGH LEVEL OF ABANDONED CARTS
Abandoned carts occur when a user shopping online has added items to their shopping cart, but at some stage, they drop out and do not continue to make a purchase. Items that made it to the shopping cart but failed to result in a transaction are labelled as “abandoned”.
All business owners running an eCommerce store need to monitor the level of cart abandonment on their website.
To measure your shopping cart abandonment rate, divide the total number of completed transactions by the total number of transactions that were initiated. Multiply this by 100 for the percentage. For example, if you had 50 completed transactions, and 100 initiated transactions, your shopping cart abandonment rate is 50%.
To accurately monitor your online conversion, this metric needs to be measured against other KPIs, such as your website conversion rate, website speed and average order value.
Understanding your cart abandonment rate is critical when running an eCommerce website, as a high cart abandonment rate suggests flaws exist with your online shopping process. Below are a few common reasons potential customers abandon their shopping cart.
UNANTICIPATED SHIPPING COSTS
Unanticipated fees, taxes or shipping costs can shock customers. When they’ve made it through the entire shopping and check out process and are slapped with extra costs, customers feel a sense of betrayal. Instead of concealing these shipping costs, they need to be disclosed early on.
HAVING TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT
Installing a mandatory account creation at check out directly conflicts with what the customer is trying to achieve. When a customer clicks “check out”, their intent is to purchase their product. If they’re instead re-directed to a page that says “create an account now”, the customer will feel confused and frustrated.
A way around this is to naturally incorporate data capture (such as email or phone number) into the check out process, for example, while gaining shipping information.
NEGATIVE USER EXPERIENCE
If the online user experience is poor, customers get frustrated and eventually abandon their cart. A poor eCommerce experience can involve long page load times, confusing site features or short time limits at check out.
It’s best to keep things as simple as possible. Your customers are handing over their time and their money when they shop with you. The shopping process must be as seamless as possible.
PRIVACY CONCERNS
Your customers may love your product and your brand. But, when they don’t trust the security of your website, they won’t hand over their credit card details, and they’ll abandon their purchase.
Offer proof your site is safe and secure at checkout. You may opt to include security badges to achieve this. Some trusted security badges include PayPal, Norton and Google badges.
BAD RETURNS POLICY
Having customers return products can sting. But having a reasonable returns policy is essential. If a customer is unsatisfied with your returns policy, they are far more likely to back out of their purchase.
Having a clunky eCommerce store puts considerable strain on a business. Business owners know the value of eCommerce, but implementing a good online store can be challenging.
