4 Proven Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment on Your Website

Shopping cart abandonment and purchase anxiety are those eerie feelings you get when faced with the “Complete Order” button on a web page.  “Do I really need this?” You might ask yourself.  As a business owner, how do you reduce (or even eliminate) this anxiety with your buyers?  Here are four proven ways to tackle this common problem.

1. Show your visitors they can trust you – If you collect personally-identifiable information from your customers, make sure you have a privacy policy that tells them exactly (and in plain English) how you use that information. 

Make sure to process all orders through a secure server and let your visitors know that their transaction details are safe.  With credit card and identity theft on the rise – you can never be too cautious when it comes to your clients’ personal information.

2. Add specific testimonials – Nothing helps sell a product more than a well-written testimonial.  When getting testimonials, ask your customers to be specific about the results they got from your product. 

Saying “I made over $1,000″ is too common – especially online.  However, saying “I made $1305.57 the first week” is a definite measurable result that will catch people’s attention. 

Ideally, when gathering testimonials, ask the customer if they would feel comfortable giving their first and last name, city, state and web address. Including a photo or an audio clip boosts credibility even more.

3. Let visitors get to know you – People want to buy from a person – not a website.  Include an “About Us” page with a photo of you and your staff. 

Don’t forget to add a contact area where people can get in touch with you via phone or e-mail (or live online chat) to ask questions before they order. 

This kind of virtual relationship-building helps people get to know more about the person (or people) behind the products, and ask pre-sales questions before they commit to placing an order.

4. Emphasize the after-sale purchase – A great deal of building trust can happen after the sale as well as before.  Don’t neglect following up with customers – and not always to upsell something either.  Just checking in and asking if they have any questions will go a long way toward building future orders – without the additional sales pressure!

If you keep these four tips in mind when building or maintaining your e-commerce website, you’ll help reduce the likelihood of people abandoning their carts in the ordering process, or getting second thoughts about pressing that ‘Order Now’ button.  Good luck!

Recommended Tools and Resources

• Add Audio to Your Website
• Wordpress Tutorials