Vin65 Blog

Pursuing Abandoned Shopping Carts

A customer comes to your website, adds several items to their cart, and then abandons their cart and leaves your website. How maddening! You don't even know why they left. So what can you do about it?

Some reasons they might not be checking out.

1. They are just comparison shopping or window shopping.
2. They were scared off by the shipping costs.
3. They had technical issues checking out.
4. There was a lack of direction or some confusion.
5. Maybe the website didn't give them the correct assurances.

And there are a lot of reasons not listed here.

How intrusive do you want to be?
Visitors on the internet are hardly anonymous. If a visitor has been to your store before and given you personal information, there is a good chance that you know who they are as soon as they come back to your website. If a visitor has entered personal information in the checkout area, but does not complete the checkout, you should definitely know who this visitor is.

Do you want to survey them about why they didn't complete the checkout? Perhaps with a popup survey? Or spamming them with an email survey? How about sending them an email coupon for the items in their cart that they didn't purchase?

How intrusive should you be with contacting this visitor? Maybe you just want to send an email asking them about their recent shopping experience?

Taking a hint from the offline world.
There is a great article at Future Now about gorilla marketing. To quote the opening line "In the offline world, have you ever been chased by retail staff because you opted not to buy something at their store?"

My Opinion
Nobody likes intrusive or pushy people. If a person abandons your website in the pre-checkout area (on a product page or cart page) you shouldn't contact them (via email, popup survey, phone, etc). In an offline world, if someone entered your store, and then left, you would never chase them. Having a feedback button on your site and a clear phone number for customer support are both good ideas to get this visitor to contact you. Look at ways to improve your conversion via A/B tests is also a good idea.

How about if a visitor enters the checkout area, completes their peronal information and shipping information, but fails to enter their payment information? Here it gets a little more interesting. Having a tactful phone call from customer service might be good idea to try. (In an offline world, if someone entered the checkout area, and then decided to leave, a good clerk would ask them if they could assist in anyway - without being pushy). I would side with a tactful phone call more than an automated generic email, or any kind of spam email. Take a hint from some of the ideas in this article.

May 25, 2009 at 5:35 PM

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Comments (5)

What does your welcome message say?

When a person signs up for your email list, you probably send them an email to confirm their action (well at least I hope you send them an email confirming their action). How about doing more with that welcome message? This is one of the first chances you have to connect with this visitor - make it a good first impression. Here are a few ideas:

• Use the welcome message to ask questions to ensure future emails are relevant.
• Use the welcome message to tell the new subscriber about current relevant promotions.
• Use the welecome message to link to highlights from your past emails.

And one last tip - don't hide your unsubscribe link - even in your welcome message. Make it easy for people to join your email list. Make it just as easy to get off your email list.
 

May 10, 2009 at 7:31 PM

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One key factor for a better user experience.

What is the top factor in creating a better user experience?

I was reading through the 'Usability Study: Men Need Speed' talking about gender differences in web.  While the study's sampling size is small, 'Ease of Use' trumps Download Speed, Navigation, Accessibility, and Customization for both men and women.

I found this interesting as it conflicts with what I feel is an almost natural tendency for website owners to request more and more features. (Can we add multiple ship-tos, multiple payment methods, and a few more options inside the checkout process - or perhaps we should just make it really simple and easy to use)

May 3, 2009 at 9:00 PM

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