There aren’t many things that can spoil your mood faster than when you check out your analytics and see most of your customers abandoned their shopping carts. It’s a feeling you’re well-acquainted with if you’re like most small business owners. According to the latest stats, 78 percent of shoppers leave their carts without making a purchase. With abandonment rates so high, there must be a reason why over three-quarters of shoppers are willing to ditch their carts.
Before you make any excuses, it’s time that you’re straight with yourself. In this case, it is you, not them. Simple mistakes you make with your e-commerce site could be scaring away customers. Here are two big problems with your checkout process that could be costing you sales.
1. An inconspicuous shopping cart button
While you can expect some “window browsers” from time to time, some of the customers abandoning their carts are doing it accidentally. It happens when they forget they put an item in their shopping cart. They tag an item, continue browsing for several minutes, then leave because there’s nothing to remind them they have something in their cart.
Your task is to make it obvious to the shopper that they have an item waiting for them at the checkout. Design your website so that the cart item counter changes in size and/or color when you customer adds something to it. You may also want to create a call-to-action pop up that asks the customer whether they want to check out or to continue shopping after they added something to their cart.
2. Expensive shipping costs
Most shoppers have a certain price limit in mind when they’re shopping. They take care when shopping, so they come in under this limit. They don’t want to see their hard work go to waste by an additional shipping fee when they check out.
Though shipping is a major expense for small business owners, it can be the nail in the coffin of your next sale. According to ComScore, 61 percent of shoppers would cancel their purchase if free shipping wasn’t offered.
If your customers aren’t paying for it, then you’re the one taking on this big expense. Paying full price for shipping on each order could be a death sentence for your business. That’s why it’s so important to find discounted rates on your shipping. It’s the only you can meet your customers’ expectations with free shipping.
As a small business owner, you don’t have many opportunities for discounts. However, you can find savings by speaking with a shipping courier broker. They liaise with small businesses like yours and some of the country’s biggest couriers.
Since they represent so many clients, they’re able to negotiate lower shipping rates than you would ever find on your own. Depending on their relationship with couriers like UPS, FedEx, or DHL, they can arrive at a fee low enough to help you offer free shipping to your customers.
With over 7,619 users, the brokers that makeup netParcel have huge bargaining powers with some of the top small parcel and LTL couriers. In some cases, they can save you up to 70 percent off shipping. You don’t even need to speak with one of them to see how much you can save.
You just have to stop by the netParcel website to see what kind of prices show up on their online rate comparison tool. They’ve made it easy to ship by publishing real-time shipping rates in the same tool that allows you to import orders, generate shipping labels, and schedule pick-up times.
The bottom line: be adaptive
As a small business owner, you need a thick skin to protect yourself from all the people who doubt your enterprise. But don’t let it grow so calloused that it prevents you from acknowledging helpful takeaways that could improve your business.
The next time you see poor analytics suggesting a high shopping cart abandonment rate, don’t turn a blind eye to it. See it for what it is: an opportunity to grow. Try adjusting your shopping cart button and shipping fees to see if these changes can convert those abandoned carts into true sales.