9 Tips to Decrease Shopping Cart Abandonment

Over the last few years, we've conducted hundreds of thousands of user testing sessions documenting the frustration consumers face while navigating e-commerce stores. Through our research, we've found that there are three main reasons shoppers abandon their carts:

1. difficulty with checkout process;
2. shipping surprises; and
3. lack of trust in a secure transaction.

We've also found a number of ways to counteract these reasons to help ease consumers through the checkout process and, most importantly, to boost your bottom line. Once a shopper has added something to their cart, they've shown intent to buy. It's your job to make it as easy as possible to complete a purchase.

Difficulty With Checkout Process
Whether it's the lack of a guest checkout feature or the inability for a consumer to use their preferred payment method, there are a number of potential pitfalls that can cause a shopper to abandon their cart as they're checking out. Here are some tips to combat this issue:

1. Don't require registration. If you're requiring visitors to register, you're giving them the opportunity to walk away from a purchase. Allow customers to check out as guests so they can breeze through the checkout process by simply entering their shipping and billing address. If visitors must register, consider allowing them to do so with their social media accounts, as there's a good chance they're already signed into Twitter or Facebook.

2. Make it easy to enter promo codes. Consumers love discounts and instant gratification. Let shoppers see how their promo codes will affect their orders early in the checkout process. They'll see a better price, which reinforces that they're making the right decision by buying from you.

3. Include all popular payment methods. Include all popular credit card types, as well as online payment methods such as PayPal or Google Wallet. Not only do online payment methods give your customers more options on how to pay, but they also make it much easier to check out. The customer is simply prompted to log into their virtual wallet and confirm the purchase.

Shipping Surprises
High shipping costs and prolonged delivery times often hurt sales. Even though it's often up to distribution center locations to dictate the cost of shipping and time of delivery, there are still things you can control to make your shipping options more appealing to potential customers. Here are three of them:

4. Make shipping costs predictable. Consumers don't want to go through the checkout process only to find out that shipping will cost a fortune. Give them the easiest possible way to get a ballpark figure with a shipping calculator. If budget allows for it, implement free or flat rate shipping and promote it in the header or on product pages.

5. Implement a perpetual cart. Consumers like seeing a running total of their order while shopping. It assures them that if their total doesn't look right, they'll be able to fix it immediately. If you have a promotion triggered by price, such as free shipping, this feature also gives you an opportunity to give the customer a sense of instant gratification once they meet the minimum price.

6. Deliver on delivery. The last thing a customer wants to see after completing their order is that delivery will take longer than they'd like. Give customers a realistic estimated time of delivery early in the checkout process. It's something they expect to see on every checkout page.

Lack of Trust
Part of the challenge of running an e-commerce store is adequately easing customer fears. Consumers already have a sense of detachment because they can't physically touch the product they're buying. There's also the worry that sensitive payment and personal information can be compromised. Consider implementing these tips:

7. Use security icons and trust symbols. Consumers look for signs to assure themselves that it's safe to hand over their payment information. This is particulalrly true for smaller e-commerce sites. Don't be afraid to show off your trust icons or trust marks, such as TRUSTe, VeriSign or PayPal verification symbols.

8. Have easily accessible customer support. Not all customers will have questions, but for those that do, it's a good idea for customer service options to be easily accessible. Otherwise, you're increasing the likelihood that they'll look somewhere else for help. If resources allow for it, implement live chat to make it easy for customers to get help in real time.

9. Include product reviews. Praise the quality of your products all you want, but at the end of the day, most consumers look to their peers to make their final decision. Our studies have shown that while some consumers look to third-party sites for product reviews, most would like to see reviews on a site's product pages.

Combatting shopping cart abandonment is no easy task, but optimizing your shopping cart in the three areas addressed above is a great place to start. Remember to simplify your checkout process, take all the guesswork out of shipping and build customer trust to achieve optimal shopping cart success.

Chris Hicken is chief operations officer of UserTesting.com, where he focuses on enabling large businesses to conduct the fast, nimble user research of much smaller businesses.