What thing is between the intention to buy and the direct action? Of course, emotions. If a potential costumer visits your site, he might already be wanting to buy your products. Another thing is not to prevent him from doing this. So is it possible? In accordance with various research concerning shopping cart experiences, more than 70% of such transactions remain uncompleted. Why is it so? Let’s enumerate the most common shopping cart optimization mistakes.

First of all, these include various log-in and registration requirements. They are so boring and time consuming that after filling in another couple of forms a person decides to quit the process. So, don’t make it endless and optimize your shopping cart accordingly. Another thing is that as a rule, not all sites provide potential clients with the opportunity to remove, change and even add items easily. Make sure that there are options for the changing of the products with different sizes, styles or colors.

Offer your clients several payment options. Such payment systems as PayPal and WebMoney are popular these days. Those who prefer to use their credit cards as a rule don’t want to provide their numbers over the Web. So, provide your clients with fax or voice payment. And of course, let’s not forget that company’s contact information should be easy to find. As a rule, people still prefer to communicate with living beings than with machines and in this case, call center support will be of use.

Guarantee. Perhaps, this method should not be rejected in any case. People need to be confident that they contact a reliable company and sometimes offering a guarantee is better than having them read some testimonials. And of course, let your visitors know about such additional charges as shipping and handling beforehand. It is unnecessary though to locate this message throughout the site. The customers should be informed softly, on some stage of their acquisition, when they already have the strong intention to buy some particular product. But don’t let them stay unaware in any case.

A thumbnail image of product can make a boost in the shopping cart completion. We can’t touch or smell the goods via the Internet, so let the potential customer see them. Emotions still play an important role in the process of buying. It is just an additional opportunity to visualize possession. In accordance with the latest research, products with images are more popular among customers.

Tags: optimization, payment options, paypal, product gurantee, shopping cart

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 8:07 am and is filed under Website Analytics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.