7 Crucial Steps Toward Maximizing Your Shopping Cart's Conversion Rate
7 Crucial Steps Toward Maximizing Your Shopping Cart's Conversion Rate
When most people think about converting a higher percentage of site visitors to paying customers, they usually focus on improving sales copy or testing optimal price points. These elements are very important, of course. But the most overlooked conversion-point element is abandoned shopping carts.
Studies indicate that 25% to 75% of shoppers abandon the checkout process before the sale is complete. Even when you have all the main sales elements orchestrated into a finely tuned symphony, you can still hit the sour notes of lost profits when customers ditch their shopping carts.
Of course, you'll never convert 100%. But the difference between 25 and 75% is huge! And the good news is, chances are, you have room for improvement which can be converted into higher profits almost immediately. So, here are the 7 crucial steps you can take right now toward putting your shopping cart system in harmony with the rest of your well-orchestrated sales system.
1. Offer alternative ways to buy.
Even after more than a decade of online shopping, many people are still uncomfortable using their credit cards online. Therefore you should make sure your shopping cart offers them the option to purchase by phone, fax, and mail (offering PayPal as an option doesn't hurt either).
A phone number is especially important. In fact, it's a good idea to use a separate phone number just for your shopping cart. That way you can track how many of your customers are still more comfortable talking to a "real person" prior to making a purchase.
A mailing address pointing to a physical location also reassures your customer that you're a legitimate busin...
