Website Conversion Blog
January 17th, 2012
In 2011, the shopping cart abandonment rate continued its rise, reaching a new all-time high of 72% by the end of the year. In this blog, I’ll try to answer why the shopping cart abandonment rate has risen, despite a focus on conversion optimization by many ecommerce sites. I’ll also explain why I predict that the shopping cart abandonment rate will continue to rise in 2012.
Everything is more exaggerated over the holiday period: Retailers offer a dazzling array of new products, coupled with equally dazzling promotions, while trying to manage the constant problem of out-of-stocks. And customers make an abnormal number of purchases in a very short period and abandon their shopping carts in droves as they search for the best deals.
November 29th, 2011
The theory goes that if you make it easy for visitors to follow a simple path to conversion, you’ll generate traffic and revenue.
And yes, this is correct.
But this “single track” view of conversion is overly simplistic.
In this column, let’s explore why, and how it’s important to consider all of your available conversion paths.
Why Customers Don’t Buy
November 25th, 2011
In 2006, a Wharton professor first noticed that online buyers were more likely to respond to a free shipping offer that resulted in a savings of $6.99 over an outright savings offer of $10. The explanation was that it made the online price more comparable with the offline equivalent.
This fascinating insight into buyer motivations has contributed to on a major new piece of research into online buyer behaviour, which I’ve been working on over the last few months. It will be published on December 13th as an ebook titled ‘The Science of Shopping Cart Abandonment.’
To mark Black Friday, I’ve drawn from some of this research to look at the effects of holiday promotions, and how different price points impact buyer behavior. In particular, I’ll look at the relationship between the cart value and the shopping cart abandonment rate.
What are key price points that trigger abandonment? And can different pricing tactics lead to more conversions without eroding margin? I began my research analyzing a random sample of 264,631 abandoned shopping carts in August 2011, from a cross section of B2C e-commerce sites.
What we already know is that the value of the shopping cart has a disproportionate impact on whether an e-commerce purchaser will buy or abandon. What we have discovered is that it’s not a linear relationship and too simplistic to assume this as a general rule. This leads us to conclude that there are three promotional tactics that merchants should test this holiday season to improve conversions: Read the rest of this entry »
November 17th, 2011
It’s official: Free shipping is the shoppers’ top retail promotion of choice, driving the majority of customers to buy and to spend more than with any other promotion. This holiday season, customers will be even more price-sensitive, looking not only for the best prices, but free shipping and returns as well.
As we have written about before, customers have become trained to wait for holiday offers prior to making purchases. A tighter economy suggests that this holiday season should see good growth for ecommerce sites as consumers look online for the best prices. However, there is evidence that the 2012 consumer is also moving online to save money across a spectrum of goods, including luxury items.
November 10th, 2011
For many website visitors, the Online checkout user experience is far from intuitive. I just came across this great viral video from the Google Analytics marketing team on the online buying process. Taking the simple idea of what it would be like to have to go through an online shopping process in a physical store, there are many painful home truths exposed here in an amusing way.
The video follows a man trying to buy a loaf of bread in a British supermarket, but being forced to go through an online checkout process. What fun – it should resonate well with all ecommerce teams and user experience experts alike. It’ll also make you chuckle and cringe as well. What’s amazing is that it takes him so long before he abandons his shopping cart.
Enjoy!
