• Increase buyer assurance by including design elements on your Cart page that make it look reasonably similar to other pages on your website.


• Eliminate unnecessary outbound links on your Cart page that could distract potential buyers.


• If you charge for shipping, enable the ECT "Shipping Estimator" feature to show shipping estimates before Checkout.


• Display your company phone number on the Cart page.


• If applicable, display your "Money Back Warranty" graphic and any other assurance graphics as close as possible to your Checkout button.


• Display your SSL provider's seal or payment processor's seal on the Cart page to provide assurance about your site security.


• If you don't already accept PayPal or Google Checkout, consider adding one or both.

Would anyone like to share / discuss further tips?

Andy

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Thanks for posting these.

I think that the DLSS Checkout Progress Bar ([url]http://www.dlss.ca/proddetail.asp?prod=ProgressBar[/url]) is also a useful add-on to increase customer assurance and reduce abandonment.

Its current license cost of $15 seems like a bargain to me.

- Paul D.

In addition to Andy's suggestions - most of which we are using, we use the Progress Checkout Bar - and we also use Mike's ReCart Pro, which sends an email encouraging the potential buyer to complete their order. Nine times out of ten, they do!

~ Judy

Thanks Judy, for the note. I just bought the checkout progress bar and like it already. I think I will explore the re-cart pro. With 9 out of 10 returns and closes seems like getting it is a bargain.

Michael

We've found another big advantage to enabling the "Shipping Estimator" feature: it resulted in far fewer incomplete / "Unauthorized" transactions in the cart Admin screen (since customers no longer need to initiate a Cart transaction to get shipping estimates), so there are fewer invalid transactions for our bookkeeper to download and weed out.

That might mean some buyers were scared off prior to entering their data. UPS's extra residential (verses business) or rural charge seems to scare off most of ours. It's about an added $2.50 to $3.50 charge. For someone to buy a $20 item and pay $15 to get to the middle of nowhere Kansas causes most adandoned carts. Somethings we sell (chemicals) simply can't go USPS.

Michael

Hi, cart abandonment does occur no matter what but with the implementation of suggestions above it does reduce it.

This especially goes for those ads, their purpose is get you to click away from the page. Its best to remove those from cart.asp / cart.php.

quote:

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•Eliminate unnecessary outbound links on your Cart page that could distract potential buyers

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would like to see the progress bar in action - can anyone send me to a website that is using it?

Hi,
Just go here and add to cart - http://www.dlss.ca/proddetail.asp?prod=ProgressBar



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Another idea to clarify the simple "3 Step Checkout" process for customers would be to add entries like this to your "includes.php" (or asp) configuration file ...

// Change language used for "Checkout" process ... Steps 1, 2, 3.
$xxAddInf='Special Instructions';
$xxPlsChz='Method of Payment';
$xxPrsChk='Step 1 of 3  :  Proceed to confirm your address details';
$xxCstDtl='Step 2 of 3  :  Check your address, enter any special instructions, select method of payment';
$xxChkCmp='Final Step 3 of 3  :  Summary of your order';
$xxMstClk='<p style="color: #900; font-weight: bold;">Click the Checkout button below to lodge your order.</p><p>This is the final step. You will receive confirmation of all the details by email.</p>';

Gary Flack
I.T.ZAP Website Design Works
http://itzap.com.au

And can somebody tell me how would you know how many carts have been abandoned on your website ?

Gary Flack
I.T.ZAP Website Design Works
http://itzap.com.au

The way Mike Beebe's Re-Cart Pro works is: if they entered an email along with billing info addressand then click to the next screen (prior to payment & shipping details), the info is captured

Michael