13 replies to this topic

[sexyfurnishings]

Hi All - I was wondering if anyone knows what the typical abandonment rate is for retail web sites. I own a web site that has an abandonment rate of 98%. We get about 1900 shopping carts created with items added to them per month and of those we get about 50 orders a month.

Maybe someone could take a look at our site and give some advice on what they see wrong:
[Removed. Sorry, that's not the way it works. See the [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?act=boardrules]Forum Rules[/url]. Specifically those regarding Site Reviews.]

My thinking is we need to offer free shipping to everyone and include the shipping rate in our product prices and advertise free shipping throughout the site. While we show the shipping rate on each product's page, maybe it's confusing to people because after they add the product, they have to enter where they live in order to get the shipping rate.

What do you think?

Thanks for the advice.

Mike

Edited by Randy, 12 June 2008 - 08:29 PM.

[Randy]

It would be impossible to guess at the reason or reasons Mike. You would need to conduct some conversion testing or some sort of analysis to see where people are leaving your sales funnel.

It could be the shipping charges. It could be you have too many steps in the process. It could be too few steps but too much information on each page of the process. It could be that you're asking for a lot more personal information than you need to and it's scaring people away. It could be that you're not continuing to close the sale during your funnel, so aren't building enough trust to get the job done. It could also be that your checkout process is simply too confusing, so people move on to another site. It could also be that people are window shopping.

It's probably more than one thing. Without some solid testing it would be impossible to guess at the cause.

But yes, a 98% abandonment rate after people go to the trouble of adding something to their shopping cart is quite high. Very high in my experience.

[nethy]

Very Generally Speaking, Normal is in the 20%-85% range (as you cans see this varies a lot).

Like Randy said, this is a big thing to answer. You'll want to try out different options, eliminating possibilities, and testing.

Unfortunately, checkout processes can be difficult to alter or test.

Edited by nethy, 12 June 2008 - 09:04 PM.

[sexyfurnishings]

Very Generally Speaking, Normal is in the 20%-85% range (as you cans see this varies a lot).

Like Randy said, this is a big thing to answer. You'll want to try out different options, eliminating possibilities, and testing.

Unfortunately, checkout processes can be difficult to alter or test.

Thanks a lot for the replies. I'm thinking our abandonment rate is really high in part because of the somewhat confusing process of adding shipping rates to the order. Even though the rate is shown on the product page, when the customer adds the product to their cart the total doesn't include shipping. So they have to enter their state then zip code and then hit recalculate. If we just offered and advertised free shipping I think it would make it a lot more simple to the end customer. They would add to cart and the total would be right there without them having to recalculate the total.

As far as asking too much information, we ask customers the standard things:
First Name
Last Name
Address
City
Country
State
Zip
Phone

This info can be copied to the Billing Info and then they enter in the Payment Info. All of this is on one page, which I think is easier for the customer.

[nethy]

If we just offered and advertised free shipping I think it would make it a lot more simple to the end customer.

Well your in luck. That's a relatively easy one to test. Offer free shipping for a period and see what happens. Consider the cost market research.

To truly 'test' the effect the ideal would be to not even advertise.

If you do advertise prominently on the site, try to see if you have a decreased number of 'added to shopping carts.' If so, this might indicate users going into the checkout process to see the shipping cost (I do this when shopping online) and they no longer need to because shipping is free.

Edited by nethy, 12 June 2008 - 10:56 PM.

[lisety]

I set a fixed rate for shipping in order to avoid that problem. I have seen programs that automatically add the shipping rate based on the address the buyer enters, that would be another option. I offer free shipping on high ticket items but for the lower priced ones, I just can't afford it.

[madams]

I agree with nethy

On a lot of sites, going through the checkout system is the only way to get the real price of the product & shipping.

Seems like a lot of sites try to hide the price. I dont get it!

[sexyfurnishings]

I agree with nethy

On a lot of sites, going through the checkout system is the only way to get the real price of the product & shipping.

Seems like a lot of sites try to hide the price. I dont get it!

Hi All - Thanks again for your responses. I updated the site so that all products have free shipping. I also added a little ad across the top of the site that says "FREE SHIPPING ON EVERYTHING". If you want to check it out, go to my handle's name and add a .com at the end. Let me know what you think...it's always great to get feedback.

I'm going to see how the response is over the next week or so before sending out another email ad to our mailing list.

Mike

[donp]

I tried to order a dvd burner from a popular online retailer yesterday, had to put the burner in the basket to see the price, then when I looked at the cart, they also added a service warranty - decided to take a pass and went to another online site. If you opt for "cute" marketing ploys, I'm gone. I'm in the market for a couple of thousand dollars worth of camera equip next week or so and was considering them, so they lost more than a small replacement dvd sale - they lost my trust. There is little enuff to go on when dealing online, it's easy to bruise the trust of clients thru stupid marketing ploys.

As a store clerk, I would not automatically add a warranty like that to a sales slip without consulting with the customer first. Marketing online is very different than marketing in a store, many companies never understand that.

[sexyfurnishings]

I tried to order a dvd burner from a popular online retailer yesterday, had to put the burner in the basket to see the price, then when I looked at the cart, they also added a service warranty - decided to take a pass and went to another online site. If you opt for "cute" marketing ploys, I'm gone. I'm in the market for a couple of thousand dollars worth of camera equip next week or so and was considering them, so they lost more than a small replacement dvd sale - they lost my trust. There is little enuff to go on when dealing online, it's easy to bruise the trust of clients thru stupid marketing ploys.

As a store clerk, I would not automatically add a warranty like that to a sales slip without consulting with the customer first. Marketing online is very different than marketing in a store, many companies never understand that.

Looks like I figured out the reason behind our astronomical abandonment rate. We have the majority of our abandoned carts coming from the search engine bots crawling through our site. It looks like our abandonment rate is around 85% after backing those out. Still high, but not astronomical.

Back to the drawing board...my dreams of fame and riches are put off for another day

Mike

[Randy]

This is why most carts and webmasters use <form>'s when someone goes to add an item to their shopping cart. As a general rule the search engine spiders have never submitted forms, though lately there has been some talk of Google starting to attempt to submit some. I've not seen this happening on my of my sites however, and I've been watching for it.

[nethy]

Looks like I figured out the reason behind our astronomical abandonment rate. We have the majority of our abandoned carts coming from the search engine bots crawling through our site. It looks like our abandonment rate is around 85% after backing those out. Still high, but not astronomical.
Back to the drawing board...my dreams of fame and riches are put off for another day
Mike

85% is still a little high. Not as high, but I still would want to know why, ideally. Since your on the path to testing free shipping already, see if you can finish the process.

BTW, does the whole bots issue mean you are using log analyzer as opposed to javascript for your analytics?
Installing Google Analytics (or most other good analytics) might solve your problem.

[gsimerlink]

One other idea no one touched on is whether or not you have a wish list. The one company I work for doesn't have a wish list, so customers use our shopping cart as a wish list. This causes our shopping cart abandonment rate to be very high, but at least we know the reason and most people eventually buy some of the product in their cart. We've been working on getting the owner to let us add a wish list for quite some time now.

Another site I work with has a wish list and a very low abandonment rate. Anicdotal evidence for sure, but I think it is worth a shot and a useful feature.

[arlen]

... so customers use our shopping cart as a wish list. This causes our shopping cart abandonment rate to be very high ...

This is a good point and worth considering. Lots of shoppers, myself included, add items to their cart as they shop around, not necessarily intending to buy right now. I like long-lived cookies myself and am pleased to find my cart still populated when I return to a shop. A wishlist may have some impact on abandonment ... maybe. On the other hand, most wish lists require registering with a site and I wouldn't expect one requiring registration to make much of an impact on cart abandonment. That would make it highly unlikely I'd use it unless I was a regular customer.