Lowering Abandonment Rate Through Customer Knowledge

What does online customer do before they decide to buy your product? Do customers decide to buy your product on the spot? Do they research for lower prices on other websites? What do online customers check in a site before spending their money? What makes abandonment rate high?

These are simple questions that will affect merchant’s cart abandonment rate, which ultimately affects the overall profit of the merchant. Nowadays, online customer wants to get the best out of everything, starting from the design of the website, customer experience, as well as product price.

As it turns out, online customers have a lot of things in their mind before making their final decision. Thus, it is important for online retailers to spot and answer these simple questions to maximize their potential.

So, do customers decide to buy a product on the spot? No, online customers rarely look into a site and decide to buy from the store immediately...

First, online customers would like to know prices from other sites just to know whether they are closing on a good deal or not. In fact, based on emarketer.com, “four in five Internet users compare prices via digital channels”. In short, 80% of your potential customers will go to another site to check prices against your site.

Second, online customer demands a well thought design and experience during their visit to your site. One advice is to imagine that your site is your physical store, where the design reflects the credibility of the store. On top of that, design also affects customer experience during his or her stay in the store.

This is similar to the scheme that modern supermarkets use to let customers to spend more time in their store, which leads to higher sales. Supermarket owners organize their shelves, item location, and customer pathways to optimize customer’s length of stay inside the store. With that being said, online business owners should also provide the same experience to their customers in order to gain their trust and results in higher sales.

Design is weighted significantly in the current society, which is not surprising as the design of the website is the only knowledge that customers have about the business. As a result, business needs to focus on getting their site responsive on all platforms, devices, as well as screen sizes if they are aiming for brand loyalty.

Last but no the least, security plays out a significant role in determining customer’s purchase rate. According to The Canadian Center of Science and Education (CCSE) research on Factors that Influence Customers’ Buying Intention on Shopping Online, the major resistor of on-line shopping is security perception, which is related to payment.

As a matter of fact...

A majority of online customers wants to pay with the payment method that they are familiar with. Without a familiar payment method, online customers (especially from abroad) are reluctant to buy. This leaves potential customers to find another alternative, the competitor, to buy their product.

Let’s face the fact. The goal of opening any business is to get profits, not to mention online business. In order to get profits in an online business, there would be additional effort needed to identify the pitfalls of customer demand. When done right, cart abandonment rate will improve and ultimately increase the profits of the business.