1 Tip to Lower Your Shopping Cart and Sign Up Abandonment Rate
By Igor Mordkovich on Sep 14, 2006 in Marketing Strategy, Increase Conversion Rate, General, Online Marketing
I’ll keep this short.
Every time you ask your visitors to fill out an extra information tab, it’s another barrier they need to jump over. Yes people are lazy and unless you sell something that no one else has and every one wants, you should do your best to make the process as easy as possible.
As a marketer I know that we need customer information in order to structure our marketing campaigns more accurately. Maybe you need the visitors’ date of birth, or their city of birth or anything else other than the information you require to actually process the order or brochure request.
What’s the TIP to lower your order or form abandonment and at the same time acquire extra information needed?
Ask the extra questions on the “Thank You” page. Ask them these questions when you already have their contact info. If a person just gave you their credit card, believe me, they will read and answer every question you throw at them at the end because they want to make sure they did everything correct and there won’t be any problems with their transaction.
Take your information form apart and split the questions by the a) Crucial “a must” questions to complete a “transaction” and b) Secondary questions to ask after the order form has been submitted.
Put your questions at the end of the checkout process? What kind of great advice is that! Seriously, that IS a great idea for info you want but don’t really need. And if they are prone to abandon a cart because of too many questions, they might as well do it after you got their money!!!
Stoney deGeyter | Sep 14, 2006 | Reply
Stoney, you’re right. If you offend your customers after the sale, they’ll have no problem of calling you and cancelling the sale, BUT Stoney,…
as a marketer you know that we benefit from information about our customers. That information could be … their birth day, how they found us info, who the product is for, maybe their e-mail…? etc.
If you try to ask all those questions before they check out … the abandonment rate can jump through the roof.
Now … if a person just placed an order … they want that item and they want it ASAP. If you give them a short questionnaire at the “thank you” page … most will answer it if they feel that the questions are valid and quick.
Remember, there are different industries. Some require a lot of information to keep their marketing strategy striving forward. The tactic above will help them do so. I’ve tested it before and in my industry (health technology communications) it worked beautifully.
Igor Mordkovich | Sep 14, 2006 | Reply
I wasn’t suggesting that this would cause people to cancel an order. I was just re-iterating your point:
1) people abandon carts when there are too many questions
2) if they already made the purchase it’s no big deal if they abandon before answering the rest of the questions.
And you’re absolutely right in that most people WILL answer the questions because they want to make sure the order goes through.
Stoney deGeyter | Sep 14, 2006 | Reply
The power of punctuation
After re-reading I see what you mean.
Igor Mordkovich | Sep 14, 2006 | Reply
That’s what I get for agreeing with you, eh?
Stoney deGeyter | Sep 15, 2006 | Reply