There is a science and an art to selling online. Those who understand the needs and desires of their target demographic are more likely to convert buyers. However, even with the best ads and persistent email marketing, the problem of WooCommerce’s abandoned carts still needs to be solved in e-commerce.
The best way to tackle any problem is to explore as many solutions as possible. For online stores, like with all other website owners, it all boils down to user experience. With business savvy and attention to detail, you can design an online business that caters more effectively to your customers. Let’s discuss.
What Causes Shopping Cart Abandonment?
Online shopping has revolutionized how buyers and sellers interact, especially when it comes to helping small business owners earn a living. Still, there is one area where brick-and-mortar retail has the upper hand, and that is cart abandonment.
The average of WooCommerce abandoned carts is around 70 per cent for most industries. For mobile devices, it’s even higher at 85 per cent. And while it’s possible to reduce these levels, the fact is that eliminating cart abandonment is pretty much impossible.
A number of factors can prevent purchases from reaching fruition, including
- Poor store design
- Unavailable products or services
- Hidden charges and shipping costs
- Untrustworthy website
- Limited payment options
Obviously, since it can negatively affect your profits, solving the cart abandonment problem is a priority. On the one hand, you can recover lost sales through effective email marketing and retargeting lost shopping carts.
However, shopping cart recovery is just looking at one side of the problem. To prevent customers from abandoning their purchases, you must overhaul your shop. Luckily, with WooCommerce, that can be simpler than you think.
6 UX-Centric Ways To Prevent WooCommerce Abandoned Carts
A robust user experience, or UX, is one of the hallmarks of a healthy, thriving website. It’s one of the first boxes you need to tick if you’re to secure SEO and conversions.
How accessible and easy-to-use a shop website is directly influences cart abandonment rates. So, preserving your sales and online traffic relies on a reliable UX strategy. Any problem that your customers face while interacting with your businesses needs a powerful, lasting, and straightforward solution. For most websites, the list of possible approaches can be endless.
But online stores can employ a more streamlined, tried-and-tested set of tactics to keep buyers tuned in to their purchase. Here are some ways that can help you maintain purchases.
- Checkout Solutions
Cart abandonment commonly occurs as a result of checkout-related complications. This makes sense, as checkout is ultimately the step that leads to order fulfilment. And buyers might be put off by a complicated and lengthy process.
So, first and foremost, streamline your store’s checkout flow into a one-page or one-click solution. Offer instructions where possible and ensure validation for checkout fields where necessary.
Additionally, offer guest checkout in your store. Not all buyers will have an account with your store, and making that a necessity can drive off new buyers. Guest checkout is inclusive and leads to greater purchases from your shop.
- Mobile Fiest Design
The sad fact is that many online store owners fail to design a mobile-friendly website. This is a problem considering that smartphone users are among the leading demographic when it comes to online shopping. And they’re already too picky and inattentive to risk serving with poor user experience.
Make sure your website is optimized for responsiveness on all devices. Mobile-first design helps your website perform better on smaller screens while retaining equal accessibility on Desktop computers.
- Display Trust Signals
Suspicious, seedy web design and aesthetics leave a bad impression on buyers, leading to higher WooCommerce abandoned cart figures. To avoid making them skittish during their purchase, use security badges, highlight all customer reviews, and streamline payment gateways. Building trust like this works wonders in maintaining high conversion rates among your ideal audiences.
- Payment Gateways – Spoil For Choice
Regarding payment options, online buyers can have a range of preferences, From digital wallets and bank cards to regional gateways or even cash on delivery, ensure that your stores offer all of them.
After all, if you’re selling internationally, you’ll find that customers in many countries don’t have access to PayPal or Stripe. So, expanding their options increases your chances of making a purchase.
- Offer A Cart Saving Option
Buyers often incorrectly use the Add To Cart feature to save items for later. To solve this issue, offer a wishlist of cart-saving features to prevent interruptions in the order fulfilment process.
- Get Rid Of The Clutter
A lack of transparency when it comes to shipping costs and extra fees is perhaps the biggest cause of shopping cart abandonment. Making your policies and pricing upfront is much easier with simplistic, UX-centric web design.
Instead of flashy, screen-clogging elements, use CTAs, progress indicators, and highlighted e-commerce prices. This not only aids in decision-making, but also helps build trust among your customers,
UX Means Keeping Things Simple
Online customers are a notoriously tough crowd, which is why WooCommerce cart abandonment rates are so high. But you don’t need to address all of them. With these common sense UX-based solutions, you can provide a well-maintained interface for customers and increase conversion rates with ease.
