It's an age old subject, but perhaps worth another go around. Why do people abandon the shopping cart without completing the sale and what can you do to rectify the problem?

1) Shipping Costs unclear without registering!

For me, as a user, one of the biggest annoyances, and often the reasons I will hit the back button, is not having any way to check shipping costs without registering an account. To me this smacks of capturing data prior to making the sale, not good from the buyer perspective. Some might think it a good idea from the merchant POV, I would disagree saying it is a short sighted view on commerce and you risk losing a long term customer.

2) Taxes not deducted for out-of-country purchases.

This applies to GST/VAT type countries where the tax is part of the price rather than the US where applicable sales tax is applied after the sale. I find it most annoying trying to buy things from UK companies only to find they do not deduct VAT for out-of-country purchases. Again, short sighted, I am this far away from dumping a merchant because of this which will result in them losing many sales.

3)

Your turn.

Multi page checkouts.

Impulse buyers need to be dealt with before they come to their senses 

Watch this for a multi page buying process >> http://screencast.com/t/6DAUvtctvC
(the live site keeps changing so i took the video, they are obviously testing)
This is a merchant who offers a £1.99 set of knives.
They lost my sisters order with the surprise delivery price, my girlfriend changed her mind by the time she got to the end of checkout, my mom ordered them(as did thousands of others - the guy sold out, then came back with same offer a few weeks later, so must be working for them although i believe this was also a branding exercise)

Personally I abandon a lot of carts - mainly because I'm just doing research.

Often I also go away when the shop does not tell me the prices, the shipping or if it's with/without tax/vat (huge issue as VAT is 25%)

I have abandoned 2 shopping lately for show an error with the web server certificate, when I clicked on the padlock everything looked OK but due to the error I did not proceed but I had already given my contact detail

the next day I got a phone call asking why I had not proceeded and when I explained that the information was only partly encrypted the girl insisted everything was fine, I have since purchased them elsewhere due to this error, it could of been my browser who knows but i am not prepared to take that risk

With the SSL errors, it's likely that they've done something dumb like buy it for one machine name, then use it on another, or buy it for the IP, not the domain. You almost certainly were secure, but it shows that people can get funny about things like that. Earning user trust is hard, and it's easily broken. Silly to lose it over a schoolboy error.

shipping price is a biggie for me. Especially when each item changes it.

I also tend to buy more at places with long basket sessions - like days - notonthehighstreet.com keeps your contents for ages and I buy a lot I would otherwise forget I wanted - so perhaps thats not quite anti-abandonment, more giving me my half loaded cart back!

Not offering products to NI pisses me off.. Auto adding things to my basket. Changing the address I used to one their 15 year old database says is correct and uses a county which doesn't exist any more. Charging me extra for credit card purchases. not using accurate stock levels (and one which really annoyed me - offering a 3 for 2, having one item out of stock and then sending me the other 2 at full price - so thats a two for two then? wtf?)

And one you don't find until after checkout - space for delivery comments/instructions and then not using them. Definately stops me going back.

some twat down south somewhere used my credit card to buy a wide screen TV 18 months ago for £ 599 and it took 8 months to get the money removed from my card

since then I am even more careful, it was a minor thing with the certificate but cost them a £ 1,000 order

Similar thing happened to me mick.

Bought something from cycle shop, at checkout something made pause, some minor error but i ignored it. Couple of weeks later the bank security team is calling me, running through a load of recent purchase i'd never made - site was legit, it got my bike part but they checkout process was compromised by some hackers - Thought i was pretty careful before but now unless it's a brand i know i'll abandon that cart at the first whiff of anything being out the ordinary.

I'll also let Big brands get away with a lot more than other merchants. Little things like making supplying a phone number compulsory is ok for dyson, but some shop i've never heard of can go fish. 

Running good old fashion focus groups across your whole target audience.

Here is an old script and methog I put together:

hxxp://www.ukgimp.co.uk/2006/11/27/conducting-focus-groups/

I remember when we did tests on this thing, shipping was a huge factor.

Quoteand often the reasons I will hit the back button, is not having any way to check shipping costs without registering an account.

Unless you do free shipping, you have to have a way to see where it is being shipped to.  If you ship from New York to Pennsylvania, that will be much less than New York to Hawaii.  I'm sure Australia is the same way (given its size.)

I'm curious though...is this an issue in the UK?  I mean, the size of the UK isn't nearly as vast as, say Australia or the US.  Is it more possible to do free shipping in the UK just because of its size?

Anyone know?

Oh, hit the save button before I finished my thought..

The other big thing was that the shopping cart needs to look really simple, and there needs to be easy to find "Help" buttons for common questions.

Multiple pages don't hurt you so long as there is a numbered thing at the top telling you where you are in the process.  Also, if you can fill stuff out for people automatically, that's a big deal.  Esp if the billing and shipping address are the same.

Another thing we found is that people often use the cart to "bookmark" items so they can compare prices on other sites. 

Shipping is the absolute #1 reason for me... I'll be going along just fine, and then find out the only shipping option they have for Alaska is UPS 2day, usually costing as much as or more than the thing I'm buying. Or they don't ship to Alaska at all. Or it's some small item, but they won't ship to a PO Box.

What *really* pisses me right the fsck off though, is when they offer USPS shipping to the lower 48, but not Alaska or Hawaii... last I checked, I get USPS mail service 6 days a week, no problem. (That's a bigger problem with ebay sellers than regular online stores though.)

Then again, the #2 reason is when I was just window shopping, and using the cart to add up prices for me. heh

Quote from: grnidone on November 12, 2010, 05:31:59 PM
  Is it more possible to do free shipping in the UK just because of its size?

Most bits of the UK are standard rate postage, and those bits which aren't are used to having to pay extra, even when free shipping is advertised, but its not necessarily cheap shipping, just standard rate.

Also everything is so price led at the moment that I think a lot of companies won't offer free shipping because they lose out on the order with a higher price on comparison sites. Many use free shipping as an incentive for higher value orders or as a email offer though.

Ha! Ship to a PO Box.  Dead right.  For a UK merchant, that's like shipping to Nigeria .  Unless you know the person of course 
Half kidding Teresa.

Most of my abandoned (Once people are logged in), are either US orders (shipping costs cannot be added until after I know where the customer lives, although I do have a calculator, not obvious as US orders are a mixed blessing) fraud, or a very few problems with a check out.  Of those we phone, we loose due to check out about a third (educated guess) as they have bought elsewhere.

A key part of converting the abandoned orders for which we have an email address, is we send a email automatically about a hour after it fails. Most real orders get back to us on the phone or reply to that email.


I had one person a couple of weeks ago who said they had a security warning Mick, but have been unable to recreate it. I have at the mo put it down to his computer, as there is no excuse for that imho. 

Morning Denis,  you posted as I was reading   That's a good point for white goods. Free shipping is a must for me in the UK. (imho)  There is a company I work with who are catalogue based, but not price lead, who still charge delivery.

Now, where do customers buy when the don't buy from me? And how do I switch them back?  That's a key for me.  I suspect it is all about feelings, nothing solid though.