When choosing an online shopping cart, there may not appear to be many nuances; however, consider that cart abandonment is one of the major problems common to all online retailers, regardless of industry. And the issue is widespread: studies indicate that 68 percent of shoppers abandon their shopping cart before completing a transaction. Some businesses report up to an 80 percent abandonment rate.
Shopping cart abandonment has led to an annual loss of billions of dollars and climbing. According to Forrester Research, the estimated total of annual abandoned shopping cart revenue will reach $31 Billion dollars.
Most research indicates that consumers stop the purchase process due to unexpected costs like shipping and taxes as the top reason followed with “I was just browsing” as the second highest reason for cart abandonment. It is important to keep these behaviors in mind and remember that consumers usually don’t purchase the first time they visit. With that said, optimizing features and functionality of your shopping cart is a critical part of increasing ecommerce.
In any ecommerce situation, the shopping cart is the conduit of a company’s income. Making a well-informed decision in choosing the right shopping cart is of primary importance. There are several factors to consider. Just like choices regarding your website’s design and functionality, you must decide whether to use out-of-the-box software, or to create a custom e-commerce solution.
The website Practical Ecommerce offers these suggestions for must-haves in an online shopping cart:
- Large, Functional Product Images
- Product Reviews
- Layered and Faceted Navigation
- Single-Page, Fast Checkout
- Search Function (Supporting site search)
- Coupons and Discounts
- Product Import and Export
- Easy Integration with Third Party Solutions
- Analytics and Sales Reporting
Ecommerce functionality should fit your business needs, and creating a custom online shopping cart allows your website to drive revenue to your business and encourages consumers to complete that transaction.
To learn more about services and products – including how custom designing an online shopping cart can help your business – visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.