On-site Conversion Hacks at OpenCart Checkout (Crash Course)
You’ve acquired a website visitor in your OpenCart store.
He’s reached your shopping cart page with adding item(s).
Then he leaves without finishing the order.
Almost 70% of your customers do exactly the same thing! And that is a lot of lost revenue (estimated to be about $31 billion worldwide).
Yet, it is very close to the conversion point when you close the deal and the opportunity to win that order is high. How can you optimize your checkout journey in a way to grow your sales and lower the cart abandonment rates?
There are 3 main solution types - preventive, on-site and follow-up. This article covers the second one - on-site optimization.
On-site Tricks To Lower OpenCart Cart Abandonment Rate
The shopping cart abandonment rate in e-commerce is a business metric that reveals the percentage of shopping carts that are abandoned before the clients complete the order.
This is how to convert shopping cart viewers into buyers:
1. Minimum-Steps Checkout
Around 10% people abandon their shopping cart because of a long checkout process. The average online checkout process is estimated to include as much as 5.6 pages.
The best-case scenario is that you set-up a one-step checkout.
2. No Registration or Guest Checkout (after purchase)
There is up to 45% increase in sales when obligatory registration is removed. At least, you can postpone it after purchase with highlighting the values of creating an account (like order history and tracking or special discount).
3. Short Forms
Ask only for essential information and minimize the amount of data you display. It also helps if you set up preconfigured field (ex. address box) or input alerts on the moment of filling out the information.
4. Easy-to-Edit Shopping Cart
A customer should find a simple way to manipulate cart actions, for example to remove unwanted items, change quantities or activate promo codes.
5. Explicit Call-to-Action Button
Design clear and big call-to-action buttons. You can get some inspiration from Patagonia’s “Add to Cart” button that clearly stands out in the page.
6. Clear Pricing without Hidden Fees
56% of customers abandon their purchases when they’re faced with an unexpected total price as they get to the final checkout.
49% of online shoppers abandon their purchases because of hidden fees that are only revealed upon checkout. If you can’t afford free shipping, make sure your customer is aware of shipping costs as early as possible.
For example, display cart triggers at all pages. Movies Unlimited allows its online shoppers to see their existing cart via a dropdown menu, rather than navigating to a separate page. This led to an estimated decrease in cart abandonment of 4% to 8%.
Another good practice is to add a shipping calculator or estimator as early in the process as possible. Best Buy’s shopping cart, for example, has a built-in sales tax calculator to avoid any additional surprises for customers.
7. Social Sharing and Reviews
People love sharing. Give them an easy way to do so.
Also, 90% of customers consult ratings, reviews, and social media, before making a purchase decision. Let your customers share and look out for information without leaving your website and include social sharing buttons, product reviews, and ratings.
8. Security Badges and Satisfaction Guarantees
Recent Baymard research confirms that security justifications are among the most important things that customers are looking for.
Security and satisfaction badges can be added not only for the payment process and providers, but also about the authenticity of your products.
9. Legal Terms and Privacy Info
Highlight your general terms, privacy policy and other documents that imply the security of personal data, payment processing, returns etc. Also, include full information about the delivery, return and refund rules of your store.
10. Personalized Product Recommendations
At the checkout page include a set of custom items - previously viewed, similar items or complementary ones. Those are automatic widgets that display the right product to the particular viewer through a predictive technology. It analyzes his behavior, browsing and purchasing history.
11. Product Bundles
Trigger a purchase by offering product bundles on a discount price. For example, in case a customer has added a purple duvet cover in their cart, display an up-sell offer “Add this purple pillow case in your cart and grab 10% off at checkout!”
12. Pop-ups
They might be triggered if a customer stays at the checkout page too long without finishing his order or in case he tries to close the tab: “Hey, wait! Are you leaving yet?”. You might want to also include a discount incentive to close the deal.
13. Urgency Triggers
Most probably you have used Booking.com? Then you know what we are talking about!
Include information about limited quantities or number of people viewing the same item. In the example below, there's a small notification saying that a customer has just bought a product.
We have a few more tips on on-site conversion and tracking. Also, researched on the best practices of the whole customer journey (before ending at the checkout page and after leaving the shopping cart without finalizing the purchase). We also added tools, tips and tutorials to help you SET UP all that in your OpenCart store right away.
It’s all available for free in a short 5-day email crash course. Take a look:
You’ll get:
- Checkout and shopping cart guidelines
- Tools, extensions and tutorials
- 20-step checklist
- 5% discount at iSenseLabs.
