Omsetgo.com - E-commerce industry has been growing rapidly for the past few years. Amazon.com in the United States, Alibaba.com in China, Tokopedia.com and BukaLapak.com in Indonesia have been one of the pioneers in respective countries. The growth is supported by growing consumer demand to purchase products online. In Indonesia, Instagram is booming as a platform to buy and sell products and services. Out of various products and services, fashion products such as clothes, shoes, and accessories are the most popular. In Indonesia, we have thousands of online shops selling these products whether in Instagram, Facebook, or their own website.
The main problem a Fashion E-commerce is usually Cart Abandonment.
Definition (from Webopedia): Abandonment is an electronic commerce term used to describe a visitor on a Web page who leaves that page before completing the desired action. Examples of abandonment include shopping cart abandonment, referring to visitors who add items to their online shopping cart, but exit without completing the purchase.
Currently, the average cart abandonment rate in the world is 67.91%. It also means that 2 out of 3 online transactions are not successful. (Source: Wikipedia)
These abandonment does not just happen in website e-commerce. It also happens in Instagram, Facebook, and other channels. There is a lot of cancellations in Instagram's purchase online. This causes a lot of E-commerce shops to create rules such as "CANCEL = BLACKLIST", to hinder potential customers from asking questions if they are not sure. This may be good to filter only serious customers, but this would also cause the shop losing many potential customers.
Here are the top 8 things to focus on to reduce cart abandonment in an E-commerce website:
1. Clear pricing
Most E-commerce shops using Instagram do not show their pricing. There are reasons behind this. Sellers do not want competitors to know their pricing nor they want potential customers to compare price with other shops. Sellers allow potential customers to directly chat them via LINE, WhatsApp, or BBM. This way, only the most interested prospects will directly chat the sellers. Directly chatting has a high commitment to buying.
However, this filter has made sellers lose a lot of potential customers. There are many people that would love to know the price before chatting for inquiries.
Especially on a website where users and the platform interact freely, clear pricing is very important for users to able to make a purchase decision. Without clear pricing, users will doubt the legitimacy of the website.
2. Product descriptions
Product descriptions such as available sizes for clothes and shoes are very important. Even if the users are interested, they cannot make a decision to purchase before they are convinced that they can wear the products.
Other than size information. Potential customers also want to know what the products are made of, why it is different and worth buying, what the story behind the product is, etc.
3. Stock availability
It is important to clearly tell users about the availability of a particular product. If a user doesn't know it, he/she may continue doing actions that give him/her no results and waste time. That is a bad user experience.
4. Shipping cost charges and duration
Shipping charges have to be clearly stated and easily changeable to other currencies (for international buyers). Users do not like hidden charges that occur when they are going to pay for something.
Shipping information is important to tell users when it will arrive at their homes. Sellers can also mention how long it will take for products that are out of stock to be sent to the customers if they want to purchase it.
Offering free shipping can be a very good way to persuade users to buy. Everyone loves free stuff. About 58% of potential customers abandon the cart after seeing shipping charges. This is especially true for low-priced items, customers would feel that the shipping charge of 7 dollars does not worth their money for a 15-dollar product. FREE Shipping is king. Sellers can offer free shipping if customers purchase at a minimum amount, such as 80 dollars total purchase value.
5. Photos
Photo Credit: Bro.do
Photos with models wearing the products are effective to present the appearance of the products. High-quality photos represent high-quality products. People love to see visuals before they buy. Photos from multiple angles are also useful to make customers understand how they will look if they wear the product.
6. Offers and discounts
Photo Credit: Forever 21
Users love to get value. Offers and discounts with limited time are effective to make customers purchase immediately. However, sellers need to make sure that the offers and discounts procedures are clear and seamless. Sometimes promotions are not straightforward and require customers to do certain things such as sharing an image with certain hashtags or mentions. Many potential customers might not understand the procedures and become disappointed when they find out they are not eligible for the promotions. Simplicity is the key to creating a successful promotional campaign.
7. Video tutorial for innovative products
Video Credit: Darcy George
For sellers with relatively innovative or new products, showing a video tutorial is the best way to demonstrate how to use the innovative product.
Photos of the steps are good enough for printed media. However, a video is still more effective to communicate methods to the audience, especially in a website and social media platforms.
8. Website load speed
Users expect everything to be quick and seamless. If an E-commerce website loads slowly. Users will feel that the website is not powerful enough and assume the store is not professional.
Slow website load speed also lowers trust and momentum for potential buyers to purchase. It is important to test the load speed of an E-commerce website time to time, especially after adding many new products to the website.
We can test our website load speed with Pingdom Website Speed Test Tool or GTmetrix Website Speed and Performance Optimization (It also provides recommendations on how to improve it).
About OMSETGO Digital Marketing Specialist
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