The key metric is the percentage of times the process is abandoned on each step. The implicit assumption is that steps with the highest abandonment rates are the biggest problem.

When you actually do this type of measurement, the most common finding is that the conversion funnel step abandonment rates look like a big U. The first step of a form process often has a high-abandonment rate, followed by a series of steps with small and relatively similar abandonment rates, concluding with a final confirmation step that also has a high-abandonment rate.

Different design philosophies and implementations will produce different curves, but this is the pattern I’d describe as “classic.” Given this common pattern (or the existence of any common pattern other than an equal rates), is it meaningful to suggest that the step with the highest exit rate is reflective of a problem? Not really. That would only be true if the natural forms abandonment model was that each step had an equal chance of abandonment.

Once you discard that assumption, it’s obvious that no particular level of step abandonment is positive evidence that the step is somehow broken or worse than any other step. Thinking the issue through, it should also be obvious that no particular level (or even change) in step abandonment is necessarily evidence of a problem.

This is a similar point to one I’ve made before many times about reporting. Just as no one Conversion Rate (or even an improvement in Conversion Rate) is positively good, a step abandonment rate must be viewed within a larger context.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you have form process with four steps and you produce a report like this:

Has the form gotten worse? Maybe, but perhaps not. Indeed, with no physical change in the process the real-world odds are heavily against such a conclusion. Far more likely is that the shape and quality of traffic into the form has changed for the worse. If you just started a major PPC effort, it may be that you are driving far more, and somewhat less qualified, traffic than before. Form performance will reflect that.

This point is especially critical to understand if you change your conversion process AND change your site design at the same time. This combination may produce worse Step Conversion rates even with a Form that has been signficantly improved – a fact that is almost always missed or mis-interpreted.

I believe this illustrates two critical points. First, a step abandonment rate taken as a single fact means nothing. Like so many individual metrics, it is dangerous and misleading when used as a single point of decision-making. Second, measured form performance is very dependent on exogenous factors.

This should give pause to anyone who thinks that the basic process of measuring conversion processes is to find the steps with high abandonment and fix them!

I’m going to step back for a moment and layout some more general principles for thinking about measuring conversion processes.

It seems to me that in building up a system of measurement, we have to a bit of a theory about form-based processes on the web. Here are some basic rules (some purely theoretical some based on actual experience) I think might make up such a theory:

• All forms will experience some friction.
• Each field and each form will contribute at least a small amount of friction to the process.
• Some fields inherently involve significant friction. These include commitment steps, complex steps and steps requiring personal or unusual information.
• Some visitors do not intend to finish a process – and these visitors may abandon at different steps. So eliminating a Form with a 10% drop rate will not produce an equal effect on final conversion.
• The lower the pre-qualification of visitors into a Forms process, the higher the effect of friction.
• Abandonment on a Form is most common when the user has not changed the field focus.

I believe these principles are sound, though probably not even close to exhaustive. Still, they produce some fairly straightforward analytic consequences:

• Some abandonment will occur in any Form.
• Some spots always have higher abandonment – this doesn’t mean they are “worse.”
• Some fields will have a higher abandonment – this doesn’t mean they are “worse.”
• Elimination of a step or field should always have at least a tiny incremental positive effect.
• Behavioral Analysis can measure the friction involved in a step – but not necessarily provide direction about how to reduce that friction.
• Changing the shape of the traffic into the form will likely affect BOTH the rate of step abandonment and the ratio of step abandonment between steps.

It should be obvious from this that the basic measurement task in a conversion process is not to simply identify step completion rates.

From the above discussion, it should be clear that a high abandonment rate doesn’t imply failure.

On the other hand, it is a purely empirical point whether or not such steps are easier or more difficult to improve than lower friction steps. Based on our real-world experience, I’d argue that the weight of empirical evidence is, in fact, in the contrary direction. It’s often easier to improve conversion processes by focusing on relatively low-friction steps.

A similar lesson applies to field-based abandonment. While the field focus (the place where the cursor was when the user left the Form) on abandonment is sometimes significant, it is quite often simply the first (or last) field on the form. Neither is particularly meaningful. So while looking at field-based abandonment can occasionally be helpful, it is hardly the slam-dunk analysis that people unpracticed in web analytics often expect.

In this post, I focused mainly on the wrong way to approach conversion process analysis. In my next post, I’ll take up some of what I believe are the real analytic tasks around form measurement!

Comments

The information people want about financial products tends to be hidden behind application processes on such websites. People who would like to see those details have no choice but to go through the process.

This may help the consumer, but it plays merry hell with the conversion rates. ComScore and Forrester Research looked into the issue of finance and abandonment, and found the devil in the details.

49 percent of applicants in their survey had no intention of completing an application process. That group cited a few reasons for why they entered a process on a financial website:

The top reasons cited by those who did not intend to complete the application included:

•  Wanted more product information (23 percent)
•  Not ready to apply (19 percent)
•  Wanted to see if they qualified for the product (14 percent)

Forrester Research Senior Analyst Brad Strothkamp said of the conversion problem, "Today’s financial services sites have a ways to go at both understanding and solving this important issue."

There is an object lesson here for site publishers. If people enter a conversion process, then abandon it, and do so in sufficient numbers, it probably means there is a piece of information that belongs in a FAQ or help section that visitors wish to find.

Hard earned dollars are spent on marketing, promotions, search engine optimization, and advertising to bring the targeted customers to the site.

Site design is improved to provide ease of navigation and to display the offered products to their best advantage. Often forgotten in the shuffle is the lowly shopping cart.

A badly designed and difficult to use shopping cart will undermine all of those other efforts to increase visitor traffic and improve sales.

All too often, e-commerce website owners shrug their shoulders and either dismiss the problem as being trivial in the total amount of sales lost, or believe that little can be done to solve the abandonment problem.

The cost to an online business, in lost sales resulting from leaving the shopping cart in mid-transaction, is not trivial. Industry estimates vary, but many e-commerce insiders believe that approximately 75% of all shopping cart transactions are not carried through to completion.

In other words, only one out of four customers, who want to purchase a website’s products and services, ever complete the purchase process. Even a minor improvement in the conversion rate to 50% abandonment, represents a doubling of total sales completions. The problem is definitely not a trivial one.

The other concern is that little can be done to change or improve the shopping cart buying experience to increase the sales completion percentage. That fear is without foundation. The good news is that many low cost and highly effective improvements can be made to an e-commerce site, to enhance the level of sales completion.

While the techniques might not represent huge changes individually, but when taken together, they can double or even triple an online business’s total sales volume. Each improvement represents a slight incremental increase in sales transaction completion.

As each technique saves another sale from abandonment, the effect on the business bottom line becomes very noticeable.

Perhaps it’s time to take the lowly shopping cart a bit more seriously after all.

Improving ease of shopping cart use

Many e-commerce site shopping carts are not very easy to use. Completing a buying transaction is often slow, complicated, and often an entirely illogical process. Only the most determined customers stay with the process to the very end. Unfortunately, the determined ones are in the minority.

Those potential buyers who got lost, or simply gave up, represent revenue that just clicked away to someone else’s site.

Making some easy and low cost improvements in the buying experience in general, and the shopping cart in particular, will pay off handsomely with increased business income.

One of the most obvious shopping cart improvements is to let the customers know, every step of the way, how far along they are in the buying process. Include a progress indicator to prominently display how far along the customer has advanced in the checkout process.

Each step of the way to completion should be clearly numbered. For example, if a customer understands they have reached step three in a five step process, she will be less likely to click away from the purchase.

The problem of time concerns and of process length uncertainty are solved, as the buyer knows that only two more steps are required. If a customer knows where they are at all times, the probability of completion improves.

It’s important for the user to know when and where to click and advance to the next step in the process. Be sure to include a “Next Step” button, or a “Continue With Checkout” button on each page, and where they can easily be seen.

Be very careful to widely separate the “Remove From Cart” button from the “Continue” button to prevent clicking the wrong one, causing a full or partial emptying of the cart. Such problems of use will almost certainly cause immediate cart abandonment from frustration.

Easily adding to, changing, or removing articles from the shopping cart should be made as easy as possible. For articles available in different colors, sizes, or with any other options, the ability to make changes is especially important.

Be sure to include a link back to the product being purchased. Many customers are uncertain if the often complicated product number is the correct one. Linking the catalogue number back to the product page reassures the buyer that the entered product code matched the desired purchase. Simply knowing that the right item was entered into the order form will reassure the customer.

Adding a thumbnail image of the product to the shopping basket will also improve the rate of completion. While in the middle of the buying process, the potential purchaser has another opportunity to see the product and visualize ownership. The availability of product photos is a powerful completion tool for all shopping carts.

Making the products easy, risk free, and secure to buy

All too often, products are not easy to buy. While at first glance, the process would be a simple one, but there are many types of customers, often with widely different needs and requirements. Helping the user to make the right choices often involves listening to their personal preferences.

Provide more than one payment option. Not every customer has credit cards, and many people are very reluctant to provide their credit card information over the internet. Provide a toll free telephone number or a fax number where the information can be sent without being entered online. The choices of using voice or fax for payment information should be made readily available and easy to find on every checkout page.

New visitors and first time buyers require special care and ease of purchase. Don’t create difficult registration and log-in requirements. Those procedures will only serve to drive customers away. Offline brick and mortar businesses don’t usually require lengthy registrations or log-ins for their customers, and neither should an online business.

Difficult systems create an impression that the customer is not to be trusted. Indeed, the customer is more likely to mistrust the internet business itself.

If your checkout accepts discount and coupon codes, make sure that a clearly marked box is available, or a specially noted line on the order form is easy to use. User errors should be easily corrected without loss of data, and the box must be well highlighted to avoid being overlooked by users.

Don’t forget to cross sell and offer more available options and choices to purchasers. Such offers are not usually viewed as intrusive, but are often seen as offering convenience. Think of the shoe store offering shoe polish or extra shoelaces to purchasers.

Offering additional options works well, as many purchasers neglect to add them all into their order form. A handy reminder, built right into the shopping cart order form, will help to assure a satisfied customer.

Building trust in new and repeat customers

As an online business, lacking the face to face advantages offered to bricks and mortar companies, it’s essential for the e-commerce business to develop trust in the retailer and customer relationship.

Always make certain that company contact information is readily available, by phone, fax, e-mail, and the postal service. Strong customer service and quick response to questions and concerns will help to ensure the current and future sales. Contact information should be clearly marked on every checkout page.

A good idea is to not hide unpleasantries. Be upfront about any additional shipping and handling charges very early in the buying experience. Customers want to know the total purchase price in advance, and not an unpleasant surprise near the end of the process. Few things contribute to high abandonment rates as failure to inform the customer of additional charges.

Provide a reasonable time for the customer to expect delivery, and beat that date by as much time as possible. The customer will appreciate the unexpected early delivery. The methods of shipment should be clearly marked, along with the charges, right on the order form. Offer more than one means of shipment, as many people have distinct preferences.

If billing and shipping addresses are the same, provide a check box to save the customer providing the same information twice. The gesture will be appreciated. If any information is missing, provide a useful and easy to follow return page that asks for a specific piece of information. Don’t make the buyer fill out an entire form all over again.

If one of your products is temporarily out of stock, be certain to inform the potential purchaser of that fact. If possible, provide a date when the product will return to the sales inventory. As with shipping, providing expected times enhances sales.

Along with the usual credit card payments, offer customers the choice of PayPal, checks, or money orders. Debit card payments are also becoming popular for online purchases. Don’t limit your customers. Help them to buy from you.

Offer a guarantee. If a customer is not satisfied, offer to accept a return of the merchandise and provide a full refund. Offering a “lowest price guarantee” is another option. While a few people will attempt to cheat your system, the vastly increased number of sales, directly resulting from the guarantee, will more than offset that small loss.

Offer an exit survey to customers who still choose to abandon your shopping cart. The feedback and reasons for the abandonment provided, by the dissatisfied customers, will help to improve the system.

Test the system for usability. Bring in several people to test the checkout procedure. Have them go through a product buy for you, and keep careful notes of their steps. Their actions and choices might be entirely different from what was envisioned in the design. Test and retest changes until the shopping cart checkout system is operating smoothly; and then test some more.

Conclusion

Shopping cart abandonment is a widespread problem, faced by many e-commerce companies.

By closely examining your checkout procedures, and making changes where needed, you can vastly improve your sales completion percentage.

Don’t let shopping cart abandonment happen to you, and your internet business.

Stop shopping cart abandonment today.

Reader Comments…

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What is “shopping cart abandonment”?

Basically, shopping cart abandonment is when a visitor initiates your checkout process but leaves before completing their purchase.

Why is it important to know?

Industry publications report a 70% average shopping cart abandonment rate for the majority of retailers. Since, on average, websites convert visitors-to-sales at a rate of 1% to 2% then 98% to 99% of the visitors to your website leave without purchasing!

These percentages identify an enormous improvement opportunity for online businesses.

A Traditional Retail Example of Shopping Cart Abandonment.

Let me illustrate shopping cart abandonment using a traditional department store.

Imagine walking into your local department store to pick up a gift for a friend’s wedding.

You find the three items you want but together the price exceeds your budget so you drop one of them and head with just two to the checkout counter.

When you get close to the checkout counter, you grow frustrated with the long lines ahead. After a ten minute wait in line, the cashier asks you to complete a membership form before they will compete your purchase.

The membership form requires your driver’s license information so you pull out your wallet while people behind you start huffing impatiently.

As you register, you mind lingers about whether two items is just too much for your friend’s wedding gift. “I mean they only gave us one item for our wedding” you think. So you ask the cashier to remove one of the items.

While ringing up your one item, the credit card reader fails. After the fourth swap by the cashier, you panic wandering if your card has just been charged four times.

At this point you give up and leave the store empty handed. While storming out you wander if the department store up the street will make your purchase any easier.

Know These Top Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

This example is filled with some of the top reasons why visitors to your website may abandon their shopping carts. A recent study by Vividence Corporation, a Customer Experience Management company, reported the most significant reasons for Internet shopping cart abandonment are:

High shipping prices or long delivery times

Comparison shopping and browsing

Changed Mind

Total cost of items is too high

Checkout process is too long

Checkout requires too much personal information

Site requires registration before purchase

Site is unstable or unreliable

Checkout process is confusing

Seven Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions for Your Online Business

Although some of these reasons may be outside your control such as a visitor changing their minds, the majority is manageable and can be reduced by incorporating seven improvements into your current shopping cart process.

1. Remove Member Registration until AFTER the sale is completed.

Many checkout processes require a visitor to register as a new member before they begin the actual checkout process. A principle of selling is to never stall a visitor from buying once they make the decision to do so. Instead support their decision by clearly and conveniently leading them through your checkout process.

After the sale is complete then offer your customer the opportunity to register. Since you have their personal information from the purchase, you can pre-fill the information (or request less of it). This enhancement removes the visitor’s buying barriers and enables them to perceive the registration as a value-added customer benefit.

2. Show shipping costs and other costs (i.e. applicable taxes)

Show the visitor all costs associated with their product purchase either in the first step of the checkout process or even in the product description. If you offer multiple shipping methods then default the shipping cost to the most popular one. If you apply taxes for certain States then communicate this early in the checkout process. Sometimes, retailers it is relevant for their market to ask a visitor for their zip code which can be used for calculating tax.

3. Build Confidence and Trust Throughout the Checkout Process

Place your guarantee, return, privacy, delivery, customer service and security policies in visible and relevant areas throughout the entire checkout process. Adding the policies at the very bottom of the web page is not effective since you are causing your visitor to search for it. Add the individual policies next to the information field or line item where it is most relevant to the visitor.

For example, add the privacy policy next to the email address field in the checkout process and add the delivery and return policy next to the shipping cost line item. In addition, add your security policy next to the “checkout” button.

Also, add your physical address and other contact information at the bottom of every web page. Usability studies suggest adding an “About Us” and “Contact Us” links to your navigational structure to build confidence and trust as well.

4. Add a progress indicator on each checkout page

Is it important to let visitors know how many steps are in your checkout process and to show progress as thy work through it. A progress indicator is commonly located at the top of the checkout pages and is clearly numbered with the current step highlighted.

Make sure that you provide visitors the opportunity to review what they did in previous steps without erasing the information they had already entered.

If a visitor enters information incorrectly or forgets a required field, have your checkout process remember their correct information and identify the missing information clearly. Do not make people repeat an entire step because of a missing field.

Surprisingly, the number of steps in your checkout process may not have a significant effect on your visitors’ commitment to purchase. Although for many businesses, a two to three step checkout process is ideal.

5. Provide purchase options

Offer your visitors the opportunity to call a 1-800 number for customer support or online chat like LivePersonTM (www.liveperson.com) during your checkout process.

Visitors may be uncomfortable with completing a purchase online or become confused during checkout so clearly present your 1-800 number and/or online chat support link on every page within your checkout process.

6. Clearly identify what your visitor should click nest to complete the step

Clearly indicate the “continue checkout” button. Make it obvious where the visitor should click to move forward in the checkout process and keep it consistent for every step.

7. Use a readable and clear font size and color

The font size and color of your copy may influence your visitor’s desire to complete their purchase. If your font size is too small or the color is too difficult to read forcing a visitor to strain then the potential for abandonment will increase. This is especially serious for online businesses marketing to older populations.

Get to know your shopping cart abandonment rate and start implementing the above improvements. Most importantly, test different strategies and track which ones produce the greatest increases to your sales conversion rate.

Kevin Gold is CEO of Enhanced Concepts, specializing in turning website visitors into leads or sales, co-editor of WebSalesability.com and published writer. Get a free report, “12 Sure-fire Ways to Increase Your Website Sales” and an exclusive 5-day website conversion email course by visiting www.enhancedconcepts.com.