Shopping cart abandonment is like a nightmare that has come true, for ecommerce websites. It’s a phenomenon that affects most shopping carts or websites that are poorly designed. But, the fact that user’s have abandoned the shopping cart, means they were interested in buying your products and services and participated in the shopping cycle, but left it midway for certain reasons.

It’s estimated that online retailers face almost 50% abandonment rate.  Just imagine the loss of revenue! But to be fair, you can’t ensure that nobody using the checkout process will find faults with it. There is a chance that a section of users will exit the check out process before completing it. But, it’s important that designers and developers leave no stone unturned to implement the kind of shopping cart that is appreciated by a majority of the users. For this to happen, you will first need to identify the different factors that play a role in shopping cart abandonment.

1. A complex buying process

Customers love to spend some time mulling their decision to buy a particular product or service, but once the decision is taken, they don’t want to spend ages trying to buy the product. They want the process of shopping to be over quickly and successfully. But, if this does not happen, and the buying process puts them off because of its complexity, they will not complete it and abandon it midway. This complexity could be a result of faulty design, complex navigation, long check out process, and lack of help features amongst various other reasons.

2. Technical Problems in the Shopping Cart

Say you are in the midst of a check out process and it hangs up on you. It just stops; that’s it. As a customer, you are bound to get irritated, angry and in most cases, will just end the process there and then. Usually this problem occurs if a particular ecommerce shopping cart is incompatible with a particular browser. There is also a chance that the design is taking a toll on the seamless functioning of the shopping cart. If there is a lack of design optimization, it has a marked effect on the shopping cart functionality.

3. Inability to Access Important Information

If your shopping cart users are unable to get important information like shipping charges or can’t access the info about your customer services policies, there is a good chance that they are going to abandon the cart. You need to be able to give your prospective customers all information that encourages an informed buying decision. It’s only if customers think that they are making a well-thought out decision that they will actually go ahead and buy a product or service. Their inability to access such information is an important contributing factor towards shopping cart abandonment.

These are not the only reasons why online shoppers will see a particular shopping cart in a negative light. A bad shopping cart is a result of numerous errors, which result in a confusing, long drawn out and generally unsatisfactory shopping process.

Your ecommerce website is your very own online shop-front and is also a sales tool. It needs to be able to deliver a power-packed performance in order to convert. It needs to justify its existence and efficiency through increased sales. It’s only sales figures that are the clear determinants of the success or failure of an ecommerce solution.

So what separates ecommerce solutions that work and those that don’t. While some give credit to the online marketing efforts of the marketers, the real reason behind the successful performance of such solutions is the custom design. The greatest designs act as a trigger to draw out a positive reaction from the viewers. This fact assumes tremendous importance in ecommerce website design; where the objective is to encourage a positive reaction in the form of a ‘purchase’.

Let’s take a look at some design tips

Brilliant Product Images

Both underrated and overrated at the same time, there is no doubt that product photography is a crucial component of any ecommerce website. As a design element, it is underrated by those designers who think great product images don’t make for successful website design. On the other hand, it’s overrated by all those who think that such images are the only designing aspect that must be accorded importance. What actually needs to be done is make product images an important part of your overall design strategy.

An online shopper is unable to touch, hold, taste or smell the product on the site. The only interaction they have with the product is through its image. They need to feel confident about purchasing the product and a major chunk of this confidence is a result of the aesthetic quality of the images. It is this confidence that has a direct impact on your conversion rate. So, do not compromise on the image quality of the product. By ensuring that your product comes to life through its image is a perfect way of creating the right impression in the minds of prospective customers.

Avoid offering Numerous Choices

Wait a minute! How does, not offering a lot of choices contribute towards a successful ecommerce website? Your surprise, shock and doubt are duly noted. But, have you heard of a condition called ‘choice paralysis’. It’s a condition that affects the best of shoppers, when they are presented with a long list of choices. Instead of making their life easier, such plethora of choices makes their lives difficult.

Let me clarify. There is no problem in giving your customers a choice, but too much of a good thing is always bad. When your customers land on your website, they need to be able to decide what to buy in a given time frame. If they spend a lot of time in the process of selection, they can experience cognitive dissonance. When this happens, they might avoid buying any product on your site. So the design must be such that it helps your customers find the product. One of the ways of doing this is by using visuals to highlight the popular products and ensuring that the design guides customer towards these products.

AIDA oriented Design

Most website designers are perfectly aware of this design strategy. AIDA stands for A- Attention, I- Interest, D- Desire and A-Action.  A custom ecommerce solution should ensure that it first grabs the attention of the customer, then it must develop the customer’s interest for the product/service; once the product/service has captured their interest, they must be made to desire it; it is only if they desire a certain product/service that they will act to buy it.

The key here is to ensure that your design helps deliver the message of the website in the strongest possible terms. It must be able to focus the attention of the website visitors on your products and through the use of visual highlights must be able to trigger a desire for the said product. The final action that leads to product/service purchase can be accomplished through an effective mixture of call-to-action buttons and marketing copy.

Like all design tips, even these are great if you use them well. But, if you don’t, these tips are like the millions of others that you will come across on the internet.

When one says ‘custom built’, images of a perfect product that is tailor-made to fit the requirements of a user, are conjured up in our minds. When it comes to custom ecommerce, similar images come to mind, but they revolve around ecommerce solutions that have been developed keeping the needs and requirements of online shoppers in mind.

Businesses who are selling their products and services online have a real job on their hands. First, they need to market their products and services to their target audience and need to attract this audience, to their sites. Once that has been achieved, they now need to ensure that their website visitors buy products and services from their site. But this is not the end of it. They also need to guarantee a shopping cycle that is quick, convenient and secure.  This is only possible if a custom ecommerce solution is in place.

There are certain elements or qualities that define custom ecommerce. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Usability

When it comes to the development of an ecommerce solution, prime importance must be given to usability. Take for example the case of an ecommerce website. There are various aspects that determine the usability of an ecommerce website including the general user friendliness of the site, the convenience offered by the ecommerce shopping cart, the structure of the website, its security features and its navigability amongst various others. These aspects need to be customized to suit the needs and requirements of the target audience. Not doing so, will result in an unfriendly ecommerce site that users aren’t too excited about using, resulting in a loss of business for the merchant.

User Engagement

If ecommerce solutions do not engage a prospective customer, they aren’t going to be successful enough. This user engagement can be brought about through the addition of various features that interest the visitors and offer pertinent information about the products and services on the site.  These features could be in the form of product reviews, a customer’s forum, message boards, an ecommerce blog integrated with an ecommerce website, YouTube embedded videos or the integration of social media and many more. The options are immense and a client needs to identify those features that can help improve the overall user experience.

Custom Admin Panel

The needs of all online businesses are different. So, the admin panel of the ecommerce website needs to be customized to suit the intrinsic needs and requirements of that specific business. The needs of business owners also differ regarding the control of their ecommerce website. These and many other factors determine the composition of the admin panel and its features. Typically, a fully customized admin panels includes various modules such as, user management, products management, categories and sub-categories management order management, SEO management, payment gateway integration, product display and many more.

This is the kind of admin panel that gives authorized users complete control over the functionality of their site and they are able to add/edit/delete the product/categories/ content on the site from their admin panel. They can also update and/or modify their pricing through their admin panel. In a nutshell, using a custom admin panel, they can control all operations occurring on their website.

This is just an overview of some of the elements that make a custom ecommerce solution. There is no doubt that poor usability, user engagement and admin panel can kill your ecommerce business. So, customization and that too efficient customization is an absolute must. Otherwise users will be turned away from your site.

Small businesses have their work cut out for them. They don’t have the financial muscle of big businesses that spend a huge amount of money promoting their products and services.  So, they are forced to use out-of-the box promotional efforts to improve the visibility of their business and also increase their sales figures.

One of the ways used by small businesses to improve their sales figures is integrating ecommerce into their Facebook business page.

Leveraging Facebook Popularity

Facebook is arguably the most popular social networking platform in the world today. Most internet users have a presence on Facebook.  It is a huge resource of target audience that is waiting to be tapped. As a small business, you can use the popularity of this platform to give a push to your sales figures. By making your storefront available on Facebook, you are making it visible to Facebook users, who don’t have to stray from their Facebook accounts to buy your products or services.

The Online Shopping Mall

One of the biggest business advantages of Facebook is that it has slowly but surely started emerging as an online shopping mall. Integrating ecommerce features into a Facebook business page, is very much like opening a shop in a mall.  You are actually making your business and its products and services more accessible to users who spend a large part of their day in the Facebook environment. This betters your chances of making sales.

Enhanced shopping Experience

Your Facebook business page will help you administer all your Facebook Ad and will be the platform for all your promotional endeavors. The idea behind creating a business page on Facebook is giving your business an opportunity to attract a target audience based on their interests, preferences, region and various other factors. But what next! Once you have made an impression on your target audience, how do you make sure that they have a look at your products and services?

You can ensure this by integrating a storefront within your business page. There is no need for prospective customers to login to your ecommerce site.  They can shop for your products and services from your business page itself.

Impulse Buying

Facebook user love to explore and connect. This is why they are on Facebook in the first place. Studies indicate that many businesses both big and small are blending ecommerce with their Facebook page to create an environment for impulse buying.  A person having a glance at your business page might want to give your products and services a try at the spur of the moment. For small businesses, it’s important that such an opportunity is provided to customers. This can set the ball rolling for word of mouth publicity for your products and services across Facebook and beyond.

Integrating ecommerce in the Facebook Page is a great way for business and product promotion.. But, it must be used in the best possible way for ensuring maximizing returns.

For many years, there was a certain kind of stagnancy that was seen in ecommerce websites. Most websites offered customers the same features and there was very little freshness in the development aspect. But, all this changed when merchants realized the importance of taking their ecommerce website to the next level. Custom web development emerged onto the scene and today, there is no doubt that ecommerce has taken a big step in the right direction.

Better Shopping Experience

The use of sophisticated shopping carts solutions such as Zen cart, X-Cart, PrestaShop etc have changed online shopping for the better. Ecommerce websites now have shopping cycles that are quicker and very convenient. Inconveniencing the customer is definitely not an option. Customization of shopping carts to suit the merchant’s intrinsic needs and requirements not only helps enhance shopping experience but also improves the sale of products and services.

Value Added Services

Online shoppers are looking for something extra from their online merchants. Whether it’s a promo-code or a product related discount or something else, custom web development enables the integration of value added offers and services into the ecommerce website. This has made online shopping more engaging and worthwhile to customers. You can get as innovative as you like, but customization helps your imagination turn into a real concept.

Wider reach of your business

Currency calculators, multiple languages, and more payment options are just some of the many ways how customization helps your ecommerce site gain acceptability across a wider target audience. Tailor-made web development solutions also help your site tap into emerging markets and establish a presence much before your competitors arrive onto the scene.

Customer loyalty through CRM

When was the last time, you actually thought of connecting with your customers through your ecommerce site? Selling your products and services alone isn’t going to help you establish your credibility and ensure customer loyalty. Integrating customized web applications for customer relationship management are the way forward. Such applications help you talk to your customers, understand their needs and requirements better, and ensure quick response. All this taken together, helps your online business rise in the estimation of your customers.

Better Control

Your ecommerce website must be a seamless integration of the process of selling and buying. There is a tremendous exchange of data happening and the proper control, disbursement and management of this data will determine whether your online business is a success or not. Another aspect of better control is more security. Online customers are going to share personal and financial information on your website. You, as a merchant, should ensure that such information is secure and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. All this is only possible if you make sure that your ecommerce website is developed to give you better control of its various processes.

Gone are the days when customers were satisfied with just about anything that an ecommerce website offered them. If you want to stay in business, you need to offer them an ecommerce experience that meets their expectations and surpasses them. This is only possible through custom web development