Stop Your eCommerce Revenue Killers
Stay out of your customer’s way.
It’s simple advice, but you’d be surprised by how many companies choose to ignore this simple ecommerce store rule. One of the ways you see companies violate this simple rule is the requirement to log into the ecommerce store before purchasing. Here’s what Tim Ash, noted landing page optimization expert said about the subject:
The most criminal waste of attention at this point is focusing your visitors on extraneous tasks. One of the worst is making them register before checking out.
Tim Ash – Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions
See our example below of Implant Direct, a direct-to-dentist dental implant company. They require visitors to log in before the customer can place an item into the shopping cart.
Log in Before Shopping Cart? HUGE mistake.
Requiring log in before allowing customers to place items into the shopping cart interrupts the purchasing process and takes them out of the ordering process. By forcing them to log in early in the purchase process, customers are more likely to abandon the order which hurts revenue. Many if not all stores require some kind of login process to purchase, but smart ecommerce stores withhold login requirements until after the checkout process begins. This way, customers are far more invested in the purchase process and far less likely to abandon the cart.
“Log in before adding to cart” also prevents ecommerce retailers from doing any abandoned cart activities. One effective way to reduce your abandoned cart activity is to send follow on emails to visitors who have abandoned carts without completing the order process. This brings back some of your abandoned cart customers and improves ecommerce revenue. When you require login before allowing customers to place an item in the cart, Customers at this stage of the purchase process are more likely to abandon on log in, which prevents you from responding to any cart activity at all.
Login before adding to cart also denies the ecommerce retailer information on prospective customer shopping carts. By analyzing abandoned cart information, ecommerce retailers get a better view into what products are most likely to be abandoned. This kind of analysis allows retailers to respond to high-abandon products with promotional offers, product page changes, and other activities. Once again allowing opportunities to improve revenue.
Recommendations
The recommendation is simple. Move login to the end of the purchase process, just as the customer is deeper and more investing the checkout process. Customers at this point of the purchase process are less likely to abandon the cart when asked to log in. This also allows the ecommerce retailer to use email and other efforts to retain a customer, reduce the abandoned cart rate, and make more money.
Help and Questions
If you’re looking for help in how you can avoid your ecommerce revenue killers, please feel free to reach out to us.
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