Tag Archive for: online shopping guide

Reasons Why Shoppers Abandon Their Cart and Ways to Prevent Them

Macbook Air on White Surface

According to a Business Insider article, shoppers abandon their cart during login, during the checkout process, and majority leave during payment stage. This post will elaborate the reasons and present possible solutions.

Let’s simplify the three why people abandon their shopping carts.

  • Account creation is mandatory.

  • 37.4% of shoppers leave when they are being forced to sign up. In reality, no one wants to be forced into doing something. Remember that people visited your website to buy and not make an account.
    • Solution #1: Offer a “checkout as guest” option. If they already have an account, logging in is easy. If they don’t, let them purchase what they want as guests. After their transaction, they are more easier to convince to get an account. This time you don’t have to force them.
    • Solution #2: Encourage them to sign up. You can convince by listing the benefits of creating an account. Inform them that an account: will give you a detailed tracking of orders, allows you to access exclusive promos, and account holders get the to be notified first about discounts and coupon codes.
  • Lengthy checkout procedure.

  • Online shoppers are impulsive. Use this to your advantage and do not scare away shoppers by giving them long and winding forms to fill out.  Adding more fields to your checkout process will just increase cart abandonment.
    • Solution #1: Identify the information you need and only ask important details from customers. If the items are to be shipped and billed to one mailing address, do not let them repeat what they typed. Add check box that indicates that billing address is the same as shipping address.
    • Solution #2: Accept online payments and online money transfers. With services like WePay, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, Paypal, people can conveniently shop and checkout with their email and password.
  • Shocking delivery costs.

  • Websites want their products to appear than competing brand. But during checkout, expensive delivery costs are then revealed. Thus, shoppers just the web page and leave their cart altogether.
    • Solution #1: Offer ‘free’ delivery. Shoppers love the word FREE. When they see FREE, they will most likely to click immediately. For people outside the US, they find websites like bookdepository.com very convenient. Since the website offer free shipping wherever you are in the world, customers don’t need to think about ridiculous international shipping rates.
    • Solution #2: Estimate the cost. Let shoppers know around how much it will cost them to ship an item. One good way is to indicate price and beside it, include the minimum delivery cost.
    • Solution #3: Add a shipping calculator. Allow shoppers to enter their zip code and the calculator will display an accurate price quote to their desired zip code.

You can never stop shoppers from abandoning their cart. There are countless of reasons that are out of your control like a misplaced credit card. Still, it is not an excuse for e-commerce websites to keep making these mistakes that hinders sales conversion. With a little tweak to your website, you will avoid losing money and make your customers’ shopping experience easier.

9 Tips to Prevent Online Fraud

bank, banking, businessOnline businesses use websites as their trading ground.

It is the most rapid way to get in touch with clients. But you have to watch out for those fraudsters, who are studying how they can pull a fast one on you. These people might sell you something that does not exist or sell something that has no quality. They can also ask details of your identity or your financial information to scam you. Be careful in clicking different links because they might provide a website that looks real just to get your payment details. Always check the authenticity of the website you visit.

If you are the seller, buyers may not pay right away. There are various reasons like the payment cannot be sent immediately, but the buyer wants the items delivered and expect payment later. They may not pay you.

Save yourself from complications. Here are tips to help you:

  • Scammers will set dummy sites. Because they are familiar with the authentic sites, they can add some things, a different spelling or a word. Check the web address to know if they are real.
  • Do not click any links or use a money transfer mode when you want to pay on an auction site. Use Paypal or other similar services that can protect your money.
  • It is wise to know the dispute resolution, terms and conditions of the auction sites before transacting.
  • One of the famous scheme of fraudsters is opening a credible account like eBay. They would buy things to get great feedback, hence, they get positive feedback scores. Smart, right? Be smarter, go and check the seller’s profile and know the true comments from actual buyers. If they don’t have it, you are their target!
  • You need photos to know if the product is for real. Do your research and check Google to know if there is a cut and paste routine. Once you confirmed it, that is warning sign.
  • Very little details? Do not hesitate to ask for pictures that will set the scammer to give you pictures, which you can check later.
  • Bargain price? A lot of fraudster uses this bargain tactic using a good online platform like Gumtree or eBay just to appear reliable. The reality is: it is a fake item or the product does not exist. If you have sent your money, say goodbye to it.
  • No contact number? Sometimes, if not, fraudsters put a number that you cannot contact. Stop right away and do not transact with them.
  • You are asked to communicate outside the official system like using mobile phone or email? Why, when there is an official platform to contact each other.

If these instances happen to you…

Take note of these tips before you buy anything online. To be sure, purchase items at the brand’s official website and avoid transacting with shops in social media. If you buy from other people, you cannot be certain of their quality and authenticity. If you have been scammed, call the right authorities. If you are in the UK area, you can call the Action Fraud helpline 0300 123 2040.

 

How to Identify Fake Reviews

Brown shopping bags

Before you shop online, be careful on the reviews you see.

Before buying online, it is natural for us to look for the feedback of other consumers about the product or service. The sad part of it is that: a lot of reviews online are fake. So, who does these deception? They could be businesses, retailers, marketers, whose main purpose is to increase their sales and damage their rival companies, writers who use phony names, and people who gets a deal from positive comments, or those who gets paid for their reviews.

Fake online reviews can surely hurt the netizens. People can waste good money in purchasing products that are not good. Products like that may endanger your health and safety.

To help you know whether a review online is fake or not, here are some tips:

  • Language – Real reviews present information on the performance of the product. The fake ones raves and uses superlatives rather than detailed product description.
  • Review the reviewer – A reviewer who writes a review for a certain company shows that the reviewer has a vested interest.  The reviewer can use photo of the product purchased to show authenticity. Investigate the site. Some allow posts from consumers who purchased in their site. Know their policies on this.
  • Be sharp on the detail – If a reviewer can tell why he or she like or dislike a certain product or service, that is not fake. If the review uses general statement like, “It was horrible!” or “It was so good,” it only means the review was written to  blatantly credit or discredit a certain product or service, to get a negative or positive feel to the reader.
  • Too negative or too positive – Do not believe reviews that gives a crushing 1-star or a fabulous 5-star.  A real review is in the middle of the spectrum.
  • Well-written reviews – Be cautious if the review is written well and everything is perfect. A marketing shill or a person who has vested interest could have written it. It also uses superlatives to describe the product.
  • Keyword stuffing – some online fake reviews will use the game search engine results to create traffic to the product purchase page or site. This is done by repeating the same product over and over again to make the product appear in the search results. This tactic is used to manipulate the ranking.
  • Reviewer’s history – Findout the history of the reviewer by checking the different online stores to know how many reviews the reviewer has written.
  • Same text over and over again – If a review is seen again and again, it could be bot generated. Also, reuse of the same content taken from another review is fake.
  • Check the reviewer’s ID – a long line of numbers on its username should you that profile could be fake. An example would be “Reviewer 072514123789”. A username like that could mean that that profile could be a bot.