Why People Look But Don’t Purchase

I started my online clothing store 8 months ago. Once the excitement wore off, I was nervous about a lot of things. Do people care about my clothes? Is the competition too steep? How will they even find me for crying out loud? I didn’t have a large budget and had tried some small social media buys, word of mouth etc., but that was it.

To my surprise, after about 3 months or so, I was getting amazing inbound numbers. People were actually finding me! This was a huge achievement, but sadly my bank account wasn’t exactly celebrating yet. I was drawing all of these people but my clothes weren’t selling.  Sure I had the occasional “window shoppers”, but looking at my stats, I could see some people were checking reviews, FAQs, and generally showing a deep interest in my product. So what gives?

Here are some facts I looked up as to why I wasn’t making those sales:

1.My Shipping and Handling was too high.

I was sure my prices were fair and way under the competition, so why would people abandon ship! That’s it right there…” ship”. delivery
My S/H prices were way too much and they weren’t flexible. I was so focused on the actual product prices, I failed to realize the amount that adds up in shipping. I shifted some numbers around and was able to make certain purchases include free shipping. There are lots of ways to fix shipping to make it more appealing. You may even want to include a countdown time so people have a short window to snag the zero-dollar transport deal.

2.What Return Policy?

Return-policyYikes, I slowly realized that people are much more apt to make a purchase with a return policy. Sounds like a no brainer right?  Maybe, but at  first my thought was that I didn’t want to deal with it or lose money but in reality I was losing customers. So I found a way to limit the policy with certain rules attached so that people wouldn’t take advantage. I also included size charts to reduce the amount of returns I would have to deal with. I rarely have returns because my clothes are awesome, but also because I do the most I can to alleviate issues before the purchase.

3.A Photo of Me and My Dog Was Not Enough to Gain Trust

credit-card-2
I mean, it’s a great picture and we both have trusting eyes, but this may not be enough for some people to feel secure enough to enter their credit card. Doing a little research I found that a lot of people are nervous these days when it comes to online payments and transactions. So I decided to get third party security involved and make sure my customers knew that we had their safety in mind. This is especially helpful for the log in and shopping cart areas.

4.I Wasn’t Mobile Friendly

responsiveIt never occurred to me how many people would be online shopping on the bus, at the nail salon, at work, in line at the DMV! I had figured well, I can access my store on my phone but when I really sat and looked, it was super tiny wording and you could hardly see the pictures! So I had the site redesigned to include mobile and even tablet layouts. Now you could easily see everything, click side tabs to search different products etc. Heck if we get big enough, we may even create an app!

5.My Pages Were Too Clutteredweb-design

I just had too much to say. Words and names and buttons… it was just too much visually to take in. When I redesigned the site, I noticed more pages being explored and more time spent on each. Cleaning up my messy room, deemed to be a crucial part of my online success!

A Little Help From Your Web

A lot of people rush into building their stores (like I did!), and forget to do a little research as to how it can be better and what steps can be implemented to make your customers have an overall better experience. My big issue was all look and no buy, but with a little elbow grease and a lot of coffee I was able to figure it out.

Abandoned-Cart-Email-(for-web)

One tool I used to alleviate my shopping cart runners was the Magento Abandoned Cart Email Extension. I was able to email those who ditched their cart and bring them back to visit my store. Plus, I could also see why they left which gave me the great insight I have shared with you today. Happy Selling!

Starting a Store on Magento: Time-Saving Tips

For businesses looking to establish an e-commerce store, Magento is an indispensable tool. As an open-source platform, Magento can be adapted to meet the needs of individual businesses. Big brands and small businesses alike can use Magento to create a profitable and user-friendly online storefront.

But while anyone can go to Magento’s website and set up a basic store, creating a successful e-commerce business can be considerably harder.

Magento offers so many different options for customization that many new users feel overwhelmed and intimated. So many different tasks go into running a successful online store:  SEO, web design, marketing, and many more. Magento extensions help online business owners to complete necessary tasks on time and without hassle. Here are some common problems that Magento users encounter—and how extensions can help solve them:

Lagging Loading Times

All research suggests that today’s web users are more impatient than ever. If an online store takes too long to load, visitors to your site won’t buy. While you can’t always control the speed with which users browse your site, there are ways to lower your load times. An extension such as the Full Page Cache will speed up your site by caching it whenever a user visits. This extension serves as a replacement to expensive investments in hardware.

Google Analytics Overload

Traffic is essential to the success of your business, so it can be tempting to visit Google Analytics constantly. But this is an inefficient use of time. With the Google Analytics Dashboard extension, you can see your Google Analytics data right from your dashboard.

Spam, Spam, and More Spam!

There are bots looking to spam your inbox. If you have a contact page on your website, you may be vulnerable to spam. The Anti-Spam Captcha prevents this annoyance, requiring users to enter a short string of characters before their message goes through.

Conversion Confusion

E-commerce is a global phenomenon, but international customers may be turned off if they can’t easily figure out how much they will need to pay for a particular item. Customers also may be unaware that you have separate storefronts for buyers from different countries. The Store/ Currency Switcher extension will enable your Magento store to redirect to the correct storefront.

Abandoned Carts

The bane of every online retailer, abandoned carts can seriously reduce your profits. In 2015, the average rate of cart abandonment was a whopping 68%, meaning that more than two-thirds of online orders were never completed. For e-commerce business owners, few things can be more frustrating. But with the Abandoned Cart Email extension, you can send a friendly reminder e-mail to customers who abandon their carts on your store. The e-mail sequence can be completely customized. You can even include a coupon for customers to incentivize them to complete their purchase.

 

Running an online store is already difficult. By making strategic use of Magento extensions, you can make better use of your resources and increase the profits of your online store.

All ExtendWare extensions come with the option to return within return within 30 days and receive a full refund —making this investment risk-free.

Recapture Lost Sales By Using The Abandoned Cart Email Extension

It can seem defeating when customers add products to their carts and then suddenly abandon them without completing the purchase. Perhaps they decided to comparison shop, or maybe they became confused by the check-out process, or they could have become distracted and figured they would push the task off until another time.

Instead of losing customers, bring them back to your store! Extendware’s Abandoned Cart Email does just that. You can now send an email to any customer who has abandoned their cart. You can send incentives or coupons or simply remind them what they were shipping for. It couldn’t be easier and it will save a lot of lost sales!

There are many great benefits to the Abandoned Cart Email Extension

Increase Store Revenue
Easily increase store revenue in an automated way. Abandoned Cart Emails can pay for itself very quickly!

Recover Lost Sales
Abandoned carts are lost sales. Sending followups and incentivizing purchases with coupons will give you a way to recover these lost sales.

Send an Unlimited Number of Follow-up Emails
Every store is unique. Some stores will only want 1 email while others will want to send 5 or even 10. You may select from 1 to an unlimited number of reminders and each setting is set on a per-store basis.

Reminders
Reminders

Send Reminder to Registered Members and Guests
Guests reminders can outnumber registered member reminders by 100 times. E-mails of your guests will be captured via Ajax as they fill out the checkout form and they will be sent reminders if they abandon the order.

Easily Track Emails with Google Analytics 
When customers click on the recovery link the URL will include your google tracking parameters.

Supports One-Step-Checkout Extensions 
Out-of-the-box support for numerous one-step-checkout extensions and adding new ones is extremely simple.

Coupons with Expiration can Automatically be Added to Emails
Adding coupons to your emails will motivate your users to complete their sale! Various coupon types are supported and you can customize the priority and discount of the created coupon. You can even set a minimum cart value before the coupon is enabled.

Adding Coupon
Adding Coupon

Each Coupon Sent Will Have a Unique Coupon Code So it Cannot be Used More Than Once 
Coupons that are sent to users are completely unique, so they cannot be shared or published on a Web site. Each coupon will only work one time.

Show the List of Products in the Abandoned Cart Email
The abandoned cart reminder email will show the list of products that were added to the cart. The customer can restore the cart by clicking a link.

Coupons Support Advanced Action Rules / Conditions 
Do you want to only add a coupon when the cart value is over $500? Maybe you want to exclude all books from being discounted? You can easily do this and more with Abandoned Cart Emails. We give you complete control of the parameters of the coupon being added to the email.

Enable Customers to Automatically Recover Their Cart (optional)
Customers may click a link in the reminder e-mail which will automatically log them in and add their original cart contents to their session. This makes it even easier for them to place their order.

Easily Track Who Recovered Their Cart and When
All sent reminders are stored in a history log. When customers recover their cart via the e-mail link and use their coupon (if applicable), it will be recorded in the history log.

Configure When The Reminder Will Be Sent
Configure When The Reminder Will Be Sent

Unsubscribe / E-mail Blacklist Abilities
Ensure you are compliant with local laws by giving customers the ability to unsubscribe from receiving cart reminders.

Change the Reminder Template in Any Way You Want
Every reminder can have its own e-mail template. This template can be modified in System -> Transactional Emails just like any other Magento template. In addition, you have the option to further change any reminder before it is sent to the customer.

Delay Sending if Cart Contents are Out of Stock 
Sending a reminder when the cart contents are all out of stock can be embarrassing for a store. We allow you to delay these reminders and send them when product returns to stock.

Reminders / Alerts Automatically Stop on Purchase or Cart Recovery
It is important that a reminder sequence is stopped once a customer responds. A reminder sequence will stop once a user recovers their cart from the email or places a purchase (this is configurable).

Display Time of Checkout 
For even easier tracking the history grid will now show the time the recipient of the user placed an order.

Capture Telephone Numbers
Sometimes sending an e-mail is not enough. Now telephone numbers are captured (via Ajax) during checkout, so that you may call select customers if you wish.

Only Send Reminders to Specific Customer Groups 
You can disable the sending of reminders to specific customer groups. This ensure your wholesale customers will not receive messages meant for your retail customers.

Send Copy of Reminder to Alternate E-mail Address
In addition to the reminder log you can choose to send copies of reminders to other email addresses so you can keep track of what reminders are being sent.

You Have Complete Control of Reminders and When They are Sent
Turn off auto sending and you may manually send reminders or delete them or even edit the reminder contents prior to sending.

Customizable Delay Period Between Reminders
A reminder sequence is the sequence of reminders that are sent once an abandoned cart occurs. The time periods between each reminder in a sequence can be customized according to your needs.

Magento Abandonded Cart Reminder Blacklist

Extendware’s Magento Abandoned Cart Reminder is a powerful extension that enables you to capture lost sales by e-mailing customers automatic followups after abandoning their cart. Based on feedback from customers, we have added two new features recently to make this extension even more powerful:

  1. Unsubscribe / E-mail Blacklist – nothing is worse than when a customer receives unwanted e-mail and they become annoyed. In addition, not allowing customers to unsubscribe might be illegal in various jurisdictions. As a result, we now allow customers to unsubscribe from cart reminder e-mails so they never receive them anymore. In addition, you may place emails on the unsubscribe list in the backend. This ensures only customers who want to receive the emails (and potential discounts) will receive them.
  2. Customer Group Disabling – some customers have both a retail and wholesale shop. Abandoned cart reminder most likely should only be used on the retail shop. Now you can disable some customer groups from receiving reminders, so that wholesale customers will not receive the reminders.

To learn more about Magento Abandoned Carts review our Magento Extensions.


Quick Extension Overview

Our Magento Abandoned Cart Email extension allows you to capture additional sales by emailing customers who have abandoned their shopping cart without making a purchase. You can send an unlimited number of follow-up emails to the potential customer and even attach an automatically generated coupon to the follow-up email in order to incentivize a new purchase. Learn more about Extendware’s Abandoned Cart Reminder Extension at our website.