5 Reasons Would-Be Customers Do Not Purchase

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Submitted by steve on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 23:39

Final Sticker Shock
No big surprise here but one of the most common reasons a customer will not complete the purchase process is the final cost is more than they expected. Sure, they could pull a product or two from their shopping cart, recalculate and it might be in the right range but the damage has already been done. Once they see that final price, including shipping, their mind has already determined that they are not prepared to pay that much right now. Introducing the other factors that lead to the total cost of the order earlier in the checkout process will help soften the sticker shock.
Checkout requires a login or account creation.
If you are requiring a password of any sorts on the first page of your checkout process, you are throwing sales out the window. Bottom line. No ifs ands or buts.
Unclear product information and product pages
If a customer is landing directly on your product pages, they are coming from either a referring site or a search engine. Either way, they are looking for a particular product or information. Make sure you are presenting it appropriately so they can find the information they are looking for quickly and then moving thru the checkout process.

Clear and high quality images. Heck, even add multiple images.
Make sure your price is clearly shown and make it near that good old add to cart button.
Additional information such as bottling date, time in oak, winemaker etc. is easily available but is not necessarily clogging up YOUR description of the product.
REVIEWS!!! I’m sure we all understand the major importance of customer reviews and their influence on would-be buyers. Even if you do not have any reviews, showing you care enough to capture that feedback is valuable.

Slow pages
If your pages take a long time to load, would-be customers are closing their browser window. Ensure your web site visitors and customers can quickly access the pages they are looking for and the checkout process is quick in order to ensure a good experience.
I don’t feel secure.
If your customer gets a warning message when accessing a secured page saying it is in fact not secure, your would-be customer is no longer a potential customer. If someone is going to input their credit card information on a website, it must SCREAM secure transaction. The first indication of a non-secure transaction renders an image of a creepy guy in trench coat, down a dark alley just waiting to steal your financial stability. Don’t be that creepy guy!

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