
The 4 Easiest Order Form Split Tests to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
31-Aug-2015
Wayne Sharer
Even moderately successful online sellers know that shopping cart abandonment is major profit loss issue in online sales.
The sale doesn’t end by getting the click on the “Buy Now” button in any online offer. Many businesses experience shopping cart abandonment rates as high as 78%!
Baymard Institute shows statistics from 59 to 75% cart abandonment. These numbers are real, and of major concern to those wanting to maximize sales, and newbies who want to end the frustrations of poor sales.
Sadly, no one seems to tell you how important split testing your order page is to increasing your sales. If you’re experienced, you know this. But if you’re new, you are lucky you found this now.
One way I get my starting points for split testing identified is watching closely what the people who already have done expensive tests have done. Then I use a simple shopping cart that I can customize and split test without having to do any of the coding.
So now the real question is, “What can you do to optimize conversion rates to reduce shopping cart abandonment in your sales funnel?”
Here are 4 split tests you can easily do on your order pages:
1. Test Your Message on Your Order Page
It’s a fact that your copy on your sales page is critical to your success. If your copy delivers what a customer expects and wants to solve their problem, your chances of a sale just jumped sky high.
Did you know people actually lose sight of the message as soon as they hit your order page? That’s right, and there is no better place to provide them a reminder then right above or next to the order form (on the same page)
You should be in touch with your customers and know what problem or problems they have the most frustrations with and the emotions these problems evoke.
To reduce your order form abandonment rate, add a short message or a few bullets reminding your “almost” buyer of the benefits and relief they get by acting now. Then run a split test of this short copy and see which is best. It’s all about reducing friction between you and the buyer, and having the right words goes a long way.
2. Using Testimonials
When your visitors comes to your sales page and then clicks through to your order page, their minds remain full of activity.
They think of the risk to themselves, the money they will spend, will it really work, what if it doesn’t work. Should I really be buying this product, service or training?
It not news to you that social proof on your sales page or in your sales video is a big part of making the sale.
This is just as true on your order page.
Split test your order page with and without testimonials. Usually one is enough as a reminder on your testimonial page. If you want more, consider combining the testimonials into a video, and showing the video testimonial on your order form.
Once you know if testimonials reduce shopping cart abandonment on your order forms, then split test which testimonial or testimonial type works best. This is extremely powerful.
3. The Use of Website Trust Seals
Website trust seals are those little seals you see at the bottom of many checkout pages and order forms.
There many type offer verification of different types of trust.
The Baymard Institute had a survey done in 2013 to determine which seals, and which category of seals evoked the most trust of potential buyers.
The results of the survey showed the web buyers placed more faith in the Norton seal than any other in the survey.
These trust seals should be used throughout your funnel, and especially on your shopping cart page. This helps catch your prospective buyers’ attention and establishes a level of comfort in their psyche.
The bottom line is it does get more people to open their wallet or purse and stay on your order page to complete the sale.
Some categories of security seals include:
- Customer rating seals
- Vulnerability seals
- Security seals
- Privacy seals
- Reliability seals
Though, in general, the Norton seal was the winner in the survey, this doesn’t guarantee it is the best for your type product, service, or training.
Therefore, you will likely want to split test with and without seals, and then split test which seal or seals work best for you to reduce shopping cart abandonment on your offers.
4. Use of Exit Pops
Exit pop ups on your order page can be used in many ways. The right use at the right time can dramatically increase your current sales, and/or your future sales.
When using exit pops on your shopping cart page, you can do some of these options:
- Survey why they are leaving
- Make a new emotional challenge
- Offer a different price point (a discount)
- Give a phone number to get their questions answered
- Offer an extra bonus
- Show a countdown timer to let them know the offer will expire
- Remind the buyer the benefits they will be giving up by leaving
You can probably think of a few more yourself, but you get the picture here.
Running split tests on any of the various options against an order form without any pop up will significantly help you reduce order page abandonment thus increasing your conversion rates and profits.
How to Split Test Your Order Page
Many new and experienced read these ideas and say, “But they are so expensive to code and setup and my third party provider doesn’t allow me to modify the order form.”
Here’s something you can understand and love. Like me, most of you are not technical experts. I don’t know code. I don’t want to pay a developer to develop secure, shopping cart pages, and I don’t want to pay a company to run the split tests for me.
This is a major reason I use ClickFunnels for my sales funnels. It’s part of the deal there, and therefore saves me thousands of dollars per year on this alone. ClickFunnels does the following for your order pages…
- Allows you to fully customize your shopping cart
- Is fully secure
- Includes split testing
- Is completely drag and drop, eliminating any need for any expensive coder
- Allow exit pops on order pages that you can fully customize
- Can put any copy text you want on your pages
- Allow you to put videos on order pages
- Makes it simple to add testimonials to checkout pages
- Includes shopping cart payment services
- Integrates with email providers so you can segment your buyers from your non-buying leads
And all of this is just what you get on your order pages. You much more for your entire funnel. For my business, Converdy is the answer to optimizing my order form pages reducing shopping cart abandonment.
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