Problem - losing customers

[Guest notting]

Hi guys,

I wonder if other people have this problem and if so at what sort of rate. The problem that I am having is that I get orders placed, where people have registered, added items to the cart hit continue and then not paid for the items.

I wonder if this is due to people not liking paypal which is set as default on my store.

Do other people get orders placed that are not paid for?

What can I do to stop this happening?

And a few other questions:

WHich payment processors are most popular with your customers?

When someone pays for items using Nochex does the stock automatically reduce as it would with paypal and ipn?

Thanks in advance!

Jamie

www.viparrot.com

[Guest]

Yes, I think we all get some who abandone their order. Not sure what my percentage is (math is not my friend) but probably around 1-2% these days. Its always hard to tell why.

I'd go thru your shop and try to look at it with the eyes of a customer - or get some friends to. Do you make it easy to order? Do you offer fair prices and especially fair shipping costs? Do you have enough info on your site to make it look like you are legit? Do you give people an option other than paying online? (Can they mail, call or fax credit card info?) Can they easily contact you with questions?

I've found most often when people get to the end and then don't pay, its due to shipping costs, so you might want to take a look at that and maybe add to your cart pages how your shipping is calculated or what it's based on, etc. Give people a choice of slower/cheaper or faster/higher (people love choices).

One big thing about your site (other than missing images on your product pages) is that I don't see a mention anywhere of what payment methods you accept. If customers don't know until they get to the end of the process, this could be the BIG reason you aren't getting payments. You should list accepted payment methods on the front page.

Do you ONLY accept Paypal? I highly recommend adding a credit card option too (95% of my sales are credit card and I offer Paypal on some of my stores as well). Even if you process the cards thru Paypal, giving people what appears to be a non-Paypal option is a good idea. And using the print order form as a mail/fax/phone order slip is also a good idea (I get perhaps 1% that pay that way).

Finally, your about us, terms and other site documents pages really really need work. You need to look professional not "thrown together" if you want people to give you their money.

[Guest notting]

Firstly, thanks for your in-depth reply Mysty. You have given me a lot to think about.

I will sort the site documents out tomorrow. At the moment they do not create a good impression. I have put little logos of the cards accepted on the homepage. I am going to start using Nochex to process payments in addition to paypal.

I will also make it more prominent the paostage costs, I think they are very reasonable so it is good to show them off.

The only thing that confused me was your comment about images not working. Which ones are not working, they all seem fine to me.

Once again, thanks for you good advice.

Jamie Turner

[bsmither]

So what is the obvious way a store owner notices abandoned shopping carts?

I've abandoned a number of carts because of the singular method of payment being through PayPal.

[Guest]

Looking better already!

The images not loading is http://www.24parrot.com/images/yes.gif on some of your pages. I suppose it indicates what birds can use that item? (I know little about birds really - dogs and cats yes, birds no lol).

bsmither - The obvious way is to get an order thru cubecart without a corresponding payment in your gateway. Google analytics also shows abandonment and is a great free tool.