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A lot of what you would do in a brick and mortar store applies to online shops. Shopping cart abandonment is just like having someone walk out of your brick and mortar storefront. It's disappointing! There you stand behind the checkout counter waiting for the person with an armload of product to approach. But wait there they go - setting product down in a pile and walking out the door. You want to run after them and ask why? Was it the service, didn't we have what you wanted, why, tell me why I didn't get your money? But you wouldn't do that really, would you? It would look desperate. Besides what if they were planning on coming back tomorrow. Your desperate need to complete the sale would look, well, desperate.

In "Digital Window Shopping: The Long Journey to "buy" by McAfee they report:

"McAfee recently analyzed the shopping behavior of more than 163 million visitors and the almost 2.6 million purchases they made over a two year period to better understand the window shopping phenomenon——what it is, what causes it, and what e-tailers can do to reduce it.

In our findings, the average delay between first visit to a site and final purchase was 33 hours and 54 minutes."

In order to find out why customers are leaving you, first need to know how many customers are leaving and where. Much like the brick and mortar you should track how many customers come through your door. The good news is it is actually easier to find this information out about your online customers. If you already have not installed an analytics program you should do that now. I like Google Analytics, its free and gives you more info than the novice can handle.

Next learn how to set up a goal funnel. This is a subject for another post so we will assume you can follow the steps in Google. After you have collected enough data to make reasonable assumptions (at least 30 days) look at the funnel visualization.

The McAfee report references data from  www.emarketer.com</a> that high shipping charges results in 46% of abandoned carts and 21% from security concerns. 

Assuming your checkout process spans several pages, look at what pages are exited during the checkout process.   Many new ecommerce merchants neglect to go through the checkout process from the eyes of the consumer.  Now may be a good time to look carefully at the pages with high exit rates and make adjustments.  For instance;  if your billing page shows a high exit rate look at your security and privacy statements, are they predominate on the page.  If you are an e-tailer you should have a security badge.  Even if you only use Paypal to collect money.  One lost sale a month can pay for a security certificate. 

TRUSTe is one company you can use for security badges but there are others. 

Think this is just not necessary imagine this scenerio: Your waiting to checkout you see the clerk take the person in front of you credit card number and copy down on a piece of paper.  Your thinking, that doesn't look right so you leave the line and go to another store.  Of course you would leave there was an obvious breech in security with personal information. 

Now think your a customer on a website and your getting ready to enter personal information, before doing so you look for a privacy statement.  Is there one? No? Hmmm, I wonder if  I'm going to have my info sold to every marketer in town? Reguardless of your privacy concerns you forge ahead and now before you enter your  credit card number, you look up for the https:// because that is what the media has been telling you to do.  You realize it's not there and you leave without entering your number.  Okay, so what if the https:// is there, you once again think, I wonder if this is a reputable business and look for some sort of security statement  - sorry to say it's not there or the certificate is expired.  You now think the risk is too great and leave never to be seen again.

For specific advice on what adjustments can be made please leave comment and I will get back to you. 

Link: http://smfdesignsolutions.com

Check out the two specials that we are currently offering. 

$495 for a customized 5 page website and

$125 logo graphic design special, you like it or you don't pay gaurantee.

Contact us at smf@smfdesignsolutions.com for free consultation and website review or to take advantage of these great deals.

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$195 for a 3 page website! 

That's right, using the template of the month, we will use your content, customize colors, add up to two images per page and provide you with a completed website ready for you to publish.  You will get all CSS and HTML for the completed pages and a readme.txt file so that you can edit your site later.

Of course we can provide a variety of other service for you including publishing, content writing, marketing, analytics and much more.  Contact us at 410-382-4325 or at smf@smfdesignsolutions.com

If you are thinking, "I do not have an ecommerce website and I don't plan on selling on-line, so tell me why I need a website."

No problem, here are my top five reasons why you should have a website:

1. Think like a potential customer. When you are looking for a phone number or local business do you reach for that thick yellow book or your keyboard?  That's right,  you go for the keyboard on your  computer or your smart phone.    A basic website that has been designed with SEO in mind will find it's way to the first page on key searches.  Use our free tutorial on the Life Cycle of a Website  and you will discover that you don't need a complicated and flashy website to achieve good search engine results.  
2. Coupons, discounts and special events - most retail businesses at one time or another has something special to say.  Think about this; you have a dry board, chalk board or some other type of sign in your store to advertise specials, deals or coupons.   You are advertising deals to customers already in your store.  That is good for customer retention but does nothing to gain new customers.  Maybe you advertise in a local paper.   Think about this;  everytime you produce a print advertisement you could be putting it on your website.  I bet for the same amount you are spending in local papers for a 1/8 page ad, you can spend a fraction of that with the same results in a ppc ad driving traffic to a specific landing page.
3. Directions - Offering directions to your store makes finding you easy.
4. Size doesn't matter - no matter how big or small your store front or office is on the world wide web you can project as big of an  image as you want.
5. Tell a story and connect with customers on a personal level.  No matter what product you sell, I bet there is a big box store near by that sells something similar and probably cheaper.  How can you compete with that?  By creating a connection with your customer.  Tell your story, share your expertise and connect with the consumer in a way that big box store cant touch.

There you go 5 reasons why you should have a website.  Contact us if you would like a free consultation.

Please just say something I understand

I am a small business owner - I am sure of that. I have one employee - that's me. However, there are differing views on how small is small, and what is medium? I feel like sometimes I am in a foreign clothing store and not sure what size to grab. If you are a true small business owner you know the feeling. You don't have time to learn all the technical terms for how to get your website ranked well. Your wondering what is; SEO, segments, CPL, PPC, SMO, KPI's, CRM, HUH - oh wait I know the last one, it refers to the sound you make when trying to figure out what to do next while your scratching your head.

I must be super tiny?

According to the SBA (that's Small Business Administration) most retail trade have as much as 7 million in sales, some with 35 million. WHAT? I am not sure who is making up these numbers but I am sure that most small businesses that I know would be thrilled to have $7 mil in sales. You could have an advertising, marketing and IT department. Let's get real - there are many, many, many start-up companies that are grossing less than 1 million in sales. These companies need the most help. They are often one-manager operations that might have a handful of employees. Are you one of these?

smfDesignSolutions to the rescue, insert ta-ta-da cartoon music here.

So back to basics - your a small business person and you know that you need a website. You do not have a $3,000 budget but you are savvy enough to do some of the work yourself. You check out some of the drop and drag sites and think well that was easy. But wait, no visitors? Why? Because you didn't learn the basics of how to get your site noticed. I have put together a free step by step process of how to create a website, promote your website and maintain your website. Click here for step by step advise on creating an effective website. Written in a non-technical way for the REAL small business owner.