online marketing: A New Cure for Shoppus Interruptus - Brief Article

American Demographics, August, 2000

Why not just put a link to a live person on the order page? "We've learned that the simplest way, may not always be the most cost effective way," says Hoffmann. "If we just put a button on the order page, everyone wants to talk about their kids and the weather. It may help our conversion rates, but it could be very costly to get into undirected chat," he says. "It's the same thing you see in stores and everywhere else. We need to politely service our customers and move on to the next customer."

Havover has also tried to improve its shopping carts. First step: Axe the jargon. For instance, the company used to ask customers whether they wanted to "modify" or "update" their cart. Now it asks shoppers whether they want to "change" what's in their cart instead. They have also added cool graphics: Pictures of the products that the customer is about to buy appear in the cart. "If I've clicked on a blouse that's blue, I should see a picture of a blue blouse in the cart," says Hoffmann. "If I see red pants, I know I've put the wrong thing in the shopping cart."

The company has turned the entire concept of "abandoning" a shopping cart, wheels side up. Hanover realized that clicking away from the shopping cart doesn't mean that the customer will never want to buy that product. More likely, the person just may need more time. In the real world, it would be ridiculous for retailers to allow patrons to leave full carts strewn about their stores. But in cyberspace, what's a few extra bytes of memory? "We're encouraging people to use the shopping cart as an area where they can, in fact, put things that they want to purchase - it's a wish list," Hoffmann explains.

With initiatives like Hanover's, Yolles expects that the percentage of abandoned carts will continue to go down. But he doesn't see a dramatic decline over the next few years. And there will always be reasonably high rates of abandonment, he points out. "There will always be a percentage of browsers and a percentage of buyers," he asserts. "If the quality of the purchasing process improves, however, more browsers will be encouraged to buy."

But first, e-tailers will have to unravel the mystery of what people are looking for online. Break-through technology won't make the problem of abandoned shopping carts disappear, Yolles says. Common sense solutions - such as faster loading pages that aren't weighed down with superfluous graphics, and ensuring that products are in stock - would go a long way to make certain that the merchandise finds its way home. "But the number of retailers that don't even do the obvious is shocking," he says.

More e-tailers are going to have to figure it out. As the cost of acquiring online consumers continues to rise, inability to close the deal will become increasingly expensive. And dangerous. Because when customers experience shoppus interruptus, they have good reason to avoid your home page altogether.