Checkout Optomization

[douglaswalker]

Hi there,

I have been experimenting with my checkout on my BS Shop.

I was reading about de-cluttering and only having on the checkout pages what is necessary for checkout. :thumbsup:

So customers don't get distracted.

 

I thought it may be interesting to look at the abandonment rate and see if I can get it down.

 

I have removed side boxes on the checkout pages and a newsletter signup in footer with some help here

 

Exclude and include boxes on checkout

 

The only side box I kept on checkout was the shopping cart so a customer can see (on desktop and  ipad) exactly what they are buying.

(On mobile the column box goes directly beneath the main page)

 

I then hijacked the column information box and made it only show on checkout pages. ( I don't use the column info  box  just the footer info box ) and changed the template to show all the info a person needs at their finger tips as they start checkout.

eg

shipping times

that parcels are tracked

how quickly order is sent

how long i have been online

also how many parcels I have sent.

 

I am going to monitor if abandonment rate improves or gets worse and let you know.

:D

 

 

 

[♥14steve14]

One of the biggest reasons for abandoning a cart is that shipping costs are usually not shown until the checkout process has started. In oscommerce this means that a customer has to create an account just to see the shipping costs. Which is crazy in this day and age.

 

Have you also thought of adding a shipping estimator to the shopping cart page. There are several. When I added one to my site, abandoned carts drop considerably.

 

You may also look at the addon recover cart sales if you do not use it already. Its a very simple admin install.

 

I would be interested to see if your changes make any difference.

[douglaswalker]

Thanks Steve

I have a flat rate shipping system and that cost is mentioned all over the place including the cart showing how much to free shipping etc.

Recover cart sale is one I have thought about but does that rely on the person already being logged in etc

Doug

[Mort-lemur]

@@douglaswalker Hi Doug,

I use recover cart sales with good success rates - this is an advert Barclays Bank are currently running in the UK:

 

and you need something like recover cart sales to identify these customers

[♥raiwa]

@@douglaswalker,

 

I did the same on my store and left only the navbar and store logo, apart of the checkout pages content. Any box, any footer.

In addition I moved the checkout progress bar to the top of the page, beside the Page Title on desktop and tablet and below the title on phone.

 

regards

Rainer

[douglaswalker]

@@raiwa many thanks --all seems to be working well. I will let you know what the stats say.

 

@@Mort-lemur

Hi there,

Interesting advert

I have had a look at

 

Recover Cart Sales for OSC 2.3.1

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/8333

 

and installed on my localhost but keep getting a

 

*** Call to undefined function tep_get_products_special_price() ***

 

This is what is in my admin/functions/general.php

////
// Return a product's special price (returns nothing if there is no offer)
// TABLES: products
  function tep_get_products_special_price($product_id) {
    $product_query = tep_db_query("select specials_new_products_price from " . TABLE_SPECIALS . " where products_id = '" . 

(int)$product_id . "' and status = 1");
    $product = tep_db_fetch_array($product_query);

    return $product['specials_new_products_price'];
  }

////
// Sets the status of a product on special
  function tep_set_specials_status($specials_id, $status) {
    if ($status == 

'1') {
      return tep_db_query("update " . TABLE_SPECIALS . " set status = '1', expires_date = NULL, date_status_change = 

NULL where specials_id = '" . (int)$specials_id . "'");
    } elseif ($status == '0') {
      return tep_db_query("update " . 

TABLE_SPECIALS . " set status = '0', date_status_change = now() where specials_id = '" . (int)$specials_id . "'");
    } else {
 

     return -1;
    }
  }

[Mort-lemur]

@@douglaswalker

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/395359-modding-up-a-new-2334-install-documented/page-4post number 64

[Mort-lemur]

also the first part of that code that I have is as follows, although my site is modded so use with caution:

////
// Return a product's special price (returns nothing if there is no offer)
// TABLES: products
  function tep_get_products_special_price($product_id) {
    $product_query = tep_db_query("select specials_new_products_price from " . TABLE_SPECIALS . " where products_id = '" . (int)$product_id . "' and status = 1");
    $product = tep_db_fetch_array($product_query);

    return $product['specials_new_products_price'];
  }
////

[douglaswalker]

hi there,

I got it running

will see what  results it brings.

 

I did have to change the way the email is sent as my site uses smtp.

 

Thanks for your help

[douglaswalker]

The changes I made to checkout a few months ago has seen a 5% decrease in abandonment.

:D