404

Page not found

The page you requested cannot be found on the server

Basically its an invite to the user to hit the back button and disappear from the website, also its a potential sale lost.

On the high street if a product is sold out its place on the shelf is soon filled by something else, so why not on the web.

Simply revamp the 404 page to say something like:

We are sorry but the product you are looking for is currently not available,

however here are some similar items.

Then list a few items from the same category, this will make your site more sticky and improve the chances of converting the visitor to being a customer.

The potential of 404 pages is limitless, you could add a search box, a full list of departments, brands, ranges etc etc.

Take a look at your site statistics how many 404’s are you generating?

What if just 1% of them was converted to a sale?

I have just been reading a thread on the Affiliates4u forum started by Jess Luthi P3P does it matter any more? which is very worrying this quote from Jess stood out:

… 9 out of 10 merchants site who dont have P3P but who have an affiliate program, I could not add a product to the basket

As I commented on that thread it is yet another reason for shopping cart abandonment, which equals less sales for merchant, less commission for affiliates and less override for networks.

For the record the other posts where I have touched on shopping card abandonment are here
Christmas is coming checkout your checkouts and Why do people abandon online shopping baskets?

The busiest time of the year for retail sales is just around the corner so before there are sales flying in from all directions its time for online merchants everywhere to check that their shopping cart and checkout process is functioning correctly.

Nothing puts off a potential customer more than a complicated process and if the shopping cart or checkout freezes or hangs for too long forget the sale. My recent article Why do people abandon online shopping baskets? gives a number of reasons you may lose the sale at the checkout so I won’t go over old ground.

If you have more than one way a customer can checkout test them all, many sites now have several different ways to checkout such as Worldpay, Paypal, Google Checkout, just because one way is working correctly it doesn’t follow that they all will be, and just because it works on your super duper PC it doesn’t follow that it will work well on something less powerful, also test the processes using various browsers ie7, ie6, Firefox and Opera as a minimum.

Importantly from an affiliate point of view please ensure that all different checkouts on your site are tracking all affiliate sales, because the better the conversions the higher the likelihood that affiliates will stay loyal.

Affiliates you can help the merchants out, if you purchase something online (or attempt to) and there is a checkout problem or the sale doesn’t track, don’t be shy let someone know because it may be something that the merchant is unaware of, there are plenty of points of contact, such as the network, the merchant, the affiliate manager.

Just to reiterate its far better to sort out any problems now rather than finding there is problem in the middle of November when sales are coming out of your ears (or not if the checkout is broken), its going to be a massive Christmas for online shopping the Internet’s busiest retail period ever, lets make it a profitable one all round.

Research has shown that online shopping basket (aka shopping cart) abandonment is extremely high, up to 60% of shopping baskets are abandoned before the sale is closed, what I am trying to do here is list some of the reasons for abandonment, unfortunately I don’t have all the reasons or indeed all the solutions.

High delivery costs

Make all delivery charges clear to the customer, the shock of seeing the shipping cost added to the order value is one of the biggest reasons for basket abandonment.

Comparison shopping or browsing

Many surfers visit a number of online merchants, adding items to the shopping basket of each before making a decision to buy.

Often items are not bought immediately but saved for later purchase maybe not even on the same day, in fact this is very common, make it easy for them to retrieve the session.

Sometimes the person doing the browsing will not be the person making the purchase.

Site requires registration before purchase

Many online shoppers stall at the thought of registering to make a purchase, they dislike the thought of being added permanently to a database.

Checkout problems

Checkout process is too long, checkout requires too much personal information, checkout process is confusing, these are all reasons that have been cited for basket abandonment, keep the process simple, short and uncomplicated and don’t ask for unnecessary information.

Other reasons for customers abandoning a shopping basket include, internet connection problems, not being sure about security of merchant site, simply changing their mind, combined cost of all items in basket is too high.

Hope this has given you food for thought, many of the problems that occur are avoidable and a little tweaking on the merchant website can vastly improve completion of the sale.