The number 1 way to avoid cart abandonment

Part nine of our 'lessons in CRO' mini-series (8 of 10)

This mini-series covers 10 lessons we have learned from some of our favourite recent experiments (and the results).  If you're facing similar challenges and want to understand why some things work better than others, or you simply want some new ideas to test, we hope these lessons help guide and inspire you with your next experiments.

Here's lesson nine:

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Lesson #9: Don’t neglect the narrative of your basket page

Results

• 12% increase in clickthrough to the next checkout page
• 8% increase in sales

The problem

This client sells travel-related items from their own website and through third-party retailers. On their website, the basket page was a pain point in the conversion journey. We felt its overall structure and lack of narrative played a significant part in the problem.

What we did

We tried to empathise with the needs of visitors and assessed the basket page against those needs.

On a structural level, we found the basket page looked disjointed as the positioning of the elements was far from optimal. On Desktop, about 50% of the area above the fold was blank space whilst the delivery information was needlessly compact. On Mobile, the unique CTA was located right in the middle of the page, sandwiched in-between the basket summary and delivery options.

As a remedy, on Desktop we tried to make the best of the available space by stretching the delivery information to span 33% of the visible space above the fold. On Mobile, we replicated the CTA so it was also visible right after the delivery options, making the button more prominent across the page.

On a narrative level, we found the basket page lacked some key messages for visitors to relate to. In a bid to improve this, we introduced a reviews carousel to help build trust and confidence to buy at this critical entry point in the funnel. We also modified the display of the delivery options by introducing a personalised calculation of the estimated delivery date according to the current date/time. In brief, we tried to make the basket page tell a more personable story.

The reasons it worked

To be successful, a basket page has to fulfil the immediate needs of its visitors as swiftly as possible. By ensuring we had a cleaner design and a more personable basket page experience, with reassuring social proofing and contextual personalisation to speed up the decision-making process, we filled a gap in the page’s original functionality.

Your next experiment?

Is your basket page telling a story? Does it look like a successful tool to gain the trust of visitors who may never have purchased from you before? If not, you should consider leveraging the transactional and emotional value of the basket page.