We just switched a busy site to CS-Cart v2.1.2 a few days ago and conversion has plummeted. The site seems to outperform the old one…except when it comes to checkout.
Bounce rate - down
Time on site - up
Pages per visitor - up
Converison - down
We use the “old” step-by-step checkout. Payment and shipping options are the same as they were with the old site.
The only big difference is that our old site had shipping time estimates based on the customer’s location, which I can definitely see making a difference.
Two questions:
any advice for “tweaks” to the checkout process to make it convert better?
any add-ons available to show shipping estimates based on Supplier and customer’s location?
I have the exact same problem with conversion rates tanking… I don’t know what the difference is just yet. Everything we have is pretty identical. Unfortunately, without the ability to do split tests on cscart, there really is little way to find out.
I switched a site over from Prestashop to CS-cart and my conversions also tanked pretty hard. Prestashop converted much better for me believe it or not. I know a lot here will disagree but overall I have not been happy with CS-Cart and plan to switch to another cart this year, as there seems to be much better ones out there… just my .02…and I feel where you guys are coming from on this one.
i would like to know what causes the conversion rate to “tank”. CS-Cart has two different checkout methods (multi-page and one page), you can have settings to have the customer go to the cart first, or not. There seems to be many features and much flexibility.
So what is causing the conversion reduction?
I just switched from another cart recently and have not been on cs-cart long enough to see conversion rates go up or down. I would expect my conversion rate t go up due to the many new features that I did not have before. I now have a shipping estimator that I did not have.
I know someone posted a poll regarding mutli-step checkout versus one page, but there are no reported statistics.
If conversion rates are going down, there has to be a reason. Has anyone identified an area that could be causing this problem.
Has anyone seen a significant increase in conversion rate when changing to cs-cart. If you did, what do you think the reason is?
I haven’t upgraded to 2.1.x so I’m not sure how the checkout has changed.
I wonder about the use of AJAX causing issues for one-page checkout. However, switching to multi-step checkout was a toss up because it had issues too. I used both, but I think I recall that there was no cart summary with multi-step. I think it was only displayed at the beginning of checkout vs. at the end where customers would be expecting to confirm details before clicking that final button to place the order.
I’m going to upgrade to 2.1.x but if it’s still not what I think it should be I’m seriously considering a customization that will simplify things.
That said, I’m not sure if the problem is checkout. I do see things that need to be changed at checkout so it is natural to assume it may play at least some part.
No mini cart. No way to edit cart during the checkout process. Checkout is cumbersome and bulky. Last thing we’re going to fix before we launch. Complete overhaul of the checkout process. My opinion anyway.
I see a few mentions of the lack of a minicart during checkout. I agree – this is a problem. Ideally, a customer would see a cart summary throughout checkout. In fact, it should just be a standard block that I could include in any section i wanted (including checkout).
Anyone seen an add-on like this? Anyone interested in developing one?
any advice for “tweaks” to the checkout process to make it convert better?
any add-ons available to show shipping estimates based on Supplier and customer’s location?[/QUOTE]
Admin>Settings>General> When the customer clicks on any Checkout button/link in the store, redirect to the Cart content page first (CHECKED)
The One Page checkout method along with the above setting has worked quite well for us. The redirect to cart setting is imperative!
As far as shipping method estimated time, I have added general time in transit notations to each of our offered “shipping methods” which suffices for our particular business, but then we do not use “suppliers” thus have total control over order processing, lead times, etc. Also, the majority of our customers are B2B thus normally have a pretty good idea of time in transit for their orders based upon their individual ship to destinations & chosen ship method. I believe Tbirnseth had a mod that would display realtime time in transit details when using UPS realtime shipping methods, this may be helpful to you.
One things I am a little concerned about it that you have to enter your email immediately to checkout as guest (this is new in 2.1). I can’t help but wonder if it turns people off by asking for this upfront. The main reason people checkout as guest is to avoid spam.
I think adding the requirement to enter an email address was due to requests from cart owners who wanted a way to contact customers who abandon the cart after starting the checkout process. I believe this is why it was added. They would have to enter it on the next step anyway.
Most customers know they have to give an email in order to receive a receipt not sure if asking up front has an impact that would prevent people from going to the next step.
I think adding the requirement to enter an email address was due to requests from cart owners who wanted a way to contact customers who abandon the cart after starting the checkout process. I believe this is why it was added. They would have to enter it on the next step anyway.
Most customers know they have to give an email in order to receive a receipt not sure if asking up front has an impact that would prevent people from going to the next step.
Bob[/QUOTE]
Yeah… I just added “no spam will be sent” into the language.
[quote name=‘Struck’]Then why didn’t you just switch right back to Prestashop instead of complaining another 162 times… ;)[/QUOTE]
Need FedEx shipping label option, very important for our operations. None available on Presta yet. I hate to seem like a bitcher because i do love some of the features of CS-Cart but I HATE the programming structure, the slowness in general of the cart, and the checkout process but it is what it is…
[QUOTE]Need FedEx shipping label option, very important for our operations. None available on Presta yet. I hate to seem like a bitcher because i do love some of the features of CS-Cart but I HATE the programming structure, the slowness in general of the cart, and the checkout process but it is what it is…[/QUOTE]
Ion, hopefully you can see enough light at the end of the tunnel to hang in there, I would hate to see anyone leave that has put a considerable amount of effort into CS-Cart as you undoubtedly have!
Did anyone consider the search feature may be partially to blame?
I was trying to figure out why I don’t seem to get as many sales since I moved to cs-cart. I normally don’t have stats enabled, but recently had them turned back on. I noticed that 9 times out of 10, customers were getting 0 results on a search, even if relevant products existed. Sometimes it was because they accidentally were searching only one category vs. the whole store and other times it was because the keywords weren’t exact. My old store had a search feature that never failed to deliver relevant results.
Of course I found several threads here discussing the problem and I have made some tweaks but I am ultimately going to replace the built-in search with something else.
Another feature I’m missing is upselling… I used to be able to recommend products at checkout based on what they had in their cart AND I could also set up a special offer like if they purchased item X, they could get a discount on item Y.
