User-Friendly B2B Ecommerce Carts Break Down Sales Barriers

Like product catalogs, ecommerce carts are fundamental to ecommerce: Improving the cart means fundamentally improving the ecommerce experience.

Consumer ecommerce carts use images and product descriptions that make it easy for buyers to see what they’re buying.

More importantly, however, the carts include nuanced functionality that reduces cart abandonment rates and breaks down other barriers to sales. This includes:

Abandoned cart notification, line-item ship-to, and guest checkout lower barriers to sales with the ease-of-use that B2C buyers expect.

• Abandoned cart notification: More than half of ecommerce carts are abandoned -- but not always by a dissatisfied buyer. Many buyers fill carts to research or compare with plans to revisit them later. Savvy ecommerce websites use abandoned cart notification, such as an automated email, to remind the buyer about their cart. Studies show the reminder converts as many as 25% of abandonments with 50% more spend.
• Line-item ship-to: Line-item ship-to allows the buyer to send different items to different locations, eliminating a difficulty that makes many buyers stop in their tracks. If a buyer needs the shirts to go here for embroidery, mugs there for imprinting, and pens just directly to the tradeshow – it’s going to be a potentially transaction-killing hassle to turn the order into three different orders all for the sake of shipping addresses. It’s the type of "shopping agony” B2B needs to avoid.
• Guest checkout: Mandatory registration is another barrier that can stop buyers in their tracks. Studies show 1 in 4 ecommerce buyers will leave if they’re forced to register in order to purchase. Guest checkout overcomes this by allowing buyers to buy without an account. In effect, guest checkout creates a 25% boost in conversions.

All of this functionality is aimed at one goal: Breaking down sales barriers.

By using abandoned cart notification, line-item ship-to, and guest checkout – and a content management system that supports the features -- B2B ecommerce lowers barriers to sales and delivers the ease-of-use buyers have come to expect from consumer ecommerce.

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