Shopping cart abandonment happens when a visitor initiates the order by starting the check out process, but leaves before the purchase can be completed. The rate at which visitors abandon the cart is a critical indicator of website performance. For online businesses with their main goal of selling products, shopping cart abandonment can mean the difference between profitability and loss.

According to various industry publications the average shopping cart abandonment rate is currently around 40% - 60% for most online merchants. That means that roughly one out of every two visitors who adds an item to their shopping cart ultimately abandons it instead of completing their purchase. Although the rate of abandonment is alarming, the opportunity for improvement is significant. E-commerce businesses have to learn how to identify and implement effective strategies to streamline and optimize their ordering processes. Understanding the causes of shopping cart abandonment can help any online merchant convert more visitors to buyers.

Leading causes of shopping cart abandonment, involve a lack of effective conversion marketing strategies. Some of the most common reasons people abandon their shopping carts are:

• Comparison shopping and browsing - The Internet makes comparison shopping easy. Consumer performs shopping research before buying, which causes a time delay between initial visit and actual purchase. It’s not unusual for consumer to add items to the cart to determine the total cost of purchase including tax and shipping or save items for later purchase. Visitor may return later after further comparison shopping on other websites or may completely abandon the site and buy elsewhere.

• Confusion in regards to checkout process - Consumer is intent on buying, but can’t determine how to complete the checkout process. Consumers may be confused about added costs such as shipping or distracted by other elements on the pages.

• Impatience and frustration - Consumer becomes impatient if the checkout process is too long, shopping cart pages load slowly, site requires registration before purchase, or requests non-purchase related information. Client gets frustrated when facing shopping cart technical problems like receiving a form error message but not being able to figure out what was in error, or has been returned to the form to find the original data cleared as well when facing payment issues i.e. the site doesn’t take certain credit cart type. Out of stock and back ordered products may also irritate customers, they will not want to wait for the product and may purchase from other site or offline instead.

• Privacy, Safety and Security Fears - Consumer is concerned with providing personal information, including credit card. A lack of confidence and trust in an e-commerce business is a sure sign of shopping cart abandonment, especially with the rise of spam, identity theft and other fraudulent activities. Anything that seems a little out of the ordinary or order forms that ask for too much personal information may scare potential customer away.

• High shipping prices or long delivery times - High cost of shipping and the lack of shipping options may discourage customers from purchasing products online.

• Total Cost of Purchase ends up being more than expected

Shopping cart abandonment is a significant problem. The many ways to reduce it will be discussed in Shopping Cart Abandonment Demystified - Part 2.

In a very strategic move, Yahoo has announced officially on April 9^th that they have a confirmed agreement with Indextools to acquire their web analytics software. More often known as IndexTools due to its branding, its formal name is Tensa. This move should put Yahoo’s search engine marketing offerings in a more preferable position by third party marketers and advertisers. The deal is set to close by the end of 2008’s second quarter.

Over the years, many marketers have preferred to utilize Google for their Search Engine Marketing tools. Google has investing a tremendous amount of resources to develop sophisticated tools and reporting capabilities which allow marketers the opportunity to make intelligent marketing decisions. In addition to refining and creating analytics technology, Google has gone a step further in making this technology free to its customers and has been offering them for quite a while. Yahoo’s analytics capabilities have paled in comparison to Google. By Yahoo taking steps in purchasing IndexTool’s analytics software the Search Engine is now becoming a more attractive channel for marketers to pursue. Bassel Ojjeh of Yahoo’s Strategic Data group has the following to say about the acquisition “We expect that the Indextools’ technology platform will provide our customers the opportunity to more quickly uncover and act on these insights, enhancing Yahoo’s status as a partner choice in online marketing and the must buy for the world’s advertisers.”

We should see the integration of this platform over the next few months. The first wave of implementation will likely benefit small to midsize businesses currently marketing in Yahoo. Following the first phase, they anticipate to add additional tools that will allow advertisers to monitor campaign activity and make campaign optimization more efficient and seamless.

So what is the benefit to Yahoo in acquiring IndexTools? Well, IndexTool’s focus has been concentrated on developing a “large base of customers by delivering a reliable, scalable and comprehensive platform for monitoring and analyzing sophisticated marketing campaigns,” says Marton Szoke, Managing Director of Tensa in a Business Wire press release. The Yahoo press release goes on to state, “With IndexTools Web Analytics and Bid Management, businesses gain accurate, insightful and timely intelligence about the effectiveness of their online marketing.” Thinking forward, the propensity of benefits is yet to be realized. I will be watching closely and taking full advantage of the suite of tools as they become available.

This acquisition should boost Yahoo’s overall market presence, and hopefully its market share. As an internet marketer myself, I have been wishfully thinking Yahoo would develop or acquire a robust analytics package that could be utilized in optimizing campaigns, bid management and for comparison analysis with Google Analytics. Finally, that day has come.

Some of you reading this may actually believe that headline. I come across too many small businesses that believe that pay-per-click (ppc) is not right for their business.

In 2008, all businesses should be taking advantage of ppc advertising and if you are having trouble convincing yourself or your team to try it, here are some ways to counter popular excuses.

We are a B2B company and most searchers are consumers

While many searches are conducted by consumers, B2B customers also use search engines to find vendors and services. More importantly, ppc advertising allows you to only target words used by your potential customers, limiting who will see your ad. Additionally, you only pay when someone clicks on the ad, meaning that they should be a qualified lead if you have good ad copy.

We don’t have the budget

PPC advertising does not require a large budget. You can start on your own for as low as $20 and grow from there. Your company must be able to spare a little money to test this medium and then calculate the return on investment. If the medium provides a good return, marketing dollars will be shifted there.

We don’t have an online store

PPC advertising isn’t only for companies with online stores. Many service companies use ppc to generate leads and you can do the same whether you sell physical products or a service.

We don’t know anything about PPC advertising and don’t have time to learn

That is why companies like MoreVisibility exist. Outsourcing makes companies more efficient and allows them to focus on their core competencies. It usually works out cheaper to outsource than to hire an in-house specialist.

We are targeting a very niche market

That is the perfect opportunity to use ppc to reach customers. No other advertising medium offers the kind of targeting and reporting that ppc does. With contextual and site targeting, you can also advertise exactly where your niche market is online.

We prefer display advertising to text advertising

While text ads are the most popular, ppc advertising is not limited to text. Google also offers display advertising (as well as audio and video). You will be able to place your display ads on websites of your choice.

I hope that the responses above help to convince you and your team that ppc advertising is a good fit for most companies.