Why Are People Not Completing The Payment Process?

How obvious is the price on your page - I often hit the buy now button to find out a price - a lot easier than searching for the small text price on a long text page - lazy I know but I got sick of having to scutinise a whole page just to locate the price

The way you get started is not obvious on the homepage. I see a bunch of ads, and link in the left nav, but I didn't realize I needed to scroll down to get started. Took me about 30 seconds to figure that out.

On an SEO note, you don't have the single word "hairstyle" in the title tag.

On the checkout page, the first thing apparent is to "Try Our Demo". It could be that people are trying the demo and then leaving. I think trying the demo is not appropriate when you have someone that is ready to buy. That causes them to think twice. I think this is the primary reason people are not finishing the checkout.

This is called SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT.

Many people starting out will have an abandonment rate as high as 90% and need to find ways to close the sale.

You need to have many options for people to order your product.

For example, paypal for people who are not comfortable giving out their credit card. Checks sent to your address for those who do not have a credit card. A friend of mine gets 10% of his web orders via check.
Also get an 800 number because people have questions and feel safer ordering from a human. Make sure you train your customer service representatives well - motivate them to sell by giving them a dollar for each sale. Use people who speak proper English and do not outsource this task as your conversions will drop dramatically. Customer calls gives you feedback on how your clients feel about your product. For example, some might complain that $5.95 is an outrageous shipping fee, you need to then give out free shipping.

Typically 50% of my orders come from web shopping cart and 50% come over the 800 number. Many people are afraid to give out their creit card number and will send a check to company headquarters, that means that you send out the product as soon as you get the check. If you wait for the check to clear, customers complain that it takes forever to get your product.


Here a few more tips that help me.

Limit the information you ask for. Customers hate giving out SSN and mother's maiden name.

Use the lock SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) https and security logos like BBB. Also Thawte secure certificate.

Have pictures of your warehouse, the company headquarters, and YOU; so they see that you are a real company and not a fly by night operation.

Use the big button strategy as well as large fonts for older visitors as people get confused where they need to click.

Have a thumbnail of the item inside the shopping cart so they see what they are ordering.

Also offer free shipping on orders over $200 and a free gift.

see Security Measures. Do They Really Boost Conversion? | E-Commerce Optimization & Marketing

To address #2 - One thing I noticed is the 'click here to get started' is way down at the bottom of the page. When I clicked on it - I was like wow okay - this should be the first page people come to. I like the sales page/ membership page. If you want more sales definitely drive traffic to that page.

Sign up and use Clicktale free. It will give you a better idea of how or why your sales process is failing.

My Thoughts:

Slow the 1st frame of the animated banner down a bit. The frame that says "upload your photo" speeds by.

I looked over the 2nd 'sell' page on the site and couldn't find pricing. I was ready to fill out the form just to see how much it cost. Finally, I saw it printed in the bullets in small print.

Experiment with a static banner that doesn't look like a banner. Use a different size that doesn't animate. It's proven the eye ignores animated 468x60 banners.

The demo was cool, but when you click "upload your photo" you need to send people to a strong, "buy now" page dedicated to getting their CC processed asap. That's a critical sales point.

By the way, have you thought of rebranding this separately, raising the price ($99/yr) and targeting hair salons? Hair salons will be able to sit customers down and "enhance" the haircut experience. You could upsell a small "starter package" with white background and digital camera as well.

I also hit the buy now button a lot just to find out the price. Seems like to many people hide it somewhere on a very long page.

The way you're presenting your signup is a bit "tricky" (I don't mean that in a bad way), since you're having the person sign up select a password before having to pay, some are just moving forward to see if they're able to gain access without paying, IE, you're having some people start the process who had no intention of paying, so having THEM drop off is no big loss.

You don't want to do whatever has the least dropoff, you want whatever maximizes sales, so whether your two-step approach right now is better than linking directly to Paypal and capturing payment upfront, you'll only know by testing.