Google Analytics: Setting a ProductCart-specific "Goal"

Your Google Analytics account gives you a way to track special steps that visitors take on your Web site, and that are particularly meaningful to you. For example, if you have a form where people ask for more information about your products, you can create a “goal” to track the “conversion” rate between visitors and prospects (people who fill out the form). How many visitors become prospects? Where did they come from? That's what Google Analytics can help you determine.

Applied to ProductCart, the use of a goal can assist you in determining when customers abandon the store after adding products to the shopping cart. This information can be helpful in determining where customers are “dropping off”. We'll call it a “Store Drop Off” goal.

• More information on "goals" and "funnels"

To set up a Store Drop Off goal for your ProductCart-powered store, do the following (here we assume that the name of your web store is www.myWebStore.com and that you are using a dedicated SSL certificate for that domain):

• Log into your Google Analytics account and click on Edit settings for the profile that you are working with.
• You can create up to 4 goals.
• Click on Edit next to the first goal, and then fill out the fields as follows:
  • Goal URL. Enter the full URL to the order completion page. On this fictitious store located at www.myWebStore.com and where the “productcart” folder has been renamed “shop”, the URL is: https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/orderComplete.asp
  • Goal Name. Enter any name. For example: “Store Drop Off”.
  • Define Funnel.
    • ProductCart v3
      Here you can specify the steps in the standard ProductCart checkout process. This will allow you to track the drop-off (when customers leave) at each step of the way. The image above gives a visual example of the steps listed below.
    1. View Shopping Cart page (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/viewcart.asp)
    2. Start Checkout (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/checkout.asp)
    3. Login or Register (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/login.asp)
    4. Shipping Selection (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/chooseShpmnt.asp)
    5. Order Verification (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/orderVerify.asp)
    6. Payment Page
       This URL changes depending on which payment gateway (or other payment option) you are using on your store. To find out exactly what the URL is, simply start a test order and go all the way to the payment page. Then, copy and paste the URL from the browser address field. For example, if you were using Authorize.NET, the URL would be: https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/gwAuthorizeAIM.asp
    • ProductCart v4
      Here you can specify the steps in the standard ProductCart checkout process. This will allow you to track the drop-off (when customers leave) at each step of the way. The image above gives a visual example of the steps listed below.
    1. View Shopping Cart page (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/viewcart.asp)
    2. Start Checkout (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/checkout.asp)
    3. Login or Register (https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/onepagecheckout.asp)
    4. Payment Page (if using a payment gateway)
       This URL changes depending on which payment gateway (or other payment option) you are using on your store. To find out exactly what the URL is, simply start a test order and go all the way to the payment page. Then, copy and paste the URL from the browser address field. For example, if you were using Authorize.NET, the URL would be: https://www.myWebStore.com/shop/pc/gwAuthorizeAIM.asp

You should not be alarmed to see customers drop-off during the checkout process. It is perfectly normal that many customers decide not to complete a purchase. We all do it all the time when shopping online.

A normal drop-off rate (or shopping cart abandonment rate) is hard to define as it varies dramatically from industry to industry (e.g. high ticket items vs. low cost products). On average, researchers have found that shoppers drop-off around 50% of the times. But – again – the average is not that interesting as in your industry the typical drop-off rate could be much higher or much lower.

Here are the things to look for in your reports, if you are using ProductCart v3:

• A high drop-off rate on the shipping page might indicate that shipping charges are too high (or not what the customer wanted to see: e.g. Next Day Air is not available and they wanted to ship Next Day). You can tweak your shipping options to see if you can reduce the drop-off there.
• A high drop-off rate on the order verification page might indicate that customers did not see a payment option that they felt comfortable with. For example, some customers might be looking for a payment option other than credit cards (e.g. PayPal or eCheck).
• A high drop-off rate on the payment page might indicate that customers did not feel comfortable completing the transaction. For example: make sure that your are using an SSL certificate so that the customer knows he/she is on a secure page when entering payment information.

Here are the things to look for in your reports, if you are using ProductCart v4:

• A high drop-off rate on “One Page Checkout” could mean that the shipping charges are too high (or not what the customer wanted to see: e.g. Next Day Air is not available and they wanted to ship Next Day). You can tweak your shipping options to see if you can reduce the drop-off there. It could also mean that customers did not see a payment option that they felt comfortable with. For example, some customers might be looking for a payment option other than credit cards (e.g. PayPal or eCheck).
• A high drop-off rate on the payment page might indicate that customers did not feel comfortable completing the transaction. For example: make sure that your are using an SSL certificate so that the customer knows he/she is on a secure page when entering payment information.

Here are some interesting reads and statistics about shopping cart abandonment:

• http://usabilitynotes.typepad.com/usabilitynotes/2007/02/shopping_cart_a.html
• http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum22/2716.htm
• http://www.marketingexperimentsblog.com/research-topics/order-process/how-do-you-stop-shopping-cart-abandonment-09-06.php

If you perform a search on a search engine such Google for “shopping cart abandonment” or similar keyword phrases, you will find a lot of other interesting information.

ProductCart & Google Analytics table of contents