1. 5 eCommerce behaviors
that SHOCKED the experts
Based on over 500,000 visitor browsing sessions
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2. 1
Intro
After observing over 500,000 visitor browsing sessions over the past six years, ClickTale
Customer Experience Consultants have gotten to know a wide range of shoppers that land
on the world’s busiest websites, including Groupon, CBS, Lenovo and Booking.com, just to
name a few. From the impatient to the hesitant, the comparison shopper to the deal finder,
they know what to expect from all kinds of visitors. And yet, here they still managed to find
some eCommerce behaviors that had their jaws dropping.
Count down and find out these 5 lessons the experts had to share:
5. The shopping cart is actually a glorified wish list
4. Bounced visitors are often being forced to bounce
3. Detailed images can make or break your sale
2. Calls to action can do more harm than good
1. Product size and quantity options cause visitor abandonment
Enjoy!
The ClickTale Team

3. 2
The Countdown
5 The shopping cart is actually a glorified wish list
Online shoppers today use shopping carts/bags almost as a virtual notepad, a place to store
products that are on their minds. It is not a declaration of a shopper’s intent to purchase.
Therefore, the conversion of this virtual “wish list” of items to actual sales is not an indication
of website performance. It is, however, a great indication of what grabs your users’ interest,
what tickles their online taste buds, so to speak.
Caption: The shopping cart/bag is not a declaration of a shopper’s intent to purchase. Use their selections to find out more
about which products generate customer interest.
Look at a shopping cart as each user's individual Pinterest wall. You'll find out more
about their product interests there than anywhere else.
4 Bounced visitors are often being forced to bounce
Your bounced visitors are more interested in your product than you think. They are not
intentionally bouncing away from your website. They are distracted by alternative web pages
to which they are being sent. The main culprit seems to always be diverting links found on
product pages and shopping carts, such as sale banners linking to other products or offers
on the site.
Customers are enticed to click on these links to find out more product information before
making a purchase. However, when doing so, visitors get pulled out of their current session,
and thrown onto a brand-new page, derailing them off the conversion path, rather than
pushing them forward.

4. 3
Insert tabs, rather than links to reassure your customers that they’ll stay on the
current page, and still have access to the information they need. For this reason, you
can see nearly three times as many hovers and clicks over ecommerce website tabs than
links on product pages.
3 Detailed images can make or break your sale
Product pages with images constantly outclass those without. They break up content, give
customers a sense of security knowing they can see the product they are about to purchase,
and offer them a small glimpse into how the product feels, not to mention that they add a bit
of color to your web pages.
However, the types of images you display have a huge effect on a customer’s likeliness to
move on with the conversion process. If you have enough detailed images that gain
customers’ trust and confidence, the better their chances of conversion will be.
On Lenovo's website, after analyzing aggregate Mouse Move and Mouse Click Heatmaps, it
was understood that, when showing an image of a laptop, customers always tried to look at
the keyboard and the back of the screen before making a purchase. Changing the main
landing page image to show a laptop with its back and keyboard clearly visible increased
conversion rates by an unbelievable 240%!
Caption: The types of images you display have a huge effect on a
customer’s likeliness to buy. Use images that will gain customers’ trust
and motivate them to move forward with the purchase process.
Give your customers as many details as possible using the images themselves rather
than text. Customers will be more likely to make a purchase.

5. 4
2 Calls to action can do more harm than good
Product pages are meant to give customers information on the products they need. This is
such an incredibly simple rule and, yet, so often overlooked. Many eCommerce sites today
see their product pages as a place to push “add to cart”, “buy now” and “place an order”
buttons, usually ignoring the purpose of the customer’s visit.
Product pages should undersell your call to action buttons, and let the products themselves
motivate your customers to move forward with the conversion process.
This does not mean hide your CTAs. On the contrary, put your CTAs where the customer
would first look for the call to action on page, not where he would search for product
information. This is usually in the middle of the right-hand sidebar, but it is recommended to
have two calls to action, one to the top right of the product descript and one at the end
description itself.
If customers get the information that they need from the product pages, customers will click
on the call to action on their own without the banner blindness in action.
1 Product size and quantity options cause visitor
abandonment
Any product that comes in various sizes, colors, strengths, power or quantity invariably asks
your customer to make a choice at one point before adding an item to your shopping cart. It
is common knowledge that sticking in an additional page of decision making is likely to have
a negative effect on conversion. Consequently, more and more online shops today ask the
customer to select these variables on the product page itself.
While there is nothing wrong with asking for customer preferences on a product page, the
biggest mistake you can make is assuming that customers read what is asked before
selecting an option. What often happens is customers get to the checkout page and
realize they have eight pairs of shoes stacked up in their basket rather than one pair of a
size eight. They panic and immediately abandon the page.
Caption: A clear product page that has customers make one decision at a time over the span of multiple slides is a great way to
keep visitors on the path to conversion.

6. 5
Too many options on product pages, when not read correctly, often have a negative effect
on the next page of the funnel. Therefore, the checkout page may be performing just fine,
but it is the preceding product pages that need a bit of attention.
Watch what your customers naturally do, and organize your product page preference
fields according to their actual online behavior.

7. 6
Next steps…
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About ClickTale
ClickTale is the leader in Customer Experience Analytics, the next advance in web analytics,
optimizing usability and maximizing conversion rates of any website. Its patented Customer
Experience Visualization™ technology allows ebusinesses to see their customers’ true-to-life online
experience at all levels of detail, from aggregated views to playable videos of users’ browsing
sessions. Unlike traditional analytics platforms that assess page-to-page navigation, ClickTale reveals
the customer experience inside the page. ClickTale, an enterprise-class SaaS solution, is fast to
deploy and provides immediate ROI. Serving over 2,000 customers worldwide including Fortune 500
ebusinesses, ClickTale is the fastest growing company in its space.
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