A brief, non-intrusive survey yields valuable insight into the key reasons for shopping cart abandonment on a major online florist.

Problem: Shopping cart abandonment

A profitable, leading online florist needed to analyze the reasons for shopping cart abandonment on their high-revenue web site, and increase conversion rates in a hurry! Mother's Day was just around the corner.

Solution: Ask departing visitors what went wrong

The company utilized its own marketing personnel to build a BuyerFeedback survey using SuiteSmart's web-based tools. In just a few hours, a fully-branded, custom survey was ready to launch. SuiteSmart's research team made suggestions based on experience conducting non-buyer exit surveys, and the survey code was installed in just a few minutes on the checkout pages of the site.

SuiteSmart's proprietary technology was able to identify users who did not complete the final purchase, and randomly intercept them with a pop-up invitation, based on sampling frequency controlled by the client through the account administration tools. Like all SuiteSmart surveys and online requests for feedback, FTD.com users were given the option to not participate in the survey, take the survey or simply request to take the survey at a later date. A cookie was set to ensure that users never saw the invitation twice.

Results: Increase in conversion rates and sales

In a matter of hours, FTD.com realized their online checkout form was too long. In addition, users reported that a new transaction system actually prevented some visitors from saving their selections to the cart.

With this feedback, the site can continually make the changes they need to increase transaction rates on their site. In addition, due to the coupon incentive, the site was able to convert a percentage of visitors to customers, even though they were on their way out.