Do you struggle with high registration page abandonment percentages? If so, you’re not alone. The average online registration page abandonment rate sits at a whopping 69%.
As an event organizer, it’s beyond frustrating to watch this kind of revenue slip away. You might be left wondering why these potential customers left. Are they abandoning you for other, more appealing event pages?
While registration page abandonment seems vexing, it has been studied at length.
Baymard Institute, the leading research group for e-commerce design, conducted over 110,000 hours of research on UX design and worked with more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies. Their research offers some insight into why registration page abandonment happens.
Once you understand why registrants abandon, you can start turning registration page abandonment into registration page commitment, and, eventually, registration page cash!
Below are six of the most common reasons for registration page abandonment, and what RegFox does to prevent it.
# 1 Extra Costs
Have you ever experienced sticker shock before? It’s the gut punch you feel when that conference ticket listed at $100, ends up burning a $160 hole in your wallet. Your customers hate that feeling just as much as you do.
According to the research, extra costs are the number one reason that registrants abandon.
Even eager registrants will turn around in their tracks when there’s a glaring mismatch between the registration price and the checkout price. It’s important to note that high price isn’t the only barrier, 16% of registrants will also abandon because of an unclear price—i.e., the kind of price tag they can’t see or calculate upfront.
So whether it’s an astronomical venue fee or a vague pricing model, extra costs and hidden costs can hurt sales more than you think.
The RegFox Solution
At RegFox, we keep our fees fair and simple: 99 ¢ per registration + 2.99% for credit card processing. We also have a dynamic calculator that gives you the ability to itemize fees, separate out sales tax and keep the experience feeling clear and honest for the customer. You can choose to pass on fees to your customers, or not charge a fee at all.
As our competitors continue to squeeze their customers by steadily hiking their rates, we’ve kept the same price for over a decade.
# 2 Being Forced to Create an Account
Your registrants, like all people, have limited bandwidth and attention span. If they’re forced to fill out a form and create an account, there’s a good chance they’ll think, ‘Forget it. I’ll do this later.’
Forced account creation is an antiquated approach to accessing customer data and offering buyers the ability to edit their registrations. If you’re still using this approach, your registration sales are definitely taking a hit. Being forced to create an account is the second most common reason registrants abandon their orders.
Purchasing registration should require a couple of clicks—not a super-strength password with 8 different characters. When your customers are ready to give you their money, don’t stop them!
The RegFox Solution
We make it easy on your customers. They’ll have the option to claim an account and edit their registrations later, but account creation will never stand in the way between them and the checkout.
# 3 The Load Time is Too Long
When it comes to loading time, every second matters—literally. According to the research, more than half of buyers will leave the page after a mere 3-second wait.
If you want your customers to hold onto their orders, your pages need to load quickly and have the capacity for a high volume of buyers. That might sound simple, but not all AI can do that.
The RegFox Solution
Being a small and agile team allows us to constantly develop game-changing technology and adjust to the needs of our customers.
We helped launch the sales for a large, globally recognized event earlier this year, and within the first minute of being on sale, our software supported over 30,000 buyers!
Additionally, we managed the attendee support for this event and each guest had an excellent experience with little to no assistance; it was crickets on our end.
#4 Too Many Form Fields
As we mentioned earlier, your customers have limited time and attention. If your checkout page resembles a comprehensive health intake form, they’re much less likely to stick around.
According to a former executive at Universal Studios, 22% of people exit the buying process for each additional page.
Considering that the average checkout flow has 23 form elements and 14.8 form fields, this costly mistake is far too common.
The RegFox Solution
At RegFox, we keep checkout to the necessary information with a single branded page. With our conditional logic, you can change the buying experience and keep your audience engaged by customizing it for them.
# 5 Poor Website Design
Research from Stanford University tells us that 46% of people judge your credibility based on your website. In a separate Baymard study, 17% of people said they have abandoned checkout because they didn’t trust the site.
As an event organizer, this means your website design matters and a webpage that represents your brand (which customers already trust) will lead to higher conversions.
The RegFox Solution
At RegFox, we believe there should be a consistent experience across the registration page and your website. By pointing people directly to the purchase page, there’s one less point of friction and one less reason for them to abandon their order. With RegFox, you don’t need to worry about regaining branding; the focus—as it should be—is on your brand.
# 6 Invalid Discount Code
While every registrant loves a discount code, few are willing to persist through the inconvenience of an invalid code. These codes often end up doing more harm than good. The stats tell us that almost half (46%) of registrants have abandoned their order because of an invalid code. This begs the question, are discount codes even necessary?
The RegFox Solution
It turns out, you don’t always need traditional discount codes to boost your sales. Of our customers processing over $1 million a year, none of them use discount codes. When we take all of our top farms into consideration, that number only climbs to 1%.
RegFox uses conditional logic for demand pricing and discounts. This robust if-then technology is game-changing for buyer experience and alleviates the frustration of having to track down a coupon code additional field to be filled.
Conclusion
Still, questioning whether RegFox is right for you? Whether you benefit from our single-page checkout, our quick loading time, our robust conditional logic, or all of the above, you can expect an increase in conversion—of more than 35%!
Click here to speak with one of our customer support team and learn more.
— The RegFox Team