It seems to happen for no apparent reason, and it appears that there’s no way to prevent it—or stop it once it’s started. Any retail business with an online shopping website fears it, yet very few know how to deal with it. Exactly what is this ever increasing, revenue-damaging phenomenon? It’s a common occurrence known as shopping cart abandonment—when a customer buying from a retail website fills their cart with items to purchase, but they never follow through with a transaction. Some revisit the site to purchase items later, but the majority of customers never return. The scale of this issue can be fully realized simply by the sheer numbers and a little imagination. According to a recent Listrak marketing article, the rate of cart abandonment rose from 71 % to 74% within the first six months of 2011. Internet World Stats has determined that over two billion are people using the Internet worldwide (as of March 2011). If, according to recent recordings, nearly three fourths of the users currently shopping don’t follow through with their purchases, the amount of potential revenue never earned is staggering. Shopping cart abandonment is the second most important metric for businesses to maintain, second only to conversion. Advertising and maintaining a website practically becomes pointless if the site itself is ineffective in generating revenue. This loss of business can be halted and reversed, but the reasons why it happens must be brought to light first. Online shopping seems simple enough, and often more convenient than driving to the nearest retail store. But just as it is in a physical retail store, problems arise for customers that result in leaving the business without making a transaction. Customers on ecommerce sites typically expect to find an indicator that sites are credible (such as an SSL certificate). Even if the web site is credible, customers will exit if they can’t successfully navigate the pages, or if links don’t take them to the pages they expected to see. More often than not, shoppers tend to leave due to high or unexpected shipping costs that haven’t been clearly stated during the shopping process. Most online shoppers want to know how much they’re paying while they are still shopping, not when they go to checkout. Some patrons that leave a site without making a transaction typically may have read a negative customer review before they proceeded to checkout, and others decide to comparison shop on competitor’s websites. Questions that cannot be answered by “FAQ” pages can also result in visitors exiting the site. This problem, along with most of the others, can be alleviated by online web chat—something that 33% of shoppers immediately look for when making a purchase, according to a study conducted by OneupWeb. Businesses and their clients alike can greatly profit from a web chat experience. When a retail website provides chat options, customer service ratings tend to go up and it’s been found that Generations X and Y prefer chat as a method of communicating with the companies they purchase from. A web chat conversation is essentially like speaking with and being assisted by a sales associate at a retail store. Strangely enough, web chat almost seems to benefit the business more than it does the paying customer. Not only do web chat services improve sales and lower operational costs, they’re also one of the most valuable ways for a modern firm to learn about their practices. Chat conversations can supply an unbiased look into the company, potentially leading to changes in product development, marketing, IT issues, and general business related actions. Information obtained from chats can even serve to make adjustments to prices, promotions, and company policy. Web chat can be broken down into two basic categories: live chat, and proactive chat. Live web chat is a relatively simple tool to use, where the visitor only needs to click a link—no downloads or plug-ins required—to begin the process, and the operator can simultaneously sustain up to ten different chat conversations. Live chat is also extremely convenient due to the fact that the customer can take a break from the pop-up window to find information or follow an operator’s troubleshooting instructions. Proactive (or “Rules Board Invite”) chat is a program that automatically opens up when certain online customer behavior patterns are followed, or when certain pages fail to load. The settings for inviting customers to chat are easily customizable and interchangeable. Customers nervous or unfamiliar with the website often benefit greatly from this software, especially if they’re nervous to initiate a chat with an associate, or if they don’t know how to find the information on their own. One of the greatest obstacles to a company’s establishment of a web chat option is the method in which they implement the service. These two basic options are typically the purchase, installation, and implementation of the web chat software to operators within the company itself, or outsourcing to an experienced business that specializes in chat services. Each method has different components that benefit different types and sizes of companies. Even if the description of a web chat type seems to fit a certain company, either approach can be put to use to fit a company based on their unique needs. Plenty of websites offer easy to install chat software that can be put to use immediately. Some websites don’t even require a download to utilize the software—all that’s necessary is an account on the web chat company’s site. The software is often tested and updated by the company providing it, making the process much simpler than creating and customizing the software internally. These programs include everything needed to begin using a web chat option—everything except the employees to maintain the chat program. Despite its simple installation, a few issues come along with the easy to install package. Oftentimes, the chat programs require that the webmaster, as well as visitors to the site, to have certain software and special firewall settings in order to allow the chat window