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Retail businesses with Web site shopping carts beware. A new trend has emerged: people are putting things into shopping carts but leaving the site without buying anything. Why? A ScanAlert study done between June 2004 and March 2005 suggests that Internet shoppers are prone to visiting up to 10 sites before returning to their most favored site hours or days later to make a purchase. Forrester Research confirmed the trend in its report, calling the behavior "cross-channel shopping."

This electronic window shopping is frustrating and confusing for some retailers. However, the question is not why did they abort the shopping cart, but why did they leave without buying anything. The study confirms that consumers will go through the order process to uncover actual pricing and shipping costs before a credit card is required, then abort to look elsewhere.

What can businesses do to avoid this? The first thing is to ensure the shopping experience is memorable through great user interface design and the site has the perception of safety and security. Consumers will judge your Web site the same way they will a retail store. Appearance, security and service are important. For example, having a toll-free customer service number in a visible location on the site will make a dramatic difference in the perception of your online store's service.

The second thing is to allow potential buyers to create an account quickly and easily. The accounts let them store their searches as they browse or do research. You can also add features like "e-mail this to a friend" as a virtual marketing effort. Once they return, it is much easier for them to log in and make a purchase.

The third thing is to provide potential buyers with all the research they need on your Web site. Let's say I am a car dealership Web site. If Joe Consumer is looking at buying a 3-series BMW, he is probably also looking at other entry-level luxury models. The dealership Web site should allow Joe to "compare this vehicle" to other vehicles in its class, including other brands. He will visit several dealer sites, so the more cross-referenced information you give, the more credible and likable you become.

A fourth tip for your Web site is to disclose as much of the pricing up front as possible, including fixed shipping rates. You may be thinking, "Why should I give my competitors easy access to my prices so they can undercut me?" Although this is a valid point, research shows that pricing is what shoppers want, and they don't want to dig for it.

Finally, a fifth way to prevent folks from aborting your shopping cart has to do with artificial intelligence. We need to focus more on consumers, not products. Companies like NetFlix and Amazon do this well: they ask consumers to rate movies, books, etc., that ultimately result in seemingly accurate recommendations of other titles. The more ratings you provide, the more accurate the suggestions are. This complex algorithm of data sets is expensive, but there is an easier way.

With the car dealership Web site, we can show our visitors search results based on a different set of questions. Instead of using make, model and price, we can ask them what miles per gallon rating do you want your vehicle to have, how many people are in your family, or how many miles do you drive to and from work each day.

You can use artificial intelligence models to drive potential buyers down the path they want, greatly increasing the chances of a purchase. Last October, NetFlix said it would award $1 million to anyone who could improve the accuracy of their recommendation system. Apparently, the system works great if there are large enough data sets to show a correlation between ratings, effectively drowning out those who rate everything neutral.

But there are less expensive ways to give your customers what they want. Google recently released a free product called Analytics. Once your Web site has the proper tracer code to track visitors, this tool gives you a massive amount of data to analyze, including what path or page sequence is the most popular, what buyers are putting in or taking out of their carts, what page they are leaving from, and how long they are on the site.

The Analytics software attempts to provide data in a way that encourages you to make changes to your site based on consumer behavior. After seeing the data, you wonder, "Why do 60 percent of my visitors leave the products page within 20 seconds?" The answer could be how the products are laid out or the lack of pricing.