Shopping cart abandonment is a serious concern for anyone who runs an e-commerce business. When you look at e-commerce statistics you will quickly find out that shopping cart abandonment is a serious problem, on average a whopping 67.4% of people visiting e-commerce sites drop off after putting products in their shopping cart.After struggling hard to bring customers to your online store through social media, direct marketing, and PR, visitors finally start coming to your store, browse some products, and add it to their shopping cart. This requires a lot of effort, planning, and budget. When you are just a step away from your conversion, the visitor drops off and abandons the cart they had filled a few seconds ago. This is called shopping cart abandonment. Cart abandonment is defined as when a user adds products to the shopping cart but leaves the online store before completing the order. While a certain degree of cart abandonment is expected in online shopping, higher rates of abandonment can lead to a reduction in sales and difficulties in retaining customers.
Here are 7 ways on how to combat shopping cart abandonment.
1. Keep your forms simple
Some eCommerce platform see forms as a mere formality in the sales process and they take customers through multiple lengthy forms to complete a purchase. However, any simple contact form or checkout form can hurt your chances of getting a prospective customer to do business with your brand. Never ask too much information to your customers. If you think minimal information is needed to get in touch with a person or to complete a purchase, limit the fields. Don’t add fields like alternate email address and secondary phone number. Instead, you can use progressive profiling that asks additional questions after a customer has visited a form several times. You can use multiple page segregations to keep the forms neat and organized. If you want to display more information, you can show and hide fields as required.
2. Have a detailed and flexible return policy
The only thing worse than a bad return policy is the absence of one. The majority of online shoppers say that the better the return policy, the more they are willing to shop from an online store. And it makes total sense. Online shopping has an uncertainty attached to its always and the anticipation of a purchase going wrong can always strike in during shopping. If are learning how to deal with abandonment, first try modifying your return policy.
If you don’t offer free returns or returns at all, there are chances that you would lose your prospective customers. Offer your customers a clear understanding of your return policies. Good return, refund, and exchange policies show that you are a brand that offers stellar customer service experience.
3. Send abandoned cart notifications
If a customer has created an account on your website, you can probably reach them out via email. Send abandoned cart emails for overcoming abandonment issues. When a customer abandons the cart, remind them about it by sending notifications and emails. Use simple but catchy content with a casual tone. The last thing you want to do is to intrude in your customer’s mailbox with a wrong attitude. You can use automation services to send abandonment emails to customers who left their purchases in between. Take this as another opportunity to market your products and remind your customers about their favorite products waiting in the cart.
4. Run a promotion
Most customers abandon their cart if there are no discount coupons. According to Statista, 46% of customers tend to abandon their carts if the discount code doesn’t work. These statistics suggest that a decent percentage of online shoppers are deal seekers before they make a purchase. And if they can’t find exciting offers in your store, they will go somewhere else. Discounts, reward points, free shipping above a certain limit, bulk buy pricing and buy 1 get 1 are common business tactics that allow you to build customer loyalty. Once a user leaves your store, the chance of winning them back becomes difficult. So showcase special offers in website banners, sidebars, pop-ups, or in the Sign-up page to reduce the cart abandonment rate.
5. Use re-targeting ads to bring customers back
Don’t worry if a visitor abandoned the cart or didn’t open your reminder email. There are still ways to reach them- through re-targeting ads. This is how re-targeting ads work. A shopper visits your online store but soon leaves the site. You can use re-targeting ads to remind them about the product they browsed sometime back. Re-targeting works through cookies or the website data stores on the browser. It tracks the web pages you visit. Re-targeting ads are mainly used on Google and Facebook. They target visitors based on location, the number of sessions, and specific page views.
Re-targeting your customers with emails is also a popular way of addressing cart abandonment. It works excellent if you are looking for different ways on how to convert abandoned carts. While follow-up emails for customer retention are often sent days after an interaction, immediate follow up is required for re-targeting. Follow up within hours or immediately, as it is directly linked with high conversion rates.
6. Narrate a better visual story
In online stores, customers can’t really see, touch, or check the items. This is the main reason you see an increase in the cart abandonment rate. When it is difficult to figure out whether a particular item would be great for them, the chances are that they won’t buy from you. Utilize this as a great chance to add more details to the product to lift conversions. You can add multiple pictures of a product from different angles so that customers will clearly understand how it looks in real.
Ensure that you use high-resolution images and videos along with the products to highlight the products and how it will benefit the customers. Let the visuals do the narration. Show the products and how it benefits people, don’t tell them about it. If you are running an online boutique, post the pictures of real people wearing a dress or jewelry. This will do wonders for your marketing and help in dealing with abandonment.
Bonus: Having multiple shipping options and free shipping
Another reason customers may decide to leave your site after browsing through your products could be shipping. If it doesn’t immediately become apparent how much the customer would be paying on shipping and how much time it would take for their parcel to arrive, they may go looking elsewhere. Clearly communicate what your shipping policies are, which methods are available and how much time it takes to deliver. Also, offering free shipping is a sure-win strategy to gain more customers.
Ready to start shipping more?
Learning to convert abandoned carts is the best way to earn more value from your online store. You don’t have to implement all of the above tactics, even one or two will take you in the right direction. Now that you are getting more conversions, you will be shipping more. If you need help with that, do feel free to reach out to us by filling out this form.
Floship specializes in e-commerce order fulfillment. We help our clients store their SKUs in our warehouses, pick & pack incoming orders within 24 hours and ship them cross-border, worldwide straight from either Hong Kong or Shenzhen, China. All automated through our fully integrated software. Want to learn more?
Author
Jessica Bruce. I am a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. Currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. I also report on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry.
Follow me on Twitter @Jessicabruc (https://twitter.com/Jessicabruc)
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