Shopping cart abandonment is a serious problem for retailers that could be eating away at your ecommerce sales. The global average cart abandonment rate is nearly 80% across all industries. To make matters worse, the pandemic has even birthed a new pastime of young online shoppers filling, then abandoning ecommerce shopping carts.
The good news is that proven strategies will combat the influx of stranded online shopping carts. Here, we’ll go over some common reasons for shopping cart abandonment and then give solutions for each.
What is shopping cart abandonment?
Shopping cart abandonment is when a customer adds items to their cart but leaves the website without completing the purchase.
How to calculate cart abandonment rate:
To calculate your cart abandonment rate, follow this formula:
Why is shopping cart abandonment a problem for retailers?
Ecommerce brands lose a shocking $18 billion in sales revenue each year due to cart abandonment. A high cart abandonment rate could highlight a poor user experience or other barriers blocking conversions.
Customers may abandon their carts for a variety of reasons::
- Long or complicated checkout process
- Unexpected shipping costs
- Lack of trust
- Couldn’t find coupon code
- Doing research to buy later
Free Download: 10 Best Practices for Ecommerce Checkout
(Source: Baymard)
8 Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Although cart abandonment is a common issue that ecommerce businesses deal with, you can decrease the likelihood of this happening to your store in many ways. Simple checkout optimization has been proven to be more effective than ever.
These top cart abandonment solutions will help you optimize your checkout process to land more successful checkouts for your ecommerce store.
- Make checkout easier for customers
- Offer shipping promos
- Build trust with your customers
- Delight customers with coupon codes
- Send abandoned cart emails
- Send abandoned cart texts
- Retarget your ads
- Provide a check-out timeline
1. Make checkout easier for customers
Twenty-four percent of shoppers abandon their cart because the site wanted them to create an account. To remove this roadblock, consider adding other options like guest checkout or the ability to log in with a social media account.
Sometimes making a full payment up front is a scary task. An easy way to make checkout less daunting is to offer multiple payment options. In 2021, 84% of adults had a credit card, up from 83% in 2019. Consumers who want to earn points on a credit card, tap into the protection the cards offer, or pay over time need to see credit card options at checkout.
Another helpful service would be to offer your customers installment payments. Investopedia reports that 60% of consumers prefer to buy now, pay later over credit cards. Offering this option allows customers on a budget to make the purchase and pay over several months, taking the sting out of higher priced purchases.
It’s also wise to include Apple Pay, online Venmo, PayPal and other digital wallet payment options. As they rise in popularity, especially among younger consumers, it will become increasingly important to make them available.
2. Offer shipping promos
In a recent Baymard study, 49% of shoppers abandoned their cart due to high extra costs like shipping. However, depending on your product offering or location, high shipping costs may be unavoidable. Consider bundling free shipping with a minimum purchase and building the shipping costs into the price of the product.
If you have a Shopify store, consider using an app like Shipping Rates Calculator Plus to display an estimated shipping cost based on location. This can give customers a feel for what costs to expect when they checkout, reducing the potential shock factor.
3. Build trust with your customers
Shoppers may hesitate to buy if they’re not sure you’re a reputable company.
So, how do you build trust with customers?
This is where social proof comes in. Social proof can include reviews, testimonials, social media content, and trustmarks on your site. Be sure to feature positive reviews in key areas of your online store such as the homepage, landing pages and the checkout page. Shoppers will feel more comfortable purchasing from you knowing that others have had a positive experience.
Also, consider displaying a third party trustmark like Norton Shopping Guarantee on your website to show that you're a verified reputable company. When customers see the trustmark, they can shop at ease knowing their purchase is protected.
4. Delight customers with coupon codes
Who doesn’t love a good deal? Shoppers may look to find better savings elsewhere if they can’t find a coupon code to use on your site. Offering a discount in exchange for an email or SMS sign up could be a win-win. Customers will be happy they snagged a deal, plus it opens up the opportunity to build a relationship, boost customer loyalty, and market to them in the future.
Promo codes can also be a great way to get customers to spend more money. A Blippr study showed that online shoppers who use coupon codes spend 24% more than shoppers who don’t use them.
5. Send abandoned cart emails
Online shoppers can also abandon their carts simply because they’re only in the research phase. This can include learning more about the product, scanning for reviews, and comparing prices. A checkout recovery email is an effective way to recover sales from abandoned carts.
Check out this abandoned cart email example from Dyson:
This email makes it easy for the customer to pick up where they left off. If the shopper was just browsing, the limited offer creates a sense of urgency encouraging them to buy. In this abandoned cart email example, Dyson also lists the benefits of shopping with them versus anyone else. Displaying these advantages can be the push needed to close the sale.
6. Send abandoned cart texts
Another successful way to connect your customer back with their abandoned cart is to use SMS. You can have a text message automatically sent to your customers when they leave their shopping cart without completing their purchase. Sending a text is valuable because 68% of people read all of the texts they receive – that’s a pretty good open rate. In addition, SMS is inexpensive to set up, it’s relatively easy tech-wise, and texts work on all mobile phones.
7. Set up retargeting ads
Oftentimes, your customers view your products, put them in a cart, but simply get distracted or run out of time before they can check out. Retargeting ads can be a simple and affordable way to put your customer’s favorite products back in front of them.
In addition to reminding your customer of what they want, you can take the opportunity to create some urgency to complete the purchase. And retargeting ads are 76% more likely to be clicked on than standard display ads.
8. Provide a check-out timeline
It’s easy to get bored or run out of time due to a long, unknown check-out experience. A great cart abandonment solution for this is to include a live timeline that shows where your customer is in the check-out process. This helps them see the beginning, middle, and end of what is expected.
Top solutions for cart abandonment
Norton Shopping Guarantee reduces cart abandonment by building customer trust and confidence in your brand. Norton Shopping Guarantee provides customers with a comprehensive set of protections including identity theft protection, a purchase guarantee, and price protection that guarantee the security of your customers’ shopping experience and reduce the likelihood of cart abandonment.
Jumper is a conversational commerce solution that helps prevent cart abandonment by enabling shoppers to complete their purchase without leaving the website they're on. With Jumper, shoppers are targeted on social sites such as Whatsapp, YouTube, or social posts. They can then buy products without being redirected to a different site, which reduces the risk of losing them during the checkout process.
Omnisend is an ecommerce marketing automation platform that helps retailers recover abandoned carts by sending targeted messages to customers who have abandoned their carts. Omnisend uses personalized, automated email and SMS messages to remind customers about their abandoned items and incentivize them to complete their purchase.
Recart helps ecommerce businesses recover lost sales by engaging with customers who have abandoned their carts. Recart uses automated chat messages to engage with customers, reminding them about their abandoned items and offering them incentives to complete their purchase.
Conversio helps businesses increase sales and reduce cart abandonment by sending personalized email campaigns to customers. Conversio's email campaigns are designed to re-engage customers who have abandoned their carts, offering incentives like discounts and free shipping to encourage them to complete their purchase.
Final Thoughts
Overall, shopping cart abandonment is an issue all ecommerce businesses will face. However, spending more time to understand your customers and implementing new strategies is key to providing a better shopping experience. Download our free ebook to further your knowledge of your customer journey and start applying these cart abandonment solutions today.
