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Do you want to increase sales and build even better relationships with your customers?
Abandoned shopping carts are defined as a situation where a customer adds products to the shopping cart but, for some reason, fails to pay for the purchase and leaves the website.
One of the challenges facing the e-commerce industry are unfinished transactions. The Baymard Institute estimated that as many as 68.8% of users abandon their shopping carts. Read this article to discover the definition of abandoned shopping carts, learn the top reasons for cart abandonment and find out about cart recovery methods.
The loss of customer interest and potential profit are the main consequences of abandoned carts for e-commerce businesses. Why is shopping cart abandonment a problem for retailers?
An unhappy customer is likely to spread the news about a malfunctioning website, the lack of suitable payment options or excessive delivery costs. We may also have to contend with a negative online review our business has received. All this may persuade our customers to steer clear of our shop and instead buy from our competition.
The reasons for cart abandonment can be divided into three categories:
1. Personal reasons
2. Mismatched offer
3. Complicated purchasing process
Read more about the reasons for shopping cart abandonment in e-commerce.
You yourself can eliminate many of the reasons for cart abandonment that are listed above – abolish the need to register an account, add a progress bar, introduce various payment options, and cut down shipping costs, to mention a few examples. By putting in the effort, you can easily minimize the number of abandoned shopping carts. To help you, there are various methods that can monitor the cart abandonment rate in your online store.
The HotJar tool will help you analyze customer behavior on your site and even identify the source of the problem. HotJar also allows you to scrutinize the heatmap, which shows you where users click most often.
Another solution is to commission UX/UI research to help you determine the degree of intuitiveness of your store’s shopping process and optimize the relevant elements.
Discover why UX is a critical feature for online stores.
Google Analytics allows you to identify the transaction stage at which the customer decided to pull out of the purchase. The tool lets you analyze cart abandonment statistics in specific areas of your e-commerce enterprise. Find out more about how you can track abandoned shopping carts with Google Analytics.
It is plain to see that there is a great variety of reasons for cart abandonment. Some customers plan to finish their shopping at a later date, treating the abandoned cart as their shopping list. Remember to provide your customers with the ability to return to their active cart – once the cart expires, they are much less likely to complete the transaction. Keep the cart active for about 7 days after it is abandoned.
Other customers, in turn, fail to finish their purchases as a result of various obstacles and uncertainties. Fortunately, there are also many ways to effectively encourage customers to complete the purchasing process. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Do you want to increase your sales and build even better relations with your customers?
According to the Baymard Institute, on average one out of four customers abandons their shopping cart. As you already know, the reasons can be wide-ranging. Some simply give up, while others may do so because of carelessness, lack of time or slow Internet connection. For this reason, sending abandoned shopping cart notifications may be a profitable move. Give it another try to convert some of these people into your customers.
One of the more effective methods of recovering abandoned shopping carts is sending a reminder email. The message should contain:
The text of your reminder message alone, informing the customer of the products left in the shopping cart, is not enough. Adding photos of the abandoned goods is an excellent idea. You can offer added value in the form of a discount on the order, free shipping or free complementary accessories. The message can also include opinions of other customers who have bought the product, its photographs, and a table comparing the product with others (perhaps the customer will be interested in a cheaper version). Here are some examples.
Because of the vast number of abandoned carts, sending messages to each individual customer would be time-consuming, complicated and sometimes even impossible. However, you can automate this process using the solutions available on the market. One of these is the Recover Abandoned Products scenario from edrone. With it, you can send up to 4 messages or reminder text messages to your customers.
12 proven strategies for saving abandoned carts.
The amount of time that should elapse between cart abandonment and the sending of the first message is dependent on your product portfolio. If your products can be easily found in other shops (clothing, shoes, groceries), it is best to stick to the schedule below:
If you sell high-priced items, you should give your clients more time. Waiting only a few hours may not produce the desired result. Send the first reminder a day after cart abandonment.
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As you already know, one of the reasons for shopping cart abandonment is excessive price. By sending out a discount code, you encourage the customers to finalize their purchase. Consider this option carefully and don’t be tempted to offer discount codes on every occasion. This may have the opposite effect and encourage your customers to intentionally abandon their shopping carts to receive a reduction in price.
If you wish to minimize cart abandonment in your e-commerce enterprise, you can also set up exit pop-ups triggered by a specific user action. On leaving the page, your customers will see a pop-up window that may convince them to complete their purchase. This easy-to-use solution allows you to recover more abandoned carts.
The form and content of the pop-up should not be intrusive but convincing. You can enhance your message with a discount code or information on free shipping. Offer something in return! Thanks to the Marketing Machine mechanism, your pop-up may display abandoned products or customer reviews. The edrone system lets you create tailor-made pop-ups that best suit your needs.
Here are some examples that you can use to create your pop-up:
Abandoned shopping cart recovery is the most frequently used scenario among edrone customers. Only in the first quarter of 2021, for every 1,000 emails sent to its clients, Recman earned approximately PLN 8,875! This is an incredible result! The average Open Rate of reminder messages was as high as 41%. The Mosquito brand can also boast some excellent results. In the first half of 2021 – for every 1,000 emails sent, the company earned PLN 7,763.92, and the average Open Rate was 32.1%!
We hope that the advice we have given you on cart recovery will enable you to drastically improve your cart abandonment rate. You can try doing it yourself or contact us for assistance. We will be more than happy to help!
Aleksandra Stankowska
Senior Content Designer
edrone
She cares about good quality content. Believes that success in e-commerce depends on the right approach. She claims it is good to know something about everything, but specializes in modern marketing. LinkedIn
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