Abandoned Cart And How To Combat Them

The eCommerce industry is in great shape. eCommerce retailers are taking advantage of the new shopping habits many have now. Online retail businesses can now capture more market shares than ever because more people are clicking ads and searching for products online. We are not saying everything has been perfect and with zero struggles for eCommerce retailers. Now that the number of people shopping online has skyrocketed, something else has also skyrocketed, which is the abandoned cart rate.

Abandoned cart rates reached over 18.5%, about $4 trillion in consumer goods. That’s a lot of lost revenue, so eCommerce businesses need to find a way to reduce their abandoned carts.

Cart Abandonment, Why Does It Happen?

Cart abandonment is a pressing issue eCommerce businesses must deal with as quickly as possible. Most eCommerce businesses see between 70% to 80% cart abandonment. Anything higher than this means something is wrong with your online sales channel, and your customers don’t enjoy the journey when they reach your page. Find where the problem lies and resolve it.

Why Consumers Abandon Their Carts

Unclear checkout process: consumers are likely to abandon their carts if the checkout process is problematic. Are they going from one checkout page to another, and how long does it take? Reduce the steps.
Unexpected additional costs: If your customers start seeing unforeseen charges (like taxes and shipping fees) at the point of checking out, they might abandon their cart.
Inconvenient or limited payment methods: what payment methods do you accept, and are they convenient and easy to use? Use multiple popular payment solutions instead.
Mobile responsiveness: buyers who shop on their phones will abandon their carts if your website is not very responsive on mobile devices.
Not safe and secure: buyers will abandon their carts if they think your website is not safe and secure.
Delivery options: after all, the entire point of eCommerce shopping is to give buyers convenient shopping experiences. So, don’t expect buyers to conclude their shopping when they find that your delivery options don’t favor them.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Abandoned cart recovery is a strategy that makes customers complete their purchases. You want them to pick up their abandoned cart and continue the purchase process until they check out. To do this, you must make the necessary changes to your sales channel so that your customers don’t experience the same problems again.

Start by making your website responsive on mobile and desktop devices. Also, use all your marketing channels, such as social media, search engines, your website, and email. Do not leave any channel untouched to ensure you reach all your target markets.

Categorize Your Shoppers

Group your shoppers that abandoned their carts according to their demographics, interests, behaviors, etc. When you segment your cart abandoners, you can understand them and learn about their interests. Segmentation allows you to design appropriate ads to persuade your cart abandoners to complete their purchases.

Send Reminder Emails

Emails are effective for recovering abandoned carts. Up to 46.1% of shoppers open their abandoned cart emails leading to about 4.64% conversion. This number is impressive compared to the 0.17% conversion rate you will get from a regular promotional email. So, start sending your cart abandoners reminder emails.

Best Practices for Abandoned Email Campaigns

Get the headline right: Most people have hundreds or thousands of unread emails. Considering how quickly people glance at their emails before closing the email app, you have only a few seconds to intrigue your cart abandoners. If you want a customer to read the cart abandonment email you sent, you have to get their attention with a catchy email headline.
Get the timing right: Your first cart abandonment email should reach your customer in time. Consider sending the email within an hour after they leave your website.
Send precise messages: You don’t need to tell your customer about the product again because they already know about it. Instead, send straightforward messages to remind them about the value of your product. Your email should also convey a sense of urgency.
Include low-risk incentives: Add some special offers as rewards for shoppers to complete their purchases. Consider adding low-risk discounts like 5% off coupons, etc.
Lastly, follow up: The first email may not work, so send another one. But try not to send another email too quickly or too late.

Create Retargeting Ads

As far as creating a retargeting ad goes, your focus should be on creating dynamic retargeting ads. Create personalized ads for your target audience based on their interests, behaviors, etc. Dynamic retargeting ads generate up to 0.7% click-through rates compared to 0.07% from regular retargeting ads.

What you should know:

Use simple CTA: your ads should “call customers to action.” Avoid using vague messages, no time wasting. Your message needs to persuade your customer to complete their purchases.
Choose a platform that fits: look for the best option that fits your interest when you want to find a platform that offers retargeting ad solutions.
Set a perfect ad frequency for your brand: typically, experts suggest that brands should show their ads 17 to 20 times per month. Determine the ad frequency that is perfect for your brand, products, audience, and the industry you operate.

Best Practices For Ads and Campaigns to Boost Your Abandoned Cart Recovery

A/B Testing: Don’t just create ads for your products, messages, and offers and assume they are perfect for use. Test your products, campaign messages, headlines, etc.
Create Multiple Engaging Messages: avoid using the same message every time, for example, “you forgot to place your order.” Be more creative, and send multiple clear and simple progression of ads and campaign messages.
Use Personalized Messages: use the insights you got from segmenting your cart abandoners to create personalized messages for your target audiences whenever you need to.
Be consistent with your messages across all your marketing platforms. Research shows that brands can boost their revenue by up to 23% with a consistent brand presentation.

How to Prevent Cart Abandonment

Here, we are talking about how you can encourage your customers to complete their purchases.

Update your product description regularly, and ensure that the product description is easy to understand.
Include trusted badges on your site: buyers should know that their credit card details and other personal information won’t get into the wrong hands if they use your site. Your website should not only feel safe and secure, it should truly be. Surveys show that up to 48% of shoppers feel safer on a website that displays trusted badges.
Make Your Homepage Beautiful: your homepage is usually the first point of contact for an online shopper. You want buyers who land on your page to stay to see what you have to offer. Use the right colors and images that will catch shoppers’ attention. Let your homepage communicate your brand identity.
Influence Potential Buyers: Create a sense of urgency to make shoppers feel the need to buy your products asap.
Give Shoppers Personalized Experiences: Use the insights and data you collected from your customers to create personalized content for them.
Answer Their Questions: Shoppers won’t understand everything about your brand or products, so they will have questions to ask. And they may leave your site if you don’t address their concerns. Use chatbot and FAQ section/page to address their concerns.
Improve Your Checkout Process: Reveal all costs early in the shopping process. Let shoppers know if they will pay shipping costs and taxes before they reach the checkout stage. Make sure your checkout process is seamless for shoppers. Lastly, offer multiple easy payment methods.