Shopping cart abandonment is when a potential buyer starts the checkout procedure for an online order but discontinues the process before completing the purchase.
On average, more than seventy percent of eCommerce carts are left making cart abandonment one of the top challenges for online businesses.
People leave their carts for many reasons and they’re generally all about inconvenience. The supposed trump card of digital stores is the experience of shopping from the convenience of our own homes. However, if your site gives your users any amount of uneasiness, purchases will be cancelled.
Reasons for Cart Abandonment
- Distrust – People are sometimes uncomfortable giving credit card info online.
- Surprisingly high shipping costs – Users get shocked knowing how much shipping costs for their order.
- Complicated check out flow – People hate payment processes that are too complex and time consuming.
- Window shopping – Some people have no intentions to buy. They come to the site just to browse.
- Limited payment options – Customers will pay in the way they want to and if you don’t have their mode of choice, carts will be abandoned.
- High prices – Users have the capability to compare your prices with the competition. If you are too expensive, they’ll choose to shop elsewhere.
- Technical issues – If you have an inefficient site, your users will bump into your errors and glitches. This is a sure way to lose customers.
You should know to avoid giving your customers these inconveniences. Make sure that your customers have a good experience shopping on your site to ensure sustained purchases.
Ten Effective Ways to Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment
Here are tips that will get your users to complete their purchases. Some of these can even be used to better client experience in physical stores.
- OFFER FREE SHIPPING
Shipping costs can be a make or break for your sales. Forty-four percent of online shoppers abandon carts because of shipping and handling costs. Shipping costs are the #1 reason for abandoned carts.
The solution to all of this is, of course, free shipping. It is a major selling point and incentive that can even promote you against the competition.
- SMART USE OF SCARCITY
Scarcity gives a feeling of urgency that entices users to buy ASAP. Whether it is amount of stock available or remaining purchasing time left, when you put a limit on it, there will be urgency.
One way is by showing product count. When your customer sees that there are only a few remaining products of a style or size they want, they will be driven to purchase out of thinking it could run out.
Another is by putting a countdown clock when running flash sales and special deals. The closer to the limit, the more urgent people feel and the more they find the need to purchase.
- MORE PAYMENT OPTIONS
Around fifty-six percent of online shoppers agree that sites need more variety in payment options. Your target clientele will have a preference, so know it and mainline it.
However, the more options you have, the more convenient it is for anyone. You must include the basics
i.e. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, etc.
The more options, the more convenient.
- FLEX YOUR TRUSTWORTHINESS
People like to know if their purchase with you is going to be secure. You should display security badges and guarantees on your site to help instill confidence in your customers.
The top three most trusted badges are Norton, McAfee, and TRUSTe.
- USE CART SAVER TOOLS
There are digital tools you can use to recover abandoned carts and lead them to sales. Here are some of them.
BigCommerce Cart Abandonment Software automatically sends a series of customizable emails to shoppers who abandoned their carts. It allows you to show them the items in their cart and remind them to return and checkout via email.
CareCart helps you recover revenue on your Shopify store using real-time tracking and email automation. It has a unique social marketing feature that improves your customer support and sales and push notifications.
Chatra Live Chat + Cart Saver plugin proactively contacts customers stuck on the checkout. It shows you important visitor information like location, what page they’re on, device type used, while automatically saving your conversation history.
A better work around to save abandoned carts is better e-mail automation. KAMG can save you a great deal of sales from becoming wasted opportunities. We run A/B Tests in a sequence, finding the best converting emails for those groups and promote your emails with the best content that works.
Don’t take our word for it. Here’s what our client has to say.
- MAKE IT EASY FOR CUSTOMERS TO GET IN TOUCH
Shoppers ask a ton of questions during checkout and you have to make the solutions available and easy to access. Your FAQ page must be easy to find and it would be wise to give them the option to directly reach out with via a chat feature.
- CONVENIENT CHECKOUT
Make the best checkout experience for your customers. Make it simple and fast. Remove unnecessary pages and streamline the payment process.
You should also allow guest user checkouts. Some people dread “another sign-up”. Do not push it. When they have a convenient experience with your site and products, they will return and gladly sign-up.
- CART VISIBILITY
Some people who abandon carts save their items for consideration in their next visit on your site. If you want those items purchased, make sure that the client can see it, else, they will be forgotten.
Place a cart icon in a conspicuous area on your site.
- BE TRANSPARENT
People getting surprised by hidden costs and charges, taxes and shipping expenses they will only see upon checkout abandon purchase.
Make all costs and charges clear and eliminate the illusion and trickery of inexpensiveness.
Apply calculator tools on your site so shoppers have a good estimate of the total amount they will pay at checkout.
- GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE
This encompasses the whole list. This is the foundation for all of the tips and tricks top avoid cart abandonment.
When a customer feels the convenience and comfort of shopping in your store, they return the favour with purchases.
Make sure that your site content is user-friendly and suitable to the type of person who would visit it. Know your market and make the best content for them.
You will need eCommerce SEO services to convert your traffic to sales. Don’t waste your time and effort on a website that you’re not sure about. KAMG can help. We are a professional SEO services company that focuses on giving you results.
FAQs
Why do customers abandon their carts?
According to a September 2019 study from web usability research group the Baymard Institute, the global average online shopping cart abandonment rate is a whopping 69.57%. Besides the technical reasons for cart abandonment that we have already mentioned above, some customers do this intentionally! Psychologically when a consumer places items in an online cart and then abandons it, they may feel even greater satisfaction and a ‘pat on the back’ from having decided not to spend the money and being a wise consumer. Furthermore savvy shoppers know that when they leave items in the basket, some companies come back to them with an incentive to buy that item.
How is cart abandonment calculated?
Cart abandonment is the percentage of customers that leave the checkout process after initiating. It is calculated by dividing the total number of completed transactions by the number of initiated checkouts that are abandoned, subtracting this value from 1, and multiplying by 100.
What is “Cart Abandonment Flow” in email marketing?
The Cart Abandonment Flow is one of the most valuable Flows for any eCommerce business. It is a message or sequence of messages sent to someone who added an item from your eCommerce store to their shopping cart, but failed to complete the purchase. Not contacting these customers is equivalent to leaving money on the table. Currently almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned on average.
