Is your Shopping Cart Abandonment hurting your business?
Hello everyone,
Does your online ecommerce shopping cart suffer from abandonment? If so, you are not the only business to suffer. Research indicates that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is more than 60% across the entire web.
This experience can be costly with the lack of conversions and thus the importance to understanding the reasons why this is happening. Once the reasons for abandonment are understood, appropriate methods can be undertaken to minimise the bailout.
Shopping cart abandonments is nothing new. It happens frequently across many platforms and ecommerce internationally. Shopping cart conversions are the bread and butter for e-commerce companies. Optimizing and increasing those checkout conversions is paramount to the success of the e-commerce business model. Therefore, it is very important that e-commerce business owners continually test out and make changes to improve upon the existing layout of their sites.
It is important that testing can help you to identify how small changes in colour, font and placement of objects or wording of text can help to influence online shoppers to complete their purchase. Testing is also of a great importance because what works for one website and one set of customers may not work for another website with its unique shoppers' audience.
Did you know that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is more than 60% across the entire web? Ask any eCommerce business about their most challenging pain points, and they’re sure to mention this frustration. But while this widespread issue can be a thorn in your side, those who figure out how to prevent shopping cart abandonment from happening or persuade customers to return and complete their orders are at a significant advantage over those still working on runaway customers.
It is important to get your website developer to set into motion the appropriate tools to understand the reason why you are experiencing shopping cart abandonment.
Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment
There are many reasons why customers abandon the shopping cart. Let us look at a few reasons why people could be abandoning your shopping cart. Here are just some of the typical reasons why customers abandon the shopping cart:
1. Abandonment is Due to Unexpected Shipping Costs
Customers demand transparency from the brands and retailers with which they do business. If consumers encounter unexpected fees, they may feel slighted, and will set out in search of a better deal.
Remedy: Ensure that shipping costs are displayed throughout the website and not just at shopping cart.
2. Customers Abandon Because they are Required to Create an Account
In some cases, online shoppers are making an impulsive purchase based on an advertisement they have been seen, or a deal they stumbled upon while browsing. In this situation, asking them to create a new user account may give them too much time to reconsider their purchase and bail.
In other cases, customers may feel as though creating an account is a greater commitment than they are willing to make, or will take too much time. They are not comfortable giving up their personal information and opt out of the order.
Remedy: Show benefits of setting up an account and make the process of creating an account painless.
3. Customers Abandon Because they are Not Ready to Buy
Some customers add items to their shopping cart as a “wish list”—a way to keep tabs on what products appeal to them. Forty-five per cent of consumers admitted they also do this to see what the true cost of their item will be after tax and shipping fees are applied. In other words, they are still in the research phase, and have not reached a final purchasing decision.
Remedy: Pop-ups and triggered emails.
4. Abandonment is Due to Payment Security Doubts
Today’s consumer has been burned one too many times by scammers and credit card thieves. If they get the sense that their personal information is at risk, they will look elsewhere for the same product from a more trustworthy source.
Remedy: Integrate as many payment options into your site as possible to be accessible for all but must be recognised payment gateways.
5. Customers Abandon Due to Long and Confusing Checkout Processes
Consumers do not want to be challenged when it comes to their shopping experience. As stated above, they want complete superior customer service and a simple checkout process that makes the terms of the transaction clear and concise. Ask your customers to jump through too many hoops, and you risk pushing their patience beyond the threshold.
Remedy: Make sure your shopping cart experience is quick and painless. Always give customers the option to save payment information.
6. Coupon Code
Customers purchasing online are looking to purchase with a coupon code. If they do not see a coupon code on the product or at the shopping cart, they can bailout.
Remedy: Offer a coupon code for their next purchase.
7. Express Shipping
Some customers can bailout if there is no option at shopping cart for express shipping.
Remedy: Offer express shipping at same cost of normal shipping price.
8. Work or Family Distractions
Sometimes, the shopping cart bailout can be simply caused by distractions such as telephone calls, work commitments or family commitments. Just because someone abandons their order doesn’t mean they are no longer interested. Often, all it takes is a well-timed, well-composed reminder to nudge them back into the purchase.
Remedy: Pop-ups and triggered emails.
9. Website can be too slow
Depending on where you host your platform, this could be a very serious issue for you. Many online retailers host their websites on poor performing servers and as a result their site loads slow and crashes. If your site can not handle the traffic load, this is definitely going to frustrate your customer.
Remedy: Switch to a dedicated host so that not only does your site load faster, but spill-over consequences such as search visibility and sales will improve too.
10. Shoppers Discover that Your Prices Aren’t Competitive
Keep in mind that there is always the chance that if a shopper abandoned their cart that they may have found a better deal somewhere else. Make sure that you make it a habit of checking your competitors and making sure that your price points are competitive.
Remedy: Have a competitive price point, and take the industry online market into account.
Other Remedies for Minimising Shopping Cart Bailout
Generally, the most effective way to get a customer back after they have abandoned their shopping cart is to offer them a better deal. This builds an inarguable case for the effectiveness of two highly regarded marketing tactics: retargeting and real-time email marketing. However, you need to be mindful that a better deal will generally mean a loss of profit but you can look at the idea of free shipping or 10% off your next order (this order will be full profit unless promotional).
Retargeting is a method of advertising that targets consumers based on their previous internet actions. Real-time email marketing uses real-time data to create and serve customers with highly targeted and timely content.
Here are some of the remedies suggested to help minimise shopping cart abandonment:
• Pop-ups at shopping cart abandonment.
• Initial triggered emails (follow up emails) to persuade customers to return and complete their orders.
• Follow up with subsequent emails if there is no response to the initial triggered email. Suggested timeframe for follow up emails:
o First email: Within 2 hours
o Second email: Within 12 - 48 hours
o Third email: Within 48 - 72 hours
• Emails should be personalised similar to this example:
Hi Phil,
We see you added the Blue Shield T-shirt to your cart. Great choice! In fact, this is one of our most popular items, and we don’t want you to miss out. Click here to return to your shopping cart and complete your order.
Don’t forget, this item qualifies for free shipping or something similar.
Cheers,
Peter
Does your online ecommerce shopping cart suffer from abandonment? If so, you are not the only business to suffer. Research indicates that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is more than 60% across the entire web.
Shopping cart abandonments is nothing new. It happens frequently across many platforms and ecommerce internationally. Shopping cart conversions are the bread and butter for e-commerce companies. Optimizing and increasing those checkout conversions is paramount to the success of the e-commerce business model. Therefore, it is very important that e-commerce business owners continually test out and make changes to improve upon the existing layout of their sites.
It is important that testing can help you to identify how small changes in colour, font and placement of objects or wording of text can help to influence online shoppers to complete their purchase. Testing is also of a great importance because what works for one website and one set of customers may not work for another website with its unique shoppers' audience.
Did you know that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is more than 60% across the entire web? Ask any eCommerce business about their most challenging pain points, and they’re sure to mention this frustration. But while this widespread issue can be a thorn in your side, those who figure out how to prevent shopping cart abandonment from happening or persuade customers to return and complete their orders are at a significant advantage over those still working on runaway customers.
It is important to get your website developer to set into motion the appropriate tools to understand the reason why you are experiencing shopping cart abandonment.
Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment
There are many reasons why customers abandon the shopping cart. Let us look at a few reasons why people could be abandoning your shopping cart. Here are just some of the typical reasons why customers abandon the shopping cart:
1. Abandonment is Due to Unexpected Shipping Costs
Customers demand transparency from the brands and retailers with which they do business. If consumers encounter unexpected fees, they may feel slighted, and will set out in search of a better deal.
Remedy: Ensure that shipping costs are displayed throughout the website and not just at shopping cart.
2. Customers Abandon Because they are Required to Create an Account
In some cases, online shoppers are making an impulsive purchase based on an advertisement they have been seen, or a deal they stumbled upon while browsing. In this situation, asking them to create a new user account may give them too much time to reconsider their purchase and bail.
In other cases, customers may feel as though creating an account is a greater commitment than they are willing to make, or will take too much time. They are not comfortable giving up their personal information and opt out of the order.
Remedy: Show benefits of setting up an account and make the process of creating an account painless.
3. Customers Abandon Because they are Not Ready to Buy
Some customers add items to their shopping cart as a “wish list”—a way to keep tabs on what products appeal to them. Forty-five per cent of consumers admitted they also do this to see what the true cost of their item will be after tax and shipping fees are applied. In other words, they are still in the research phase, and have not reached a final purchasing decision.
Remedy: Pop-ups and triggered emails.
4. Abandonment is Due to Payment Security Doubts
Today’s consumer has been burned one too many times by scammers and credit card thieves. If they get the sense that their personal information is at risk, they will look elsewhere for the same product from a more trustworthy source.
Remedy: Integrate as many payment options into your site as possible to be accessible for all but must be recognised payment gateways.
5. Customers Abandon Due to Long and Confusing Checkout Processes
Consumers do not want to be challenged when it comes to their shopping experience. As stated above, they want complete superior customer service and a simple checkout process that makes the terms of the transaction clear and concise. Ask your customers to jump through too many hoops, and you risk pushing their patience beyond the threshold.
Remedy: Make sure your shopping cart experience is quick and painless. Always give customers the option to save payment information.
6. Coupon Code
Customers purchasing online are looking to purchase with a coupon code. If they do not see a coupon code on the product or at the shopping cart, they can bailout.
Remedy: Offer a coupon code for their next purchase.
7. Express Shipping
Some customers can bailout if there is no option at shopping cart for express shipping.
Remedy: Offer express shipping at same cost of normal shipping price.
8. Work or Family Distractions
Sometimes, the shopping cart bailout can be simply caused by distractions such as telephone calls, work commitments or family commitments. Just because someone abandons their order doesn’t mean they are no longer interested. Often, all it takes is a well-timed, well-composed reminder to nudge them back into the purchase.
Remedy: Pop-ups and triggered emails.
9. Website can be too slow
Depending on where you host your platform, this could be a very serious issue for you. Many online retailers host their websites on poor performing servers and as a result their site loads slow and crashes. If your site can not handle the traffic load, this is definitely going to frustrate your customer.
Remedy: Switch to a dedicated host so that not only does your site load faster, but spill-over consequences such as search visibility and sales will improve too.
10. Shoppers Discover that Your Prices Aren’t Competitive
Keep in mind that there is always the chance that if a shopper abandoned their cart that they may have found a better deal somewhere else. Make sure that you make it a habit of checking your competitors and making sure that your price points are competitive.
Remedy: Have a competitive price point, and take the industry online market into account.
Other Remedies for Minimising Shopping Cart Bailout
Generally, the most effective way to get a customer back after they have abandoned their shopping cart is to offer them a better deal. This builds an inarguable case for the effectiveness of two highly regarded marketing tactics: retargeting and real-time email marketing. However, you need to be mindful that a better deal will generally mean a loss of profit but you can look at the idea of free shipping or 10% off your next order (this order will be full profit unless promotional).
Retargeting is a method of advertising that targets consumers based on their previous internet actions. Real-time email marketing uses real-time data to create and serve customers with highly targeted and timely content.
Here are some of the remedies suggested to help minimise shopping cart abandonment:
• Pop-ups at shopping cart abandonment.
• Initial triggered emails (follow up emails) to persuade customers to return and complete their orders.
• Follow up with subsequent emails if there is no response to the initial triggered email. Suggested timeframe for follow up emails:
o First email: Within 2 hours
o Second email: Within 12 - 48 hours
o Third email: Within 48 - 72 hours
• Emails should be personalised similar to this example:
Hi Phil,
We see you added the Blue Shield T-shirt to your cart. Great choice! In fact, this is one of our most popular items, and we don’t want you to miss out. Click here to return to your shopping cart and complete your order.
Don’t forget, this item qualifies for free shipping or something similar.
Cheers,
Peter
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