An online shopping cart abandonment rate of over 70% is typical. That’s a significant number that may have a direct impact on your business’s bottom line. But why do so many shoppers abandon their carts, and how can you reduce this number?
There are a few typical reasons for cart abandonment — all of which you should be aware of when designing your website, checkout process, and other eCommerce site features. This post will cover the most proven tactics to battle the eCommerce challenge of abandoned carts.
What causes shopping cart abandonment?
The number one reason customers abandon their shopping cart is that they simply don’t know what to do next. Customers want to know the next step in the buying process clearly, but this is often an omission on purchase sites.
Here are some of the most common pitfalls for eCommerce businesses:
1) Many online merchants force their customers to input their payment details for the online cart repeatedly and are not clear about the checkout process.
2)The eCommerce business does not provide clear instructions about how the customer should empty the cart until the customer has completed their purchase.
3) The online merchant does not clearly lay out all the steps to enable customers to take back control of their abandoned shopping cart.
These, among other problems, are alluded to in hundreds of complaints over the years on merchant forums. Many of these complaints are not about the cart itself but rather the online merchant’s policies.
Top tactics to battle shopping cart abandonment
If your online store is experiencing a high amount of shopping cart abandonment, it can be frustrating and harmful to your business. Luckily, you can use a few proven tactics to reduce shopping cart abandonment and drive more sales and profits.
1. Send a reminder email.
Send helpful reminder emails to potential customers who have abandoned carts but could still make a sale. Keep track of “at-risk” customers with a powerful eCommerce platform like Stor.co, which connects with your domain and gives you a birdseye analysis of your online store transactions.
2. Use your website intelligently.
Use cookie technology to personalise and increase desired outcomes for your customers. Create a clear and consistent visual hierarchy on your website and be aware of elements that increase e-commerce cart abandonment. Messaging is the most personal way to reconnect with customers who abandoned shopping carts. Often, customers can get easily distracted – a simple reminder pop-up that they forgot to complete their purchase can solve this. Especially when utilising your customer’s favourite communication channels.
3. Offer free shipping and compelling incentives.
One widespread reason customers abandon their carts is because the shipping charges aren’t reasonable. Offer free shipping, personalised deals, discounts, promotions, and even certain product information based on the items left in abandoned shopping carts. Send notifications when a product is back in stock.
4. Increase customer trust in your security process.
One of the biggest may not feel confident that the checkout process will be secure and that their personal information will be kept private. Security measures help, but a significant problem for many e-commerce websites is the lack of intuitiveness behind such security measures. Use a payments gateway that ensures all transactions, logins and messages are made over secure HTTPS connections.
5.Implement a smooth payment process.
Use a simple eCommerce platform with an integrated payment gateway to reduce shopping cart abandonment by ensuring your customers can choose their preferred payment method. With Stor.co you can start taking card payments within 5 minutes of set-up via traditional card providers like Visa, Mastercard and Amex, but also through other payment options like Paypal, cash, cheque, offline cards or purchase orders.
6. Move your shopping cart pages to a different location on your site.
Summarise your cart and checkout process in one cohesive, consistent page. Use eCommerce solutions that will help you enable the Accordion Checkout Flow for your customers. This has been proven to increase conversions as customers go through simple steps without leaving the page.
7. Make it easier for customers to buy.
Slide and scroll sales are getting more popular, and they’re not just a shopping cart abandonment defence. Slide and scroll sales refer to presentations of products that are scrolled down in a single view from a single location. Customers usually do not scroll back up to view the next and higher-priced model. If you decide to use this method to reduce shopping cart abandonment, don’t show only items that are not selling well but also desirable best sellers. You need to enable customers to scroll through all of the models and examine specific features of the product in a frictionless UI, and then allow them to buy only those that are perfect for their needs.
Conclusion
As a society, we live in an era of individualised experiences, and online shopping is no different. Businesses cannot rely only on discount campaigns for prospective customers and expect to achieve astounding results for their bottom line.
Try these tactics to reduce your cart abandonment rates because they can go a long way in lowering them.
If you would like help optimising your eCommerce site to include a variety of payments methods, contact us today.
