As an e-commerce executive, your biggest fear is probably customers leaving their shopping carts full to the brink but never pressing that buy button. If you are curious about how to recover abandoned shopping carts for your store, this article will provide you with 12 practical solutions to diminish abandoned carts.
Thus, let’s check out these recovery strategies to recover abandoned shopping carts and boost your store profits.
What Is An Abandoned Shopping Cart?
An abandoned shopping cart is the bedtime horror story of all store owners, a living nightmare that drags their whole business to loss after loss of profits. It is characterized by the terrifying thing an online shopper could do, leaving your store without completing a purchase even after adding the items in their cart!
A not-so-pleasant-to-know fact: as stated in Statista – German online portal for statistics, an industry’s average e-shopping cart abandonment accounts for 75%, which means that every 3 out of 4 online buyers leave their cart there and just be on their way without completing a purchase. (Source: Statista)
Although there are some best practices that online merchants can incorporate to optimise their payment process and improve their conversion rates, abandoning shopping carts is still considered as a complicated problem and to recover abandoned shopping carts is prioritized over other matters by eCommerce businesses.
Why Does Shopping Cart Abandonment Happen?
To find out the solutions for shopping cart abandonment; what you need to do is find out the reasons why customers leave the shopping cart to boost sales!
Unexpected Costs
Most people have an issue with paying an undesired fee when making a purchase. According to recent studies, hidden costs are the main cause your visitors exit without buying.
These costs produce an immediate aggravation and crossness. In some situations, it can even drive consumers to the verge of regret for purchasing.
Delivery Time
Customers will never want to wait weeks for products to be delivered to them. So, they can avoid your e-commerce portal as a result if it takes time to deliver products.
Not Free Shipping
Clients are always looking for something they can gain the most out of. Let’s imagine there two stores selling the same product, no difference in quality.
However, if the first store is a bit more expensive but free shipping, shoppers are willing to pay money for it.
By contrast, although the good of the second mall is cheaper, it is still left because of shipping fees.
Payment Method Issues
Probably you may not know that you are missing out on more sales than you think when not providing consumers with alternative payment methods.
You can have great products, well-designed websites and practical marketing campaigns but no diversity payment methods. This generates annoyance and frustration for them when shopping.
Discount Code Problem
According to Statista, 8% of customers will turn their back on your store and abandon their full shopping cart if they can’t find a discount code or coupon. The same report found that 46% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts when the coupon codes they found are no longer valid.
No Free Return Policy
Sometimes we may deliver the wrong goods to customers, or customers detect something undesired about the things they purchased and wished to give it back. However, most stores do not offer free returns and exchange policy. This is the reason why customers are hesitant to buy an item from us.
Intricated Purchasing Process
When shopping online, convenience is above all. Although some don’t mind creating user accounts to purchase products, most people just want to buy as quickly as possible without getting involved in endless procedures.
It is reported that many shoppers never complete the order process because of complicated purchasing processes. Thus, seriously consider making signing up to your store easy or offer guest check-out.
No Direct Customer Support Services
Technical issues may prevent users from being able to complete their transactions. Unfortunately, most online businesses don’t have a way to help their buyers handle technological difficulties as they occur. Moreover, they cannot talk to product experts to solve purchasing problems.
Slow Web Page Loading Speed
Purchasers expect websites to load quickly, especially during the checkout phase. Sites with slower loading speeds may reduce the impulse to buy and undermine consumer’s procurement speed.
Therefore, the page load times of online retailers have been improved in recent years to meet clients’ needs.
Price Differences
Customers often tend to compare prices of the same product that different ecommerce stores offer. They would prefer to buy the items that have the lowest prices among the same ones of other shops.
Uncertain Security
Payment security is the second biggest cause of consumers leaving their shopping carts before paying. Shoppers always want to make sure their personal information is not exposed when going shopping online.
Lack Of Product Details Or Photos
Some online shops do not show enough product information to persuade customers to make a purchase decision.
Moreover, about two-thirds of purchasers forsake their carts because the store doesn’t provide sufficient figures as well as the actual photos of the product.
How Can We Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts?
Having figured out the reasons why customers can abandon their shopping carts, now it is about time for you to put into your mind and call to action some applicable tips to recover Abandoned Shopping Carts.
Tip 1 – Reduce all the Hidden Costs
Hidden costs like shipping costs are one of the reasons why just a handful of buyers are willing to reach the last stage of an eCommerce transaction. What’s more, a lot of customers report that unexpected shipping payments are the cause they refuse to buy.
If you plan to charge shipping fees at any cost, let them know. This makes them have a feeling of respect and highly appreciate plainness of your store in business.
Tip 2 – Reduce Transportation Time
Customers never want to wait for weeks for your products to arrive, and as a result, they can avoid your e-commerce portal.
Ecommerce store owners found that providing one-day shipping or same-day shipping could also be a primary motivation for patrons, even if having additional costs.
Another thing to keep in mind: Buyers don’t always love to pay other shipping fees, but if your store manages to bring their order to their doorstep in due time, they’ll be ready to spend further for it.
Tip 3 – Deliver without charge
Free shipping is probably one of the most recommended e-commerce marketing strategies today. And as we have said earlier, expensive shipping costs are the top reason for your high numbers of abandoned shopping carts.
One good example of industry group applying this marketing campaign successfully is Amazon. Amazon often offers fast and cheap delivery for every order to attract users to buy products.
Even if the items will take longer to arrive, most of the shoppers still want to put these things into their cart and purchase due to free shipping. Hence, applying express free shipping if possible can recover lost sales.
Tip 4 – Diversify The Payment Method
Please provide as many payment options as possible when selling online. Create any form of popular payment that customers can expend, for example, credit card, cheque card, and eGift card as well as cash payment.
Giving various expenditure gateways creates an excellent payment experience for customers when buying online. This also makes them feel that you do care about them rather than just to have your products sold out.
Tip 5 – Add Discount Codes And Promotions
Obviously, customers always chase deals and discount coupons. Therefore, it’s time to practice auto-apply coupon code for your business whenever able to cling on patrons.
When a user leaves your site, the possibility of coming back is undoubtedly low. So, show special offers on pop-ups, web banners, and sidebars, any visible places to attract online consumers and develop consistent carts.
Tip 6 – Provide Free Return And Exchanges Service
Several shoppers tend to check a website’s return and exchange policy before making a purchase. For this reason, remarketing ads on free return policy to recover lost sales.
By letting your customers know that you offer free returns and exchanges within specific periods, you can increase abandonment recovery and persuade people to buy more.
However, you should mention when a customer is eligible for a refund and in what period they have to request a refund, which is also beneficial for your business.
Tip 7 – Simplify The Payment Process
As a content marketer, you can try below instructions to propitiate expense procedure:
- First, you should try to reduce the number of websites that customers must navigate through to complete their purchase procedure.
- Next, only ask customers to provide the information needed to process orders and make all other fields optional.
- Then, make sure your return policy, contact information, and other relevant details are easy to find.
- Lastly, this is the time for you to add the “BUY NOW” button to your product page to encourage customers to consume stocks as much as possible.
Tip 8 – Provide Online And Direct Customer Support Services
Let customers know that you are always by their side. You also need to remember that different customers prefer to communicate with businesses through different channels, so provide a variety of contact forms for them.
There are some popular communication channels for online shoppers such as Phone, Email, Live chat, FAQ page, DM social media, and the social networking sites.
With the help of these online supports, store owners can timely contact and help clients solve problems when purchasing.
Tip 9 – Improve Website Loading Speed
You can create a better experience for website visitors by in the following ways:
- Use mobile-friendly and mobile-optimized website themes. Let customers travel your site from any device. Nowadays, the number of smartphone users who have made purchases on their mobile devices is becoming increasing.
- Improve your page loading site speed. A slow-loading website can get customers out immediately, affecting your rankings on Google, reducing potential revenue.
Tip 10 – Consult And Balance Market Prices
Unlike shopping in a traditional store, e-Commerce offers customers an opportunity to switch from one online store to another easily. Therefore, you should research market prices and maintain competitive prices because if the price of your merchandise is too steep, buyers will immediately go to another online store for their sake.
Please remember the reasonable cost is one of the essential determinants for increasing ecommerce abandoned cart recovery. Thus, as an executive, you should consider this aspect.
You had better offer lower prices and will get more than half of clients to fulfil a purchase by just retargeting and shaving a few bucks off their order.
Tip 11 – High Customer Information Security
Add a trusted badge and a payment vendor logo on your website so whoever buys from you can put aside all their concerns when making your purchase. Customers are more likely to shop on the sites they can trust, so take advantage of that and show your previous buyer reviews.
Plus, almost people surveyed trust consumer opinions posted online. These positive reviews and recommendations about the buying experience will play a role as free marketing and social proof for your business.
With a secure payment manner right on the page, you absolutely can boost the average order value and bring buyers back to your website. Also, it is the best practice to build long-term trust in them.
Tip 12 – Provide Detailed Product Information And Photos
Provide product images of each product from opposing angles and scale displays. If the product comes in a variety of colours or designs, include a picture of each option.
The advice is that in the product description, indicate as much detail as possible. Besides, list measurements, materials, endurance, backgrounds, and special features to build belief.
Wrapping Up
If you own an online sales website and struggle to find how to recover abandoned shopping carts, you should consider these 12 proven ways. This can give a massive boost to your business’s growth and provides customers with a fantastic experience when coming by your stores.
