One of the biggest challenges ecommerce store owners face is shopping cart abandonment: i.e. seeing customers add items to their shopping carts … and then abandoning those carts without having completed their purchase.
We can ALL agree: that’s INCREDIBLY frustrating — ESPECIALLY after all the work, the time and the marketing efforts you’ve put into it all (not even to mention each shopping cart abandoned = a loss in revenue).
So here are 8 tried-and-tested techniques to reduce shopping cart abandonment
① Offer Free Shipping 🚚
Shipping costs can be a major factor in cart abandonment.
In fact, between 48 – 55% of shoppers abandon their carts due to extra costs (like shipping rates) being too high, and according to a survey conducted by Material Handling and Logistics, 91% of shoppers are actually likely to become repeat customers if a business offers free shipping.
So what do you have to lose by offering FREE shipping, right?
If you can’t offer free shipping right off the bat, consider offering free shipping over a certain spend threshold — for example: Spend R1000 to get free shipping.
② Use Exit-Intent Popups
I know, these buggers can be a big pain up the … you know what!!! But if you use them correctly they are SUPER effective.
One such way is to let the pop up only pop up when your user intends to navigate away from your online shop/close the tab.
You can use these exit-intent popups to convert an additional 2 to 4% of your website visitors by offering discounts/promotions as a last-ditch effort to encourage them to complete their purchase.
③ Show Trust Badges 🔒
I cannot stress this enough, it’s crucial you inform customers they have nothing to worry about when entering their golden credit card information, as about 18% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts due to them NOT trusting a site.
Make it VISIBLE and clear to online shoppers that shopping from your online store is secure by showcasing your trust badges with pride (this includes using icons to visually display your trust badges on your cart page as well), as it helps build your shopper’s confidence which enables them to shop and complete their purchase without stressing too much.
④ Remove Your Cart Page Footer
The laaaaaaast thing you want your shopper to do once they’ve made the choice to purchase, is to distract them with arbitrary links in your footer (e.g. your Facebook or Instagram links) when on your cart page.
Get rid of any and all distractions so your shopper can SOLELY focus on completing their purchase.
⑤ Allow Various Payment Methods 💳
About 6 – 9% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts due to a lack of payment options, because let’s get real, not everyone is in the mood to do an EFT and email you proof of payment … and not everyone knows their card details verbatim.
There are maaaany things that could prevent them from not hitting the CHECKOUT NOW button, so please be sure to make it super convenient for your shoppers to actually SHOP on your site.
⑥ Optimise Your Mobile Site 📱
Mobile compatibility is a crucial factor in reducing cart abandonment rates, as more and more customers are shopping on their mobile devices and tablets. In fact, a recent study found that mobile devices account for approximately 60% of ecommerce traffic, and this number is expected to increase in the coming years!
⑦ Simplify Your Checkout Process
Make it easy for customers to check out by keeping the checkout process simple and streamlined.
Don’t ask for too much information or add unnecessary steps that can deter them from completing their purchase, as about 26% shoppers tend to leave their carts behind if the checkout process is too long or too complex.
That’s why we highly recommend creating a custom one-page checkout to eliminate those 40000 tedious steps for a customer to complete a purchase.
Super confused as to what on earth a one-page checkout is? Have a quick look at our super informative video below where we help you make sense of it all:
⑧ Send Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails 💌
Please send automated emails to customers who have abandoned their carts to remind them of what they’ve left behind and to encourage them to complete their purchase.
You wouldn’t believe it, but customers love reminders in the form of abandoned cart emails, as almost 40% of those emails are opened (compared to an average email open rate of 21.33%).
Not sure how abandoned cart emails work? Then join me as I walk you through OUR Abandon Cart Sales Accelerator email series below, to help you maximise your online sales WITHOUT spending more money!!!
PS: If you want the exact word-for-word script we use, then drop us a comment in the video comments, and I’ll send the SWIPE file your way. We’re cool like that.
Conclusion
Etailer: these strategies are easy to implement and well worth a try — just remember to monitor your metrics and to test different approaches to find what works best for YOUR ecom business.
And as always, if you have a friend struggling to keep shopping carts to cross over the virtual finish line, then be the friend they need and share this blog with them.