April 22, 2019
5 mins
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Got a high cart abandonment rate? It sucks. But here’s the thing—with stats showing that cart abandonment rates can be as high as almost 80%, this metric is a major problem for many retailers.
The good news is that anyone who abandons their cart has already shown an interest in your store and products. They want to make a purchase but something is preventing them. As long as you can find out what this something is, you can then put in place the correct measures to bring cart abandoners back into the game.
Let’s take a look at what you need to do.
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To determine drop-out points in your checkout process, you first of all need to set up enhanced eCommerce tracking. Find out more about how to do this via Google Analytics here.
Once you’re up and running with that, you’ll then be in a strong position to work out shopping and checkout behavior. All you then need to do is create a Google Analytics goal for your online store, before carrying out a goal flow analysis.
This will help you identify leaky spots in your checkout process – in other words, the areas that compel a customer to abandon their cart. Armed with the right information, you can then put into place a plan of action that boosts your conversions.
You can also use the aforementioned enhanced eCommerce tracking (see above) to work out your current cart abandonment rate. This is really important, as you need to be able to compare your future cart abandonment rate with your current one to see if the changes you’re making are actually working.
Enhanced eCommerce tracking with Google Analytics helps you track your shopping cart abandonment rate, but it also generates powerful reports on your sales performance and your product lists performance, too.
Imagine if your customers paid over for a product in your store … and then later found the same product costing much less elsewhere? Not cool.
Customers want fairness, value, and honesty when it comes to pricing. You could give them your word, but it’s not enough. What they’d rather see is a price match pledge, which is one of the best ways eCommerce stores can build their business.
When you offer a price match pledge, you’re showing the customer that they don’t need to worry about buyer’s remorse. There simply isn’t a lower price anywhere else. This is the best offer they’ll get.
Naturally, retailers might worry that by offering to beat the competition by, say, even 5%, they’re selling themselves short. But you’ll be making the sale and you might be encouraging repeat and even long-term custom. Remember that.
We all love a surprise – but your customers dislike surprises at the checkout, especially if it costs them extra money.
For example, let’s say they arrive at the checkout with a total figure for their items in mind. Then, they discover that the real total figure is way higher. It’s enough of a reason to abandon their cart.
If you’re planning to top up the total fee with, say, handling, tax or shipping charges, make sure these are clear from the beginning. Don’t wait until the customer arrives at the checkout before hitting them with the additional fees, as they will likely bail out.
A plugin or Shipping Calculator app helps to keep customers in the loop regarding shipping fees as they add more products to their cart. It’s also good practice to add a calculator to your product pages, too.
Many times, it’s not that the customer isn’t prepared to pay shipping fees – it’s more that they’re so surprised by unexpected fees that they give up.
If there’s one thing that’s going to re-engage cart abandoners by building trust, it’s product reviews. People trust online reviews, with 84% of customers saying they trust them just as much as a personal recommendation from a friend. Product reviews give your store more credibility and create a level of confidence in your products that just won’t be there without them.
You don’t need to go overboard with product reviews. But if you don’t have too many positive ones at the moment, or if there are some product pages that don’t have any reviews whatsoever, it’s time to start generating more.
The easiest way to encourage more reviews is to simply ask your customers for them. Send personalized emails to existing customers who have bought your products and politely ask if they’d be kind enough to leave some feedback.
Make it easy for people to leave reviews, too. In other words, make sure they know exactly how to leave a review.
Product reviews are good – but content that actually shows people using your products is even better.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers: Wouldn’t it be amazing if – as unsure as you are about a product – you could see another satisfied customer using it?
Videos that show what your product has done for other people is a fantastic way to bring hesitant cart abandoners back into the game. To encourage more user-generated content like this, create posts on social media (especially Instagram) letting people know exactly what you’re looking for.
Or, you could send emails out to satisfied customers and ask if they’d be interested in producing some content for you.
It’s important that you customize your checkout page so that it’s optimized for sales. Adding your logo to your checkout page is a smart move because it re-establishes your brand and helps to build trust.
Not just this, but your logo enhances your brand and reminds customers who you are and why they’re shopping with you in the first place.
If you don’t yet have a logo, you can use a tool like Hatchful to create a professional-looking logo from scratch within minutes.
You might be wondering if you’d be shooting yourself in the foot if you offered free shipping to your customers. But what’s more important right now, saving a little bit of cash or clinching the sale (and potentially a long term customer)?
Naturally, free shipping won’t always work because all customers are different. But it’s always listed as one of the prime reasons for cart abandonment, and it’s often one of the most popular holiday promotion, a survey found. This means it wouldn’t hurt you to experiment with different shipping options.
For example, you could offer free shipping on certain items, or you could offer free shipping after a customer has spent X amount of money (minimum purchase threshold). Or you could run a promotion where customers receive free shipping if they order within the next 24 hours.
The minimum purchase threshold technique is a solid one because it means you as the retailer won’t lose out too much.
To re-engage cart abandoners who are bailing out due to high or unexpected shipping costs, consider using an exit intent popup with the offer of free shipping on the items in their cart.
One of the reasons customers bail out of a website is because it’s taking too long to load. If customers find that your checkout page is taking too long to load, it might be the excuse they need to leave.
If you’ve got concerns about site speed, run your website through a site speed tester. Then, take a look at this checklist of 20 things that could be slowing your website down.
It’s also a good idea to invest in a hosting provider that improves server response speed and first-byte time.
Another reason customers balk at the threshold is a lack of a returns policy. If a customer doesn’t know they can return their items if they’re not satisfied with them, it causes a sense of unease.
To mitigate as many concerns as possible, add a returns policy and make it clearly visible. Give them the peace of mind that, if the product isn’t quite what they excepted, they can always return it.
This is key because return rates in eCommerce are high. Buying online doesn’t always inspire confidence, which means it’s important you do all that you can to build as much confidence as possible.
As you can see, there are many reasons abandon their carts – and many ways you can bring them back into the game.
It’s a good idea to use all the tips in this article and implement each strategy. While it might take some time at first, once it’s all sorted and you’re up and running you should hopefully see a reduction in your cart abandonment rate.
If you need some help implementing these strategies, get in touch! With our marketing and development chops combined, we can help your store drive more conversions with smart solutions.
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