Abandoned Cart Recovery
Abandoned carts are a common problem that plagues ecommerce sites. One second, a customer fills their cart; the next second, they vanish, leaving a cart of unsold products in their wake.
There are many reasons why customers abandon their cart: the user interface might make it hard for them to find what they’re looking for, the payment processing system might make checkout difficult, or they might not have any intention of buying anything at all.
Whatever the reason is, this person was close to completing a transaction–and may just need a little push. This opportunity is why many digital marketers use abandoned cart recovery tactics, one of the best ecommerce marketing strategies, to reel customers back in.
What Are Abandoned Carts?
An abandoned cart is a shopping cart in an ecommerce site where a potential customer doesn’t complete the purchasing process. For example, a person visiting an online clothing store adds clothes to their cart totaling $200. Upon checkout, she discovers that the delivery fee and tax bring the total up to $250 and decides against buying the products. She leaves the site, abandoning the cart.
Abandoned carts are generally only applicable to sites with shopping cart features. For those selling on Instagram vs. Etsy or any other shopping cart-capable ecommerce platforms, abandoned cart recovery tactics don’t apply.
Why Do People Abandon Carts?
There are many reasons why a customer may abandon a cart, including:
Bad site experience
High prices, especially when there are unexpected costs
Distrust in a sketchy website
Overwhelming choices
No intention to buy
Personal distractions
Product comparisons
Whatever the reason, what’s important here is that the customer added products to their cart in the first place. They are obviously already interested in buying something—a step forward in the customer journey. That makes it easier to retarget these people and convince them to complete a transaction.
How To Reduce Abandoned Carts
Many customers abandon their carts during online shopping due to unpleasant user experiences, limited payment options or high prices. You can address these issues to reduce cart abandonment from happening in the first place. Here are some ways to do just that:
Improve User Interface And User Experience
The shopping experience should be seamless, intuitive and enjoyable. Add a search bar, organize your products by categories, and enable sorting and filtering to help customers browse more efficiently. Additionally, make sure that your products are displayed in an aesthetically pleasing way. Make sure photos are clear and include informative descriptions.
Make Checkout Easy
The checkout process can make or break a transaction, so it’s best to keep things as simple as possible and with minimal steps. You want to make it easy for customers to add their payment details. Ensure that your checkout is also secure, or else you might scare them off with worries of fraud.
Show Savings At Checkout
If you have sales, discounts or coupons available for customers, show them the dollar amount of how much they are saving at checkout. Once they understand their savings, deciding to buy the products will be an easy choice to make.
Use Popular Payment Processors
Customers will more likely go through with a transaction if they can use a payment processor they trust, such as PayPal or Apple Pay. Integrating these into your site can be just the signal they need to trust you.
Offer Deals
People will grab any chance to save, and giving them free shipping, a small percentage off the price, or a unique discount for a product can help push them to complete the transaction. Make these offers transparent when you can; place them as banners on your site or have them show up as pop-ups.
How To Recover Abandoned Carts
You can still recover profits from customers who’ve already abandoned their carts through push notifications, retargeted ads and emails. Here’s a breakdown of those options.
Enable Push Notifications
Some websites can send push notifications to users on their browsers. Use this feature to reel in customers who’ve abandoned their carts. You can remind them of the products they’ve left or even give them discounts or deals to entice them to finish the purchase.
Use Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are a great way to recover abandoned carts because they show your customers exactly what they’re missing. It keeps the products they were oh-so-close to buying in the front of their minds, which might help them consider fulfilling the transaction. You’ll need a few integrations to do this, but it’s a much simpler marketing tactic compared to others.
Send Cart Recovery Emails
Send cart recovery emails to customers who’ve given their email addresses to an ecommerce site before abandoning their cart. You can show them their possible purchases, offer them an easy recovery of the same products, and give them discounts to boot. That said, these emails often find themselves flagged as promotions or spam, so you may want to consider reaching out personally (especially if you’re a small business) to build better rapport and trust.
Conclusion
Abandoned cart recovery is a powerful, yet straightforward, marketing tactic that every ecommerce website should apply. When you use abandoned cart recovery (or reduction) tactics, you’re allowing your business to reach broader markets and boost sales. You can improve site performance and offer customers incentives to complete purchases. And if there is an abandoned cart, there are a few ways you can convince a potential customer to get right back in and finish shopping, promote a sale and grow your business.