Home Web Marketing Shopping Cart Abandonment: What is it and how to recover from it?

Shopping Cart Abandonment: What is it and how to recover from it?

by amol238

shopping cart abandonment

If a recent survey from Baymard institute is to be believed, not less than an average of 67.75% of online shopping carts are actually abandoned.

How depressing is that?

We would rather ask you to think about all of it for a few seconds. Think about all the hard work that went into optimizing those landing pages, framing perfect information architecture and the pricing strategies. It is definitely annoying seeing that almost 7 out of those 10 people feel that it’s time to take a break or possibly stop at the finishing line.

The amount of money that has been lost only because of the cart abandonment has unfortunately been on the rise with figures climbing over in the last few decades. Trust us, when important steps are not taken against these, the figure can also go up to a level from where there is no returning back. The revenue lost may increase and this is expected to happen all the way sooner.

In order to ensure that we can prevent the huger loss from taking place, it becomes important to understand why at all the cart abandonment happens and for what reason.

How can you actually recover those abandoned carts and how you can finally explore and start working on those winning strategies that can take your ‘purpose’ to an entirely different level. A lot of these have surely worked for several others and when approached carefully, they can benefit your business too.

Why cart abandonment takes place at all?

Gather some time and look for all the abandoned carts and the shopping process that could not meet last phase of its fate. A little analysis over the same can help you understand that plenty of your customers left the shopping carts because they felt disinterested and it’s this ‘lack of interest’ that lead them to change their minds. Most of these happened in the last minute but when you actually dig deep, you find that what you thought is not the only reason for an incomplete shopping process.

  • If most of the researches are to be believed, one reason that leads to abandon carts is the “unexpected costs” such as the fees, shipping and the taxes.
  • Another reason is the fact that they “decided against buying” due to which people simply leave at checkouts
  • “Price” and the “timing” are other factors that seem to impact the buyers’ decision

Let us explore these reasons more and in detail:

Reason 1# Presentation with unexpected costs

People love products and services that fall within their budgets. They compromise for “more” only when it’s something they blindly trust, have complete faith on and can’t afford to miss out.

Even though they have taken care in picking up the best goods or products available, they may feel liked tuning out on getting discouraged with plenty of other things that seem to be “not so convincing”. These can equal to something like “card processing fee”, “bagging fee” and “packing fee” in stores.

Similarly, hidden costs and those that are unexpected as expenditures affect the shopping.

You are only pushing the scope of cart abandonments with no “free shipping”. As a result, people are “somewhat” willing to stop making the purchase. Remember, the stronger the customer experience, the better your existence with customers in terms of word of mouth marketing.

Reason 2# People are sometimes “just browsing”

It is important for businesses to understand what motivates buyers to make a purchase and also what doesn’t. This may require you to learn more on the online shopping behavior of your customers and what they actually expect from your shopping carts.

Knowing what actually pushes them to making a purchase on your website makes sense, particularly when you know it’s not happening on your website and your competitors are gaining the edge.

You must know that almost 75% of the people who abandon the cart are the ones who reach there with an intention to buy and not because they came there to waste their time. They arrived because they were genuinely interested and now they are tuning out because they somewhere down the line started feeling it wasn’t worth.

Reason 3# Buyers found something better elsewhere

This is probably one of the best logic a buyer can give and it is actually something that sounds genuine as well. Price and the timing are two major factors that lead to shoppers abandoning carts. Not all carts are equal but make sure that yours is preferable when it comes to your competitors.

According to the recent surveys, it can be seen that the lower carts do have higher abandonment rates. Searchers more often than not abandon carts because they hop on to a website where they tend to find a better price and at times, better product as well.

Here are other things that you can focus on:

  • Make use of the re-targeting to focus on “free shipping” and different customer satisfaction perks
  • You can also choose to offer exclusive and interesting loyalty program to the cart abandoners
  • Be ready for assistance through sales support/phone ordering

Let the recovery mails do the rest

Recovery mails can prove to be great when it comes to winning back the customers who abandoned shopping carts. It has also been found that the revenue and the transaction rates that are generated through the email re-targeting has appeared to be far higher in success statistics than different email marketing campaigns.

Whatever you do, just remember that the cart abandonment is not really the end – it’s rather the beginning to exploring something that may seem to be challenging but can reap benefits in the long run when successful. Start seeing the abandoned carts as a great medium for re-connecting with the customers who can prove to be real assets for your business.

Image Credit: Akeg

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8 comments

Riza August 13, 2013 - 12:56 am

It’s mostly number 1 and 3. Especially when they find some other site that has easier payment method and cheaper prices with the same exact stuff they want from the earlier site where they abandoned their cart.

Nice tips!

Riza, Kingged.com contributor
http://www.kingged.com/shopping-cart-abandonment-what-is-it-and-how-to-recover-from-it/

Reply
Samme Dsouza August 13, 2013 - 2:53 am

Yeah true. I feel that people used to browse the web before buying anything online and for that reasons, we have a keep a close eye on the competitors to ensure that these buyers get converted.

Reply
Martin August 13, 2013 - 4:16 am

That’s cultural bug)) Nothing to do with it

Reply
Automated Sales August 13, 2013 - 11:42 am

I agree with your list. Sometimes people are just browsing, when they found what they like they will try to purchase but with all the hidden changes this will cause them to back out and try finding it somewhere that offers it less than the previous site.

Reply
ZK August 13, 2013 - 2:37 pm

this is an awesome post for all ecom professionals. Shopping abandonment is a serious issue that can be rectified with minor tweaks. Minor tweaks in the shopping cart process will result in high sale and less drop offs

Reply
Samme Dsouza August 14, 2013 - 12:42 am

Yeah it is serious issue because shopping cart abandonment directly hit our wallet 🙂

Reply
Hyptia August 14, 2013 - 2:18 am

There are many things to notice before purchase any thing via online shopping because it could well effect to your pocket.

Reply
medical schools admissions August 27, 2013 - 12:52 am

I feel that folks wont to browse on-line|the net} before shopping for something online and for that reasons

Reply

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