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Cart abandonment is the most frustrating thing for any online store owner.
An online store owner put months of work in creating the website, filling the inventory with the best & unique products at a competitive price, running ad campaigns, bringing the customers into the website, and when one of the customers is about to hit the checkout button…, leaves the site. Imagine how the store owner might feel.
Store owner when a shopper abandoned a cart
Of course, a customer may have their reason for abandoning the cart, but it’s up to the store owner to create a successful abandoned cart strategy to win back the customer again. Let’s learn why customers tend to abandon their carts & how you can recover them!
Cart Abandonment Rate & How To Find It For Your Store
Ecommerce stores are facing nearly $18 billion loss every year because of cart abandonment. The abandonment rate varies across different industries and different geographical locations. However, from the available data and expert insights, the average cart abandonment rate is considered to be around 70% to 75%.
Source: Statista
If you are wondering how to find the cart abandonment rate for your store, your Google Analytics is the best place to start.
All you have to do is to enable the “Ecommerce” option for your site in Google Analytics and then under the “Enhanced Ecommerce Settings” toggle, switch on the “Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting”
Once the above-mentioned options are enabled, you can check your site’s cart abandoned rate in the Conversions » Ecommerce » Shopping Behavior. For more accurate & detailed reports and optimizing your cart funnel, check out Google’s documentation.
Most Common Reasons For Cart Abandonment
We’ve already made a detailed post on the reasons for the cart abandonment. The four most common reasons are-
1. Extra Cost During The Checkout
The extra cost is the first reason for cart abandonment on any eCommerce store. Unexpected shipping cost or tax amount at the time of checkout makes the product pricing higher than the price anticipated by the user when they add a product to the cart.
2. Complicated Checkout Process
On average, the checkout flow has ~25 form elements and ~15 form fields. Expecting the user to fill out all the checkout forms will kill the shopping experience.
Another reason that makes the user leave the cart during the checkout process is asking them to re-enter the card details and shipping address again.
3. Fewer Payment Options & Payment Problem
A few years back, Hubspot made a beautiful info-graphic on the “Psychology of Ecommerce Sales: Consumers and the Ecommerce Checkout.”
One fact that holds true to date is that more than 50% of the users made it clear that they will leave the cart if they don’t find their preferred payment options. Imagine if a customer wants to instantly score a dress they like by simply paying for it in instalments. Welp, they’ve abandoned their cart because your store does not collect any deposit payments!
Another most common payment-related reason for cart abandonment is the “card declined” issue. Nearly 4% of the shoppers shared that they abandon the cart if there is a transaction issue.
4. No Guest Checkout Option
Creating profiles, managing passwords, verifying accounts is something which even we don’t like.
Imagine if a shopper sees an irresistible product offer and decides to buy that on your site. Instead of finishing the purchase, your site stops them from checking out and asks them to create a profile. You get the feeling.
That’s why nearly 24% of the users abandon a cart if the store wants them to create a profile during the checkout.
Source: Baymard
How To Reduce Cart Abandonment
In Ecommerce, avoiding the issues that might affect the shopping experience is crucial. But imagine if a problem occurs and your customer leaves the cart. Persistently trying to bring them back & help them complete their purchase is the only way.
Let’s see all the important methods you must include in your abandoned cart strategy.
1. Automated Followup Messaging/ Reminder Mails
As we have shared in the Science of Abandoned Carts article, a three-part email strategy is the best option to win back your customer.
- Reminder email – A plain simple email with a personalized message and the details about the items in their cart.
- Discount email – As increased shipping price or tax at the time of checkout is one of the reasons for cart abandonment, you can send the shopper a discount coupon or a secure link to encourage them to complete the shopping.
- Discount email reminder – A discount reminder email with a nice animated clock will definitely do the trick of inducing a sense of urgency. If it is possible, show how much money the shopper will save with the coupon for the items in their cart.
Emails are good, but using only emails to contact your abandoned cart customer isn’t wise. The below chart from the Barilliance study shows the CTR for the abandoned cart emails.
Source: Barilliance
The above chart results will be stupendous when you include Messenger to reach abandoned cart users. According to Facebook, people and businesses now exchange over 10 billion messages on Messenger every month!
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines used Facebook messenger for business and saw a 40% increase in customer interactions.
2. Exit-Intent Popups
Instead of sending emails and following the abandoned cart users in different channels, you can proactively use an exit-intent popup to stop the users from leaving the cart.
You can provide an instant discount via popup and apply it automatically to the cart when the user clicks the offer. But, make sure that the popups are mobile optimized as most online shoppers are mobile users.
Read Related: ECommerce Email Remarketing Strategy to Generate Sales
3. Optimized Checkout Process
A better-optimized checkout page of an eCommerce site will definitely reduce the cart abandonment rate. For example, in the complicated checkout process, we shared that there were nearly 24 form elements. On the other hand, successful eCommerce brands have only 12 form elements that are properly optimized. As a result, the eCommerce brand owners have considerably reduced the cart abandonment rate on their online store.
4. Multiple Payment Option
As we have seen earlier in the post, giving your users multiple payment options will help the shoppers easily purchase the product they want. Most small online stores start with only one payment option, most probably Paypal. Try giving your customers credit card & debit card options, along with Paypal. If you are looking for the best payment gateway tools for your site, the payment gateway listicle from The Balance Small Business might come in handy for you.
Abandoned Cart Pro- The Perfect Companion For Your Abandoned Cart Recovery Strategy
If you are a WooCommerce store owner, finding plugins for each & every need may be tough. Integrating the plugins with your CRM & other business tools may also be time-consuming. Abandoned Cart Pro will be your one-stop destination for all your strategy to bring back your abandoned cart shopper and increase your revenue. In fact, a WooCommerce store has used the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin and recovered a £4,700 GBP abandoned cart sale.
Some of the key Abandoned Cart Pro features are-
- Exit-Intent and Add to Cart Popup
- Custom field integration option for all popular form plugins
- Send automated abandoned cart notifications via Messenger, SMS, and Email in a set time interval for better results.
- WooCommerce abandoned cart email templates and workflow setup option for better email outreach.
- Create unique discount codes, auto-apply coupon options, and manage all discounts in one place.
- Detailed statistics on coupon redemption rate, email opened & CTR stat, and the number of recovered orders.
Abandoned Cart Pro helps you communicate with your abandoned cart users at the right time with the right message. Start recovering your WooCommerce store lost sales because of cart abandonment.
