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How to Reduce your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate?

How to Reduce your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

It is every online retailer’s dream to see all their customers take the shopping carts till the checkout page and press the final Purchase button.

But…

First you need to look through the channel which is taking your customers to the final ‘Purchase’ button.

Be certain that the shopping experience you’re providing to your customer gives value at each step and the channel is smooth enough to reach the end!

You need to check:

Is the landing page is attractive enough? Is navigating your visitors properly? Are the products appealing enough?

Is your website mobile-friendly?

Along with all these concerns, there are hundreds of more which you need to be sure about!

We see there is 68.5% of consumers abandon their online shopping carts in recent times.

Why?

What’s the reason?

It is a shocker for me…

When I shop online and I see no navigation, irrelevant fields and never-ending forms!

I mean, what is the matter with those online retailers… Don’t they want their customers to really buy the product?

Why would they make the whole procedure so lengthy and difficult?

Never forget:

Your customer who is sitting at home and wants to shop online while relaxing on his bedroom couch, is clearly in search of EASE!!

And You need to MIND THAT!

For this purpose you need to focus on the reasons leading to higher rate of cart abandonment. Pick those reasons up and rectify them ASAP!

Here’s the list of the most Dominant Reasons which make your customers abandon their shopping carts before reaching the final checkout page:

Perfect Shopping cart blue print

  1. Contents

    Long Checkout Process

Nowadays, it is seen that the online shopping sites have made their checkout process too long. There are unlimited irrelevant fields which make your website a complex e-retailer site.

The shopper wants to have a quick shopping tour and have a user friendly site which will help him shop in just few minutes.

The shorter the procedure is, the better it is!!

Your customer wants to cut down on the hassle of going out, being confused, visiting so many shops and deciding.

So, if you are making them open accounts and wants them  to register on your site, then it would be a straightaway NO from your shoppers.

  1. E-Commerce website without Navigation

Shoppers are always searching for the indicators or navigators on the page.

Whenever you make your page complex and confusing, that is when your customer runs away.

Your customer is in search of the end CTA buttons through which they can checkout in seconds and make the purchase immediately.

And if you placed those navigators at the wrong place, then it’s simply giving away your customers and making their online shopping experience a bad one indeed!

  1. Non-Mobile friendly site

We all know technology is taking over this world with every single day.

Its shocking when the website owners ignore the mobile usage and fail to optimize website for mobile.

It is important to note that web layouts appear differently on laptops and mobile phones, you always have to use a layout which is suitable and workable on both.

Unsupportive interfaces, bad UX designs and complex checkouts on mobile phones kill your sales procedures.

  1. Putting Unexpected Costs

If you think telling about the shipping cost at the end will work and it would not put off your customer.

Then you’re mistaken, my friend!

You might be thinking that when the customer would be done with filling his shopping cart, then he wouldn’t be reluctant on paying the shipping cost and would end up paying…

But Alas!!

It’s a No!

This is not the case! The customer would leave right there and then, abandoning your shopping cart!!

Why?

Because he is not expecting this cost.

Shoppers see the shipping cost as an extra expense, they don’t want to spend on it… at all.

Here are a few stats for you:

44% of people abandon shopping carts because of high shipping cost while 22% do that because of surprise costs that e-retailers put on them.

Shopping cart abandonment rate
Source

However, you can be lucky enough if you find shoppers who do not simply care about it. For them, ease is the only thing they are looking for.

  1. Very few Payment Options

It is a big turn off when customers see limited payment methods.

They lose interest in the website when they see very few payment options, leading to a high cart abandonment rate.

And with limited payments modes, e-retailers end up not only losing their sales but their customer base as well.

Credit card payment options are very easy, but now consumers have more choices than ever before of how to pay for goods online. PayPal is still going strong, but mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet are becoming increasingly popular, particularly among younger demographics.

Let the shopper choose the payment modes, he wants to use and is comfortable in. Hesitation in offering a wide variety, is a bad idea.

  1. Page load time and shopping cart abandonment

You might be wondering:

What effect can page load time put on your cart abandonment rate?

Most of us think that abandonment has to do with your products, your prices or your payment method.

But… not to forget that the Page load time has to do a lot with your e-retailer website.

Researches suggest that every one second of delay in page load time reduces conversions by 7%.

Slow page load time puts off the customers. They tend to leave the cart right there and then leading to higher shopping cart abandonment.

It is stated that low page speed makes the e-retailers to lose their transactions the most.

  1. Trust Issues

Shoppers differ when we talk about trustworthiness. Some shoppers are concerned about not enough security while others are bothered by too many security checks on the online shopping site.

For building a trustworthy and secured image, you need to assure your shoppers that your website is safe.

Make them feel that the customer’s data and money is safe and sound on the site they have signed up for.

Shoppers need some assurance about who else is using the website. They want to know about the fellow customers. Here’s how Stripe gave a number of users creating a Trust among others.

Reason of High Shopping Cart Abondonment - Trust Issues
Source
  1. Absence of Live Chat

Never ignore the fact that your customers need assistance on every single step.

They need navigation along with a live chat option where they can instantly talk about their concerns.

Make their ecommerce shopping experience a facilitating one rather than a complex one!

For this purpose shoppers need a simple shopping cart procedure so they wouldn’t need so much assistance.

Now:

When we have discussed the major reasons for the increasing abandoned carts.

We would move on to the tricks for reducing shopping cart abandonment rate and retaining our customers and taking them to the the final checkout page.

Here are the 12 Amazing Tricks to reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment:

1- Optimize your Checkout Process:

Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes while designing your checkout process, examine how you feel as a shopper, how would you like your e-retailer to be, what comforts would you like to have.

This kind of checklist can make you build an e-retailer site which will provide ease to all its buyers. Your main goal should be making the purchasing process easy for the shopper.

Make your site user-friendly, where users come and feel good in shopping. Let them be addicted to the comfortable shopping environment.

Online retailers like Amazon are successful in large part due to their fast, intuitive and simple checkout process

The first best deal is:

‘A Guest checkout’

Having a guest checkout is very important for your site. This thing allows the buyer to shop without doing any registrations and making accounts.

This really helps reduce the abandoned carts as most users abandon cart due of a time taking and complex checkout process.

Secondly, Adding thumbnail images of the products all the way like shown in the picture below, also make your site friendly. These factors help your customer to buy with  relaxed mind and without checkout being a pain.

Optimize your Checkout Process to reduce cart abondonment
Source

The third most important step in optimizing your checkout process short is to reduce the number of fields in the checkout form. This makes your site friendly and less time consuming.

Always remember…

Your customers do not want lengthy procedures.

Check out this article for some great tips to optimize your forms. Cut down on the extra form fields as shown in the picture below.

Optimize your checkout flow with easy steps (1)
Source

 

2- It’s Must to have Navigations on your Online Store:

The easier you make it for customers to move between their cart and your store, the more likely they are going to stick with your site and will actually check out.

Navigation is the most effective way for holding on to your customers but at the same time it is not an easy task to do.

You have to put these navigators on your site very effectively. Keeping in mind that you are aiding your customers but you aren’t irritating them at the same time.

It’s like building a map for them, giving them track of where should they go.

Pointing out the exits is the best way to facilitate your shoppers, which will eventually bring them back on your site.

And Yes.. that is what your customer needs from an online store.

A lot variety, reasonable prices and an easy checkout process with a lot indicators and a variety of payment methods.

3- Mobile Responsive Design:

It is very important to design your ecommerce website for all the currently used interfaces such as  desktop, laptop, tablets and mobile phones.

You might be wondering:

Why am I telling this to my well-educated audience. It is because today, online sellers forget to design mobile friendly websites.

E-retailers need to brainstorm over using the limited mobile screen space in optimized manner while putting necessary elements on it and removing the unnecessary one.

Desktop and mobile phones differ a lot when it come sto exhibiting the websites, the layout, formation and the page structure…

So always design both the interfaces differently facilitating both kind of users. Otherwise you’ll end up losing the buyers.

4- Improve Page Load Time

It might be shocking but it is a fact that customers do end up leaving the best of products in their carts if the page speed is slow.

Page load time Statistics
Source

The above figure shows how visitors react to the slow page speed. Researches also show that a 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.

They might be using a slow internet themselves but they would end up blaming the website and would not return.

E-retailers need to proactively speed up their mobile shopping cart for saving up the sales and the customer base.

5- Having Appealing CTA Buttons:

Now:

Never ignore your CTA buttons on your e-retailer website. Your CTA color should be in contrast to the background color of your site. The CTA buttons must stand out on the webpage.

The call to action words should clearly convey what customers should expect after clicking on these buttons.

Remember:

Your CTA button is the final ‘Go’ for your Purchase. Make it worth clicking!

6- Make your site Trustworthy:

Never forget that you have to gain customer’s trust before anything else. Customers resist to make payments on website they don’t trust.

Affiliate your online shopping site with well-known brands to be trusted like done at Braintree.

Use Trust to reduce shopping cart abondonment
Source

Adding logos and site seals is a way to inform people that you are not some fake site here to just gulp your money. Trustmarks simply reassure customers about a variety of aspects of sites security.

Bellroy is a site which is well-designed and has a clear checkout. Along with these qualities, it also offers security reassurances during the process.

 

Security signs reduce shopping cart abondonment
Source

7- Use Promo Codes wisely:

Using promo code is a good option. Customer who have know-how about these codes and are willing to use them should access it easily.

But…

Do not make it look like everyone has to enter a code because that might make your customers abandon shopping carts and leave. As they resist complex shopping checkout forms.

While using these coupon code boxes, provide current codes in a clickable link right next to the box.  And do not forget to check that coupons in this link are working at all times.

There are promo codes which let you avail discounts. People have promo codes and the friends can use their codes, both will end up having discounts.

Lower Shopping cart abandonment rates with Coupons
Source

8- Offer a wide range of Payment Methods:

It is highly recommendable to offer the customers with a variety of  payment methods so that there no loophole left in making your customer go.

Make sure he makes the payment and complete the checkout process without abandoning the cart.

Other than the credit & debit card payment, mobile users should also given options like PayPal, Amazon Checkout, Google wallet, Visa’s V.me, Master Card’s MasterPass, and various other form of digital wallet to complete the online transactions.

A study suggests that if you offer all the major payment methods, our conversion rate will increase by 15%.

So make very sure that your shopping cart doesn’t miss out on this vital ingredient which is going to increase your sales eventually.

Remember:

Integrate as many payment methods into your site as possible to be accessible for all the customers out there.

9- Do not give Surprises when it comes to costs:

E-retailers often think that surprise costs like shipping cost would work if placed at the end checkout page but… it doesn’t work AT ALL.

Surprises around shipping costs were prooves to bring 28% of cart abandonment by shoppers. Because for the shoppers, it is plain stupidity to hide this fact before and surprise them at the end when they are about to pay.

If you tell the shipping cost at the end, there are high chances that your customers would leave your cart right away abandoning the shopping cart.

Here’s an example of imposing the shipping costs in form of a surprise:

 

Do not give Surprises when it comes to costs
Source

 

The best approach would be to show shipping costs on the very first product page when customers enter a ZIP code. As shown here:

Simple Checkout Flow
Source

Research shows that unexpected cost has the highest effect around 56% on cart abandonment rate.

Reasons for Shopping cart abondonment
Source

10- Give ‘Save for Later’ options:

It is a very common way of shopping where shoppers save your cart for later times. Many of  the customers like to grab the articles and save them in the carts and keep collecting them to buy later together.

This process is basically called funneling the products which the customer likes.

Let your customers do it!

Let them be comfortable and prepare their big cart for the good.

Trust me, this option is going to do wonders with your online shopping site.

Look at how Aerospace have added the ‘Wish List’:

Give ‘Save for Later’ options to reduce cart abondonment
Source

11- Offer Assistance through Live Chat:

When you have provided the live chat widget, it is a sign that you want to clear all the customer queries right away.

In a study carried out by Forrester, 44% of respondents said that having a live person answer their questions while they were in the middle of an online purchase was one of the most important features a website could have.

Whether it is some technical issue or it is some confusion related to a field or something. You will fulfill it at the every moment without any delay.

Because it is a fact that the customer would immediately run away if they find anything confusing. They have many other website to shop from.

You have to make your online store the most accommodating.

Currently, we have a vast variety of live chat software. Comm100 is one of the most easy and customizable live chat tool nowadays.

It is used by a large chunk of websites. LivePerson and BoldChat are some other awesome and useful examples.

12- Add as much Testimonials as you can:

Adding testimonial all around your site and especially near your checkout is another best trick to reduce your cart abandonment.

Testimonials build up trust as they show various people talking about your site. Shows who have purchase stuff from your site.

Everlane exhibits a rotating testimonial banner on their product page. When the user clicks the link in the quote, it takes them to the tweet containing that testimonial. Isn’t it a great idea?!

Use Testimonials to reduce shopping cart abondonment
Source

These testimonials act as the assurance for your site, shows who many people and actually what kind of people are your customers.

Place them everywhere on your site, in a certain pattern but… All around your site!

How to Recover these Abandoned Carts:

As we have discussed the top tips to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate before it  occurs now i’m going to share with you;

How to recover the abandoned carts ?

The most common and practical way to recover abandoned carts is sending ‘Recovery Emails’!

A study shows that 75.3% of the top 500 e-retailer companies using abandoned cart recovery are using emails within an hour of cart abandonment.

They have discovered that 50% of the customers do come back through these emails. Timing is everything.

The diagram below shows that 72% of the visitors will buy in the first 12 hours.

Online Shopping Statistics
Source

Here are the guidelines on how you should set up an effective shopping cart abandonment Email Campaign:

1. Correct timings

You should be sending your first email within 60 minutes of cart abandonment. While the second email should be sent within 24 hours.

After that, the third email should be sent within three to 5 days.

48% of serial abandoners, people who abandoned a purchase more than once in the previous 28 days, will buy when remarketed.

Remember, right timing is the key!

2. A Good Copy

An email with a good copywriting is like the key to ‘Recovery’.

Remember:

Write your email in a way which appeals your customers. Give them attractive deals and talk to them nicely to bring them back.

3. Resolve Queries

Try solving their problems because of which they actually abandoned your cart.

First look and examine the problem, in case you’re not able to figure out what the problem was, simply ask your customer in your first mail.

And then in later  mails, give them the solutions.

4. Use Images of the Abandoned Products

Attach the images of the products that have been abandoned. Ask what was wrong with them.

Show appealing images. This brings a higher chance of your customers coming back to you.

Recover these Abandoned Carts using Images
Source

5. Offer Guarantee

Give a full fledged guarantee to you customer. Make them comfortable by offering exchange policies and return policies.

Do not forget to include your phone number and email so that the shopper  can contact you with any questions before and after the purchase.

The simple tip is to make them feel secured with your website.

Make it real, make it friendly!

6. Offer Unexpected Bonus/Discount

Give them a discount offer up to 5-10% which might appeal them and make them come back to the abandoned cart.

But here’s the kicker:

Do not give discount to a new customer or else he would make it a habit to abandon a shopping cart and avail the discount everytime he does that.

Offer discounts to those who are your regular or loyal customer. Give them offers and propose a sale again.

Offer Bonus to reduce shopping cart abondonment (1)
Source

7. Offer Free Shipping

Offer free shipping to your gone customers. This might be the reason they have left the cart.

Infact this is most expected reasons because around 56% of shoppers leave because of these unexpected or surprise costs.

It has been seen that 8% of shopping cart abandoners returned without any form of remarketing. However, when a real-time remarketing campaign is carried out, the total return rate increased to 26%. We see that Email Campaign helps in bringing your customers back!

The above content will give you a complete guide on what are the reasons leading you to lose your customers, how can you retain your carts and then how can you recover the abandoned carts.

Implementing these tricks as soon as we can is the best idea to save our carts from getting ditched by the shoppers!!

Hope the guide helps you in saving your carts and increasing the conversions!

Perfect Shopping cart blue print

Picture of Hammad Akbar

Hammad Akbar

Hammad Akbar is a tech entrepreneur with a passion for technology and online marketing. In his short career, he managed to bootstrap two technology companies with minimum funds to multimillion dollar revenues. As the CEO & Founder of InvoCube and InvoCode, he managed to grow the companies separately to 80+ Staff members and multi-million dollar revenues within 2 years of inception.

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