There are quite a few reasons why a user visiting your site may abandon the items in their cart, and it’s up to marketers and business owners to get down to the root of the issue. What exactly held the user back from following through with a purchase? And what can you do to recover an abandoned cart?
What Exactly is an Abandoned Cart?
Abandoned carts are a phenomenon that affects e-commerce websites (although the concept of abandonment exists in other areas too, like forms, applications, etc). In e-commerce, an abandoned cart occurs when an item is added to a user’s cart, but the user does not follow through with the purchase. Considering there are various reasons why a user might abandon their cart, it makes it difficult to configure the proper solution.
Identifying the Problem, and a Solution
80% of users abandon their cart, so it’s important to distinguish the reasons why users may not be following through with a purchase. Here are five of the most effective solutions that we’ve found:
- Offer a Discount
- Allow Guest Checkout
- Send Abandoned Cart Emails
- Be Flexible with Payment Options
- Consider the Channel in Which Users are Coming From
Although there are many more ways to lower the abandoned cart rate for your online store, let’s look at how you can properly evaluate which of these strategies is ideal for your company.
Offer Free Shipping
Users typically remove things from their shopping carts because they find them to be overly pricey. Users are more inclined to abandon their purchase when they discover that there is a hefty shipping fee in addition to their cost + taxes. In fact, if they do not see the option for free shipping, 61% of users are likely to cancel their order.
Offer free shipping to address this problem! Not every business can afford to offer free shipping with every purchase, so this is an opportunity to provide your customers with an incentive to increase their order size. For instance: spend $100 and get delivery free. Customers will be encouraged to make larger purchases as a result and will be more content knowing that free shipping is an option.
Allow Guest Checkout
Adding extra steps to the checkout process will likely lead to users abandoning their cart. As a business owner, you want to make sure the process is as smooth and quick as possible.
If you require a step for users to create an account, consider allowing users to do a guest checkout instead. This will allow a quicker checkout and, odds are, if users are satisfied with their purchase, they’re likely to come back and make an account the next time they purchase.
Send Abandoned Cart Emails
Also known as cart abandonment emails, these types of remarketing messages are sent out to users who placed items in their cart but failed to complete the purchase. This is a tried-and-true sales recovery method that involves reminding users about the products they are interested in and encouraging them to finish their purchase. This kind of outreach can be highly effective if you understand the best practices to create the perfect abandoned cart email.
Be Flexible with Payment Options
Thanks to the pandemic, online shopping is more popular than ever. As e-commerce continues to grow, so does the number of payment options consumers have become accustomed to. Whether it be debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, or even payment plans like Klarna and Afterpay, there are seemingly endless options to make the checkout process more seamless for users. If your business does not offer an array of payment methods, the checkout process may seem inconvenient to some potential customers and may lead to more abandoned carts.
Resolving Abandoned Cart Issues
Although there are more reasons why a user might abandon their cart, we explained some of the most common. If you experience a lot of users on your site daily, and may not be able to keep up with the amount of different abandoned cart resolutions manually, there are WordPress plug-ins that may help you increase conversions.
Consider Which Channels Users Are Coming From
Something to consider when thinking about why users on your website are abandoning their cart is where those users are coming from. User intent may differ based on the source that drove them to your website. For example, a user clicking on an organic search result is actively seeking out your product, so they are lower in the purchase funnel and closer to making a buying decision. Alternatively, a user clicking on a display ad while browsing Facebook or some other platform may be at the top of the funnel, and only just heard of your product for the first time. They are likely further from making a buying decision.
If you are concerned that abandoned carts might be affecting your business, contact us at Thoughtprocess Interactive. We’d be more than happy to help you!