If you own an e-commerce store, there’s nothing you hate seeing more than a failed purchase. Be it from faulty tech not processing payments or people just losing interest, the bottom line is that an abandoned cart strategy can stop failed purchases from putting a dent in your profits.
Abandoned cart rate is one of the most obvious areas to tackle when looking for improvements to your business. It represents the number of people that could have become your customers but didn’t. What sets them apart from the other millions of people that never buy your products is the fact that they wanted to.
Their intent was crystal clear – buy from your digital storefront (they wouldn’t have put together a shopping cart otherwise). They might just need an extra push, and if you’re not there to give it, you are literally leaving money on the table in the form of their shopping cart.
Finding these high-intent users and narrowing down your marketing efforts to specifically target them is one of our core marketing beliefs and the first step in your abandoned cart strategy. To do so, you need to have efficient tracking set up to monitor conversions and failed purchases. This is the data that will fuel your cart abandonment solutions.
But before we go over the fix, let’s look at the root cause. This way, we can better come up with our plan of attack.
Why Do Shoppers Abandon Your Shopping Cart?
Sometimes it happens, people change their mind on a whim or want to complete the checkout later and just forget. Other times, however, it’s your fault.
And that’s FANTASTIC news! You can’t force people to complete an order, but you CAN fix a broken sales funnel or shoddy user experience, increasing the chances of seeing their order through to the end. That is, of course, if you know where to look and what steps to take.
These are the top 3 reasons people get to the last step of buying a product only to then turn away:
- High Shipping Costs
- Having To Register For An Account
- Security Concerns
Let’s go over how you can put these concerns to rest before they even come up!
How To Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment
Here are some options to make a purchase from your website more appealing:
- Offer guest checkout – Everyone has given their personal information to a million different sites for various reasons. By requiring an account for checkout, you add unnecessary friction between your customer and their intended action. This extra step may give them enough time to reconsider their decision, so you should consider eliminating it.
- Make checkout secure and make sure your customers are aware of it.
- Add Social Proof – If you can, add some reviews of the product on the checkout page or some testimonials for the company as a whole. Keep them short and sweet. These are only meant as reassurance that a person is making the right choice. Since the research phase is done, there’s no need for detailed descriptions.
- Offer free shipping if you can.
Now that we’ve covered what to do to stop people from abandoning their carts, we need an abandoned cart strategy for when the worst comes to pass. Here is how you can reach out to your customers and entice them to return!
How To Create An Abandoned Cart Strategy
The best way to communicate with your customers and establish a path for them that leads back to your store is through a well-thought-out email sequence.
Successful abandoned cart emails should be personalized and made to reflect the points we outlined in the previous section.
Here is a blueprint for how an email abandoned cart campaign should look like
- The first email should just be a reminder. Assume they got preoccupied with something else but are still interested – make sure to add pictures of their cart items since most people browse a variety of different websites, and they can forget what they wanted to buy in the first place.
- The following 1-2 emails should address their concerns regarding security or commitment. Make sure to give them enough information about your payment gateway and how you will store their credit card information. If you offer guest checkout, make sure to put a clear Call To Action in your email that takes people straight to the checkout page, thus reducing friction.
- Add an email focused on the positive experience or transformation of others to enhance the appeal of your products. This could be a case study, a collection of testimonials, or a blog post-style account from an influencer that is well-known in that respective field.
- The last one should be an incentive – Either a discount (automatically applied to their order to streamline the process) or free shipping. Highlight the savings they will benefit from in clear and bold CTAs.
One last tip, use ActiveCampaign to automate this email sequence and progressively segment the list to exclude the people who completed their purchase after an email so that they don’t receive irrelevant messages afterward.
Final Words On Creating An Abandoned Cart Strategy
Over the years, we have helped countless businesses set up their online stores, but the products and the technology to get them in front of customers are just part of the success equation.
It is imperative that you closely monitor how potential customers interact with your website/catalog and account for any discrepancies and failings in your presentation/sales funnel.
With this abandoned cart strategy focused on prevention and recovery, you are sure to see a dramatic increase in the number of orders that make it to the finish line!
If you want any further help in implementing any or all measures talked about in this blog post, we would be more than glad to give you a helping hand. Contact us here, and we will schedule a call right away to discuss how we can help you leverage technology to scale your business!
