If there is one thing that can immediately raise the stress levels of an ecommerce brand owner, it’s the sight of an abandoned cart. In fact, a recent study found that the average cart abandonment rate across all industries is close to 70 percent, so it stands to reason that this bugbear can cause a whole host of problems for ecommerce businesses.
What’s more, this area of concern grows deeper with mobile users, with the current global mobile cart abandonment rate coming in at just over 85 percent.
Faced with such staggering statistics, it is crucial for business owners to take matters into their own hands by applying certain proven methods to improve their own individual situation. From enticing discounts to time-saving techniques, here are the seven key tactics that will drastically improve your cart abandonment rate.
How To Reduce Your Cart Abandonment Rate:
1. Simplify the checkout process.
An unfriendly user experience will deter 24 percent of shoppers from completing a purchase. It therefore stands to reason that tackling this issue head-on will make a massive difference to your sales margin. Making small changes, such as removing unnecessary optional fields, sticking to a one-page checkout system or even creating an option that allows customers to set their billing address as their delivery address will incur positive results.
2. Allow potential customers to ‘Checkout as Guest’.
Avoid losing out on 35 percent of your conversions by creating a ‘Guest Checkout’ option. A significant portion of online shoppers will be put off by the hassle of creating an account before they make their purchase, so offering a speedier alternative is paramount. Once the purchase has been made, you can then present the option to subscribe or set up an account with a few simple steps. Not only will this encourage repeat business, but it will also enable you to capture data and increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).
3. Tighten up on security.
Uncertainty surrounding a secure transaction is a sure-fire dealbreaker for a significant portion of online shoppers. Showcase your trustworthy status by clearly displaying recognisable trust badges on your website. Applying for your SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate, which features as a familiar padlock symbol in the address bar, also reassures customers that your website is secure. Another way to offer peace of mind is through providing alternative payment options, such as PayPal, which also makes the checkout process faster.
4. Be transparent with shipping fees and delivery times.
Hidden fees are a huge deterrent for potential customers. Avoid any nasty surprises at the checkout phase by displaying your shipping fees clearly on your website. Perhaps you offer free shipping over a certain amount or have a flat-rate fee. Whatever your policies, ensure that any added fees are applied at the ‘view basket’ stage so that customers know what to expect before they hit the checkout.
Furthermore, statistics show that shoppers will be more likely to commit to a purchase if they are guaranteed efficient and speedy delivery. Opting to partner with an order fulfilment provider will allow you to hit both of these goals in one go. Aside from offering lower delivery costs and exceptional delivery times, this professional service will allow you to put your focus on other ways to decrease your cart abandonment rate.
With 53 percent of shoppers unlikely to purchase if they don’t know when their item will be delivered, it would certainly be a wise move.
5. Convert the browsers!
“Just browsing” is one of the most common reasons for an abandoned cart. Turn a browser into a bona fide customer with a little help from modern technology. Monitoring a browser’s exit intent can hugely decrease your cart abandonment rate. This can be achieved by utilising exit intent pop-ups, which survey vital behaviours such as time spent scrolling on a particular landing page or even when the cursor moves into ‘dangerous territory’ towards the address bar.
When it appears that a shopper has decided to move on, this is when your pop-up is activated, showcasing anything from discount codes to an invitation to subscribe in order to maintain interest and inevitably, encourage them to follow through on their purchase.
6. Encourage them to bag a bargain.
Apps that allow for discount fields to be displayed in the cart phase are also a successful tool in creating conversions among customer who may be on the fence regarding their items. By highlighting promotional codes on a discount bar on your website, you give shoppers one incentive to stay with you. The second incentive to continue with their purchase is to have the discount field visible when they view their cart, so they can apply the code and take note of the savings before they enter the checkout phase. This establishes the bargain mentality and is often all it takes to push a sale over the line. Creating timed discounts can further increase sales, as the countdown element creates a ‘now or never’ situation, nudging shoppers to buy before it’s too late.
7. Promote a full cart, rather than an abandoned one.
While the overarching goal is to flip from a high cart abandonment rate to a high conversion rate, why not set the bar even higher by attempting to upsell and cross-sell while you’re at it? This is where in-cart upsell and cross-sell apps come in. Impulse-buy items often have just as much of an endearing effect online as they do in a physical store environment, which is why these in-cart pop-ups at the checkout stage can lead to increased profits.
These apps work by making product suggestions to customers just before the point of purchase. Whether it’s suggesting bundle offers or products that complement their existing selection, their function is to encourage customers to purchase excess items with potentially a single click.
