Imagine this scenario: You have built your online store. You are waiting for customers to visit the store and place their orders. Suddenly, you have found the biggest killer of your profit potential. What’s that scary thing in your eCommerce battle? Yes, we are talking about shopping cart abandonment. This term is the rival of anyone living in a world of eCommerce. It is not about a fight between eCommerce and offline retail stores. Instead, it relates to the customer experience at every touchpoint of your store.
Abandoned carts can cause a high impact on the revenue of your business. There are some shoppers who abandon your shopping cart in spite of having interests in your products. They add some items to their virtual shopping carts. But, they leave your website for some reason without making any transaction.
In fact, the abandonment risk starts before the visitor clicks on the cart. Let us share some interesting truths about online buyers. Out of 100 eCommerce store visitors, only 12 put your products in the cart. The rest of the visitors simply navigate the store to check the products.
Shopping cart abandonment rate in eCommerce- How to calculate it
We have helped you in calculating the cart abandonment rate on your website. First, you have to make out how many- • Carts you have created • Carts abandoned by your visitors
Divide the total number of abandoned carts by the number of generated carts. After doing this calculation, you can learn how the shopping cart abandonment problem is affecting your revenue.
With brain-stretching research, you might have taken steps to recover the lost revenue from shopping cart abandonment. What leads shoppers to buy a product? What ticks the mind of an online buyer? How do I instigate an awesome feeling in my online store visitors? Before providing you with some tips for recovering the abandoned carts, let us share with you some harsh truths.
Shopping cart abandonment is simply a part of your life when you are engaged in the eCommerce world. Never be frustrated with it. The buying psychology of shoppers is complicated. Although you are selling quality products and have an attractive e-store, you can never fully avoid this problem.
Still, we have provided you with comprehensive guidance on how to recover the abandoned cart and lost sales.
Add some trust factors to your eCommerce website
A website that is not looking trustworthy cannot attract the attention of visitors. Trust elements are effective to convert visitors into customers. Which issues are affecting the trust level of your site?
• Broken links
• 404s errors
• Blurry graphics
• Unresponsive User Interface design
Your store visitors consider lots of factors before taking bucks out of their pockets. They search for contact details, pictures, guarantees, security logos, and several other elements. When your site does not have these things, they can hop to some bigger and more prominent eCommerce site, like Amazon.
Different ways of inspiring trust
• Add some testimonials
Modern consumers always want to know what other buyers are saying about your products. Thus, you have to disclose product reviews of your genuine customers fully.
• Use some verification systems for your eCommerce portal
These symbols act as the best trust makers. Lock icons and logos are some factors raising the level of confidence of your website visitors.
• Tell everyone why everyone should trust you
You may rely on the power of your words to stimulate the sense of reliability in your potential visitors.
Do not force users to sign up with your website
Most users do not like to create their accounts until they have decided on buying any product. You know that lots of users visit your site only to browse through product catalogs. Thus, you must not push them to the signup button. Surely, accounts are the best options of getting back and retaining loyal customers. We think that it is better to make signup optional for your eCommerce visitors.
New users always like to know what you are selling. Then, they can come back to register with you and place the order.
A simple CTA popup is the safest option without turning off the interests of your store visitors.
Make your eCommerce portal more usable
Usability issues are one of the major factors that can turn down your ROI. Your shoppers might have been facing problems to access your site, navigate your store, and use other sections of the platform.
Distressed users ultimately drop their shopping carts.
A highly usable website never has these problems. There are some simple ways of making your website user-friendly and more functional.
• The page-load speed level must be optimal
A slower eCommerce page not only affects conversation rates but also lowers your SEO rank. Make sure that your site is loading its page at a sizzling speed. With a slow-loading platform, you cannot compete with your rivals.
• Your product menu needs to be clear
Your visitors may be on the homepage, product page, and any other section. However, they have to be able to access the menu easily.
• Keep up minimalism
The presence of several words, clutters, and links can be a barrier to your visitors looking to reach the checkout page. You have to remove some of these elements to avoid distractions.
Simplify the checkout process
Your potential customers feel annoyed to find a 6-step checkout process. A confusing and lengthy checkout process can result in more than 10% of shopping cart abandonments.
• Ensure a linear checkout process- Let your shoppers enjoy an intuitive process where they can easily understand the reason for each of the steps. Never make customers feel impatient during the checkout.
• A two-step check process helps you to win the game. In this busy world, everyone looks for simplicity. Thus, your eCommerce shopping carts must also be simple for your online customers.
Thumbnail product images must be present throughout the buying process
Most of us do not forget what we have added to our shopping cart. Still, it is essential to place these product thumbnail images in the shopping cart.
While purchasing something from an offline store, we can see everything in front of our eyes. However, it does not happen in the eCommerce world. By adding thumbnail images, you can eliminate the risk of distractions during the checkout process.
In other words, you need to minimize friction and make your customers feel comfortable to purchase things. You can reduce the chance of cart abandonment in your eCommerce portal.
Offer more than one payment option
When your customers have started a journey to reach checkout pages, you never want anything obstructing the process. However, while you have offered only one payment option, you may not be successful in your sales.
Credit card and debit card payments are very common. However, today, customers look for choices of their payment modes online. For instance, PayPal is a globally accepted transaction mode. However, for mobile customers, you need to add Google Wallet and Apple Pay Wallet.
By offering several payment methods, you can reduce the risk of abandoning the shopping cart. It is true that you may face a hassle, as you need to pay a higher merchant service fee. However, you can please your customers who look for convenience in paying online.
Personalize your customer journey
Personalization is another trick to grab the attention of customers. How do you offer personalized shopping experiences to shoppers? We have some effective ways for you-
• Make product recommendations relevant to your customers to save their time
• Add countdown timers that promote the sense of urgency
• Include some social proofs to develop trust
Take the right security measure- Not too tight and too loose
A security breach can happen at any time. However, do not make it too difficult for customers to pay you.
Some eCommerce owners go wrong with too much tightening of their security measures. Conversely, a website with no security technology may raise a sense of fear and awful scam among customers.
In both these cases, users can abandon the eCommerce shopping cart. We have some tips on how to make them feel that your website is secure and they can buy products comfortably.
One of the best options for you is to add logos and seals to the right place. For instance, you can rely on the trusted store seal offered by Google. Moreover, SiteLock is another security provider for online businesses.
Your target is to ensure your customers that no one will steal their personal data.
Make your shopping cart visible to everyone easily
Why have you added a shopping cart when no one can trace it? Cart visibility is one of the factors to make a difference in the abandonment rate. A distinct and visible shopping cart also adds usability to the website. You must not hide this cart and understate it in any way. Thus, make the shopping cart obvious to every visitor and place it in the optimal position.
The best spot for positioning the cart is the right-hand corner of the top section of the screen. Most online shoppers are used to look at this part to identify the cart.
You may also add some design features to the shopping cart. You can rely on professionals to create a customized cart icon. Slightly big size and contrasting colors- these are a few ways to gather attention to your shopping cart.
Regardless of your website design and size, this cart icon has to be present everywhere on the platform. For instance, the shopping cart should be viewable from every page, including the homepage, shipping information page, FAQ, and blogging section.
Start a cart recovery email campaign
You may have already lost sales due to the abandoned carts. However, there is a way to recover at least some of those carts. Phone calls and SMS may make shoppers feel disturbed. That is why you can start an email campaign as one of the cart recovery tactics.
You must know the way of sending emails to your potential customers who have left your eCommerce shopping cart.
• Write a clear subject line to increase the open rate of your emails.
• Use product names for drawing back the shopper
• Send your emails within 30 minutes of the abandonment of the cart
• Include clear information about your identification
• Make your emails enticing by adding other products that are relevant to your customers’ choice.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that our tips and tricks will surely come to your help, and you can increase the sales rate and lower the cart abandonment rate. However, despite applying proven methods, you cannot catch every fish. Most online shoppers have a habit of comparing prices in different stores. Still, you must not settle the rate of abandonment. You should try your best and set a realistic goal for your company.