Top Tips for Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment

Why is a cart abandonment recovery strategy essential for eCommerce?

Implementing a cart abandonment recovery strategy takes time, planning, and investment.

So, if you’re not already convinced by the benefits of a cart abandonment recovery strategy for eCommerce, here they are in more detail:

• Recover lost revenue: By reminding customer of products they’ve abandoned, you’re in with a chance of making up lost revenue.
• Gather customer insight: Utilize web analytics to gather customer intelligence. These insights should then be used to help streamline the checkout process.
• Reduce customer churn: Following up customers who have abandoned their carts will help secure long term customer loyalty.

Calculating shopping cart abandonment rates (%)

So, if you had 500 completed transactions and 750 shopping carts initiated, your cart abandonment rate would be 33.33%.

If you find your cart abandonment rate is high, analyze what your customers are doing just before they leave your site. Look at their behavior throughout the buyer journey to spot the things that could lead to a poor experience.

This is where it will also be helpful to look at ways of improving your eCommerce conversion rate. Just like reducing checkout abandonment rates, converting browsers into buyers is always tricky in eCommerce. The ​​average conversion rate in eCommerce is very low (generally between 2.5-3%, depending on the industry)

How to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates

Optimizing your eCommerce store should be an ongoing process and there are lots of ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Looking at some of the following areas will help:

• Improve the browsing experience
• Build trust and confidence
• Reduce shipping costs
• Highlight the value of your products
• Prevent technical problems
• Offer plenty of payment options
• Create a seamless online experience

Improve the browsing experience:

Make sure your customers can find the product page they’re looking for within three clicks of arriving on your site. A customer may have initiated a shopping cart, but if they’re then unable to find other bits they want to buy, they’ll go elsewhere.

When you sell online, you need to have clean data and clear product categories, as well as good navigation to guarantee the best browsing experience. Clearly categorized data will also help you create cross-sell opportunities. When done right, i.e., using intelligent product recommendations, you can increase shopping cart values, all while reducing abandoned carts.

Build trust and confidence:

The quality of your product data will ultimately determine the quality of the customer experience.

A top tip to reduce cart abandonment is to ensure your customers have all the information they need to make an informed buying decision.

Provide enough detail, and make sure your digital assets are top-quality, so customers have a full view of the product. After all, you don’t want them to lose confidence at the last minute before hitting “buy now”!

Reduce shipping costs:

High shipping costs are always going to be a turn-off and it’s a leading cause of high online checkout abandonment rates.

You could consider offering free delivery for orders over a certain amount. Either way, your customers need this information early on in their journey so be sure to include details on your product pages.

This way, they won’t be put off when they arrive at checkout only to discover high delivery costs.

Highlight the value of your products:

A high price tag is unsurprisingly a key factor in shopping cart abandonment rates. Therefore, you need to demonstrate to your customers why your products are better than those of your competitors.

Focus on the unique features and benefits and outline what customers will gain from buying your product. You could also consider offering a price comparison tool to give customers an extra layer of reassurance that they’re getting a good bang for their buck.

Prevent technical problems:

Ensure the solutions you have in place are fit for purpose, even when you experience high volumes of traffic. A robust eCommerce tech stack enables you to deliver sleek online journeys even when you experience high levels of traffic. You should also invest in an SSL certificate, so customers know they’re shopping on a secure site.

Offer plenty of payment options:

In a 2023 survey, 59% of respondent said customers frequently abandon their cart if their preferred payment method is unavailable. However, you can easily easily combat checkout page abandonment rates by having robust payment gateways and a wide range of payment options.

To help reduce cart abandonment rates, make sure you’re offering:

• Apple Pay
• BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later)
• Debit/credit card
• Digital currencies

Overall, you need to make sure the process is as quick and simple.

Create a seamless online experience:

All in all, some of the things you should do to ensure a good experience from start to finish include:

• Let shoppers create wish lists they can come back to
• Be transparent about extra costs, like delivery and returns, right from the start
• Enable quick and easy guest checkout that requires minimal personal details
• Make it as easy as possible for shoppers to pay, and offer a variety of payment options
• Apply coupons/discounts automatically to prevent customers from going elsewhere for better deals
• Make the checkout process as clear and simple as possible, reducing the number of steps and making progress clear
• Give varied and flexible delivery options with estimated dates and details of the courier to build trust

Shopping cart abandonment recovery strategies

Send cart abandonment emails:

Sending your customers a reminder of what they’ve left in their carts is a great way of giving your customers a nudge to complete uncompleted transactions. Remember, any emails you send should be personalized to improve the experience.

Cart abandonment emails are effective, too. A huge 45% of abandonment emails are opened, with 21% receiving click-throughs. And, half of these clicks turned into purchases!

Some eCommerce platforms, such as BigCommerce, have this feature out-of-the-box. To learn about BigCommerce’s Abandoned Cart Saver, click here.

Implement abandoned cart retargeting:

Retarget customers who’ve abandoned their purchases with you across different advertising networks. You should also be targeting them on as many different sales channels as possible to make sure you get their attention.

Making changes to any of the things we’ve listed above will improve the overall online experience you offer. And, once you’ve nailed the customer experience, you can expect to see improvements across the board.

Leverage Exit Intent Pop-Ups

Exit intent pop-ups are designed to remind customers of their abandonend cart. You should include incentives to help get purchases over the line.

You should set the pop-ups to trigger when a user attempts to leave the page or close the tab. However, use these sparingly. You don’t want to annoy your customer, they might leave your website entirely.

Key Takeaway

From improved conversion rates, higher Average Order Values, and fewer abandoned carts, to a loyal customer base that keeps coming back. Overall, there are a bunch of ways to reduce cart abandonment that will contribute to you delivering first-in-class online experiences.