Why You Should Care About Reducing Cart Abandonment Rates
Shopping cart abandonment is a major challenge facing ecommerce businesses today. Studies show that the average cart abandonment rate across online stores is extremely high at around 70%. This means 7 out of 10 potential customers are adding items to their cart but failing to complete the purchase.
As a result, ecommerce sites are missing out on significant revenue opportunities. According to research from Baymard Institute, the average abandonment rate for online shopping carts is 67.45%. However, this number can fluctuate quite a bit based on factors like site traffic, industry, product types, and other variables. For instance, cart abandonment rates tend to spike around the holidays due to increased traffic from deal-focused shoppers.
Losing potential customers at the last step costs online businesses millions in lost sales every year. That’s why figuring out how to decrease cart abandonment needs to be a priority. Even minor improvements to your checkout process and site’s user experience can recovery revenue from abandoned carts and positively impact your bottom line.
Reasons Customers Abandon Carts
Customers abandon shopping carts for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common include:
- High shipping costs – Customers are sensitive to shipping fees, and may abandon their cart if the shipping charges seem unreasonable. Many shoppers have been conditioned to expect free shipping from major retailers like Amazon.
- Unexpected fees at checkout – Extra costs like taxes and payment processing fees that are revealed late in the checkout process can lead shoppers to ditch their carts. These surprise charges make customers feel misled.
- Lack of trust in the site – If a customer does not trust an ecommerce site, they will be unlikely to complete the checkout process. Factors like an unfamiliar domain, no SSL certificate, or too few trust symbols can make shoppers skeptical.
- Second thoughts/changing mind – Customers may simply have a change of heart and decide not to follow through with the purchase. They may reconsider whether they really need or can afford the items in their cart. Comparison shopping can also lead shoppers to find better deals elsewhere.
Tips to Decrease Cart Abandonment
There are several effective strategies ecommerce merchants can implement to decrease their shopping cart abandonment rate:
Offer Free or Reduced Cost Shipping
One of the top reasons customers abandon their carts is high shipping costs. Providing free shipping or reduced cost shipping options for orders over a certain threshold can incentivize customers to complete their purchase. You can highlight free shipping promotions on product pages and cart pages to encourage customers.
Simplify the Checkout Process
The checkout process should be as short, easy and seamless as possible. Reduce the number of fields customers need to fill out and don’t require creating an account to checkout. Allow shoppers to quickly checkout as a guest. Optimizing mobile checkout is also key, as most shopping carts are abandoned on smartphones.
Allow Guest Checkouts
Many customers don’t want to spend time creating accounts when shopping online. Enabling guest checkouts removes friction from the process and lets shoppers checkout quickly with minimal steps. You can optionally request account creation after the transaction is complete.
Use Trust Symbols and Badges
Displaying security and trust badges like Norton Secured, TRUSTe, BBB and McAfee SECURE can help reassure customers that your site is safe and build credibility. This helps reduce cart abandonment due to trust issues.
Offer First-Time Customer Discounts
Providing discounts or percentage off coupons specifically for new customers can provide an extra incentive to complete their first purchase on your site. This promotes trust and goodwill.
Send Abandoned Cart Emails
Setting up triggered emails that get sent when someone abandons a cart reminds customers to return and complete their purchase. The email should include details of the products they left behind and provide an easy call-to-action to checkout.
Retarget Shoppers with Ads
Retargeting past site visitors through ads on platforms like Facebook and Google can bring abandoned cart shoppers back to your website to finish their transactions. Dynamic ads with specific product images and pricing work best.
Offer Live Chat Customer Support
Having human reps instantly available to answer customer questions via live chat can provide the assistance needed for shoppers to complete their orders with confidence. This helps decrease late stage cart abandonment.
Importance of Tracking Data
Analyzing your site’s cart abandonment and shopping behavior data is crucial for understanding why customers are abandoning and determining which strategies are effective at reducing your rate. Here are some key metrics and reports to track:
Cart abandonment rate – This shows what percentage of carts are being abandoned compared to the number of carts created. Monitor how this changes month-over-month.
Average order value of completed sales – Compare this to abandoned cart values to see if lower cart values are being abandoned at higher rates.
Most abandoned products – Look at which specific products are being left behind most often. This can reveal issues with pricing, shipping costs, or product information.
Abandonment by page – See exactly which pages in your checkout flow have the highest abandonment rates. Identify friction points.
Email open and click rates – If sending abandoned cart emails, track open and click-through rates to optimize your emails.
User geo-location – Monitor if cart abandonment rates are higher among certain customer segments or geographic regions.
Time to abandon cart – Track how soon after adding items people tend to abandon their carts. Quick abandons may indicate issues.
Analyzing this data will pinpoint problem areas and help you accurately measure the impact of changes you make to decrease abandonment. Continually optimizing and testing based on actionable data is key for reducing cart abandonment.
Conclusion: Small Changes Can Have a Big Impact
Re-evaluating your checkout process and e-commerce site with abandonment in mind can lead to big improvements. While 20% or higher abandonment rates are common, it’s still lost revenue that companies could capture.
The most impactful tips are:
- Offer free shipping or reduced costs for standard delivery. Shipping charges are the top reason shoppers ditch their carts. Make it more enticing.
- Simplify your checkout flow as much as possible. Every extra step increases abandonment. Allow guest checkouts and save mandatory account creation for later.
- Use trust badges, guarantees, and clear return policies. Give shoppers confidence that the purchase is risk-free.
- Provide first-time incentives like discounts or free gifts. Getting that initial purchase is key.
- Follow up every abandoned cart with an email reminder. Customers often intend to return but forget.
Try implementing some of these tips over the next month and closely track your site’s cart abandonment rate and revenue. Even small decreases in abandonment could result in major gains thanks to recovered sales. Don’t leave money on the table – put these suggestions to work for your business.