Cart Abandonment Best Practices - Personalics

The Problem Of Cart Abandonment

Ohad Shperling — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:00:16 +0000

The ability to shop online has brought about both radical changes in the way people think and buy their goods, as well some behavior that would otherwise never be seen in the real world. For example, just imagine groups of people going into a grocery store. Most of them do what you’d expect, pulling out their shopping carts or baskets, wandering from shelf to shelf, picking up goods, and then lining up at the checkout counters to pay for their goods.

But then a strange thing happens. Some people who get in line simply walk away and leave the store. Their goods are still in the shopping cart or basket, but now they are just sitting there, deserted, their potential owners having left the store before paying, but, thankfully, not stealing the goods.

In the online world of shopping this happens all the time. It is referred to as “Cart Abandonment.”

A Common Occurrence

Even with ecommerce email marketing software directing shoppers to a store, it sometimes happens that those same shoppers will eagerly select items, add them to the virtual shopping cart, and then get cold feet and not complete the transaction, instead simply logging out and never completing the purchase.

Cart abandonment happens frequently. Far more frequently than it ever has in the real world, where most people make a decision not to buy something before ever going to the point of sale at a retail outlet. In fact, one study conducted by the Baymard Institute, a web research company in the United Kingdom, estimated that 67.45% of online shopping carts are actually abandoned before a sale can be completed.

In other words, many, many more people online suddenly change their minds at the last minute as compared to the real world. That’s a baffling figure. So what is happening here? Why are people changing their minds? And what can you do to prevent this?

The Causes Of Cart Abandonment

There are many reasons that cart abandonment occurs, with some being far more easy to fix than others. One reason carts are abandoned—that usually has nothing to do with the retailer—is when a shopper’s payment is declined. In most cases, this is the shopper’s problem, and doesn’t usually reflect on the retailer, or the online shopping experience the retailer provided.

But one major problem that can affect many retailers who aren’t used to thinking in bigger terms is one of currency. Thanks to the online nature of shopping, now your ecommerce email marketing software can reach out to potential consumers all over the planet. And that means they are used to paying in Yen, Ringgit, Euros or some other currency from another country. Many online shoppers are stopped at the shopping cart stage and leave if they are presented with a final figure that is not in the currency they are familiar with. If they don’t feel like doing the work themselves to work out the currency conversion, they simply abandon the cart and go looking for some other online service that will provide prices in amounts and currencies they can relate to.

Other big problems that cause many to abandon their carts are problems with the website or the purchasing process. A slow website that takes too long to process information, or crashes before the purchase is completed may often be more than enough for a shopper to simply decide not to restart the whole process just to complete the transaction. If they are having trouble shopping because your website is, in their eyes, “buggy,” they simply look elsewhere for some other website that will offer a smoother, bug free shopping experience. If your website is giving people problems, you need to address this immediately, as no effective ecommerce email marketing software can easily convert a shopper who has decided you make shopping too difficult to bother with.

And finally, one of the single biggest causes for people to abandon a cart is unexpected costs. You may have surcharges, or additional shipping costs, or taxes that need to be added. You probably make mention of this in small print somewhere, but for the impatient shopper that doesn’t read the small print, the simple truth is this; when the price they were expecting to pay comes out to be more than what they thought, many people will change their mind and abandon their cart. You should try to do whatever you can to be as upfront as possible about these charges and make sure people go into the purchase knowing about them. No one enjoys an unpleasant surprise, especially when that surprise is, essentially, “You owe us more money than you thought.”

How To Prevent Cart Abandonment

There are a few ways that you can try to recover a purchase after someone has abandoned the cart, especially if reasons like a problematic website or different currencies weren’t the issue. One method, known as ad retargeting, keeps the presence of your products and website in the user’s mind through the use of online ads.

The other method is using ecommerce email marketing software. By noting and commenting on the shopper’s personal interests, and engaging with them, extending a willingness to work through whatever problem they had, you can reignite and retain shopper loyalty.

Shoppers respond positively when a retailer makes an effort to reach out to them, and shows that they are aware of the shopper’s personal preferences. If your personalized email campaigns can acknowledge these factors, and entice shoppers with similar items, or even better rates or prices on similar items or the same product they’d abandoned, this can go a long way towards retaining customers and encouraging them to return to your website for their shopping needs.

The most important things to keep in mind are eliminating any possibilities that provide obstacles to a shopper making an easy purchase. Keeping the purchasing process simple, and don’t have unexpected surprise—especially with price—at the checkout stage. Follow this up with personalized email that is relevant to the shopper’s interests, and you can establish a long and fruitful relationship with your customers.

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Ultimate Guide for Cart Abandonment

Ohad Shperling — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:30 +0000

So you have built the best eCommerce site experience you could think of. You may have captured a unique eCommerce niche, developed an attractive brand, fine-tuned your copy, and polished the site design. You’ve implemented some A/B testing and noticed an improvement in conversion. But why is cart abandonment rate so high and conversion so low? And more importantly, what you can do about it?

You are not alone. In fact, the following benchmarks show cart abandonment rates are high across sectors:
1. According to SmartInsights, average visitor-to-purchase eCommerce conversion rates sit between 1% and 6% depending on device, geography, and channel.
2. According to Bayard Institute, for those shoppers adding product to the cart and abandoning, the average shopping cart abandonment rates is 68% across industries. This number is the average calculated among a number of resources who have published their statistics on eCommerce cart abandonment. With such a high abandonment number, eCommerce sites have to take action to re-engage with hesitant shoppers.
3. According to Formisimo, the trend toward shopping cart abandonment seems to be increasing over the past decade. An average of 60% cart abandonment in 2006 has grown to 68% in 2014. However, since 2014, the cart abandonment average is decreasing once again. This is probably because of an increase in the number of conversion optimization techniques being used.

Next, let’s look at the reasons that shoppers abandon their carts. Let’s look at the graph below, then provide an explanation and examples for each reason.

http://www.designforfounders.com/shopping-cart-abandonment

1. Shoppers expect lower (or zero) shipping cost:
According to this BI Intelligence report, shipping costs are the #1 reason for cart abandonment. This Statista report cites that the number one reason for leaving a site without buying is ‘unexpected’ shipping costs showing up at the last minute of the checkout process before payment.

What can you do about it?
A. Provide free shipping up front.
Zappos is famous for providing free shipping to everyone, so they have eliminated this conversion killer upfront.

Zappos free shipping

B. Provide free shipping above a certain expenditure or only for members.
Nike is transparent about their free shipping option on purchases of over $150 or to subscribed members.

Nike+ free shipping

If shipping is too costly for your business because gross margins are low, and providing free shipping to everyone will incur significant losses for the sale, you may want to look closely at your analytics and examine whether providing free shipping exclusively to new visitors may end up being profitable in the long run. For instance, if providing free shipping turns a visitor into a happy customer who ends up trusting your brand and purchasing a number of times from your site (while paying extra for the shipping on subsequent orders) then the actual cost of sponsoring free shipping for these new visitors, during the first purchase can be negated.

In other words, if free shipping is so important to first time visitors, and a significant segment of your first time shoppers end up buying more and becoming profitable customers in the long run, you’ve just found a profitable way of providing free shipping to these new visitors.

2. Shoppers were researching for total cost:
The second reason in the survey was that shoppers were not ready to buy yet. They were comparing total costs on various websites and wanted to know the final price including shipping, for comparison purposes.

What can you do about it?
A. If your store offers commodity products that can also be found on other stores, then make sure to use a price comparison service to adjust your prices according to changes in the market so that your pricing is always competitive.
B. Present total cost as early as possible. This creates a sense of trust and transparency. You don’t want the user to feel surprised. Here you can see how eBay is giving all the information about costs, delivery and payment up front.

eBay item cost description

C. Incentivize first-time visitors with an additional discount via a pop-up.

Fabric.com 10% off pop-up offer for first-time customers

This fabric.com pop-up invites first time visitors to leave their email in exchange for receiving 10% discount.
More advanced pop-up functionality would use cookie-based data in order to only show up for first time users (meaning it would not show to users who had signed up before). In addition, an advanced pop-up functionality would use exit-intent technology. Meaning – it would not “disturb” the user until the point when the user’s mouse is ‘moving towards’ the closure icon.

3. Shoppers use the cart as a ‘save for later’ feature:
Sometimes, shoppers are not ready to purchase just yet and would like to keep their preferences for later.
Whether the reason is price comparison, or just saving the products for later consideration, shoppers use the cart as a ‘wish list’, and they expect it to be saved.

What can you do about it?
A. Some eCommerce sites keep the user’s unique cart, while some do not. If you don’t have such an option, you may want to consider implementing a cart ID, which shoppers can come back to easily. You may also want to use an expiration feature for carts to create a sense of urgency and drive shoppers to take action within a couple of days of abandonment.
B. Provide a ‘wish list’ feature that allows shoppers to save their preferred items for later. You can use this data in order to further personalize communication with shoppers in follow-up email. For instance, ModCloth uses a wish list functionality, and automatically send emails to shoppers when there is a price drop on products from their wish list.

ModCloth WishList

Wish lists eliminate the trouble of searching products again, and therefore make it more likely that the shopper will complete the purchase.

Wish lists are also valuable due to the increasing habit of researching on mobile, and completing the purchase via desktop.

C. Ask for an email early.
When shoppers save their cart for later, it implies that they are interested in visiting those items again. In order to be able to send gentle email reminders, you want to collect shoppers’ emails as early in the process as possible.
For instance, Bonobos collects the shopper’s email address as the first step of their checkout process.

Bonobos email capture pop-up

When trying to check out and buy an item, rather than asking for billing details, the first thing they ask for is an email address.

Theoretically, while this may lengthen the number of clicks until completion of the checkout, this allows for the start of a conversation, rather than optimizing the first purchase for a first-time visitor.

D. Send a series of cart abandonment emails to remind shoppers of their saved cart. In the email series you may choose to provide additional discount or free shipping, and add an element of scarcity (“only available in the next 24 hours”) to create a sense of urgency and drive action.

Here’s an example of a cart abandonment email:

FiftyThree cart abandonment email

E. Use Retargeting ad networks to approach shoppers with ads, reminding them of their abandoned cart. The cost of acquiring a new customer is 5 times higher than the cost for retaining an existing one. Retargeting ad networks such as AdRoll, allow you to place ads on sites that feature products the shopper has left in the cart.

4. Shipping date is too late:
Shoppers expect timely, and sometimes expedited delivery. A lengthy shipping time becomes an impediment for buying.

What you can do about it?
Come up with an attractive shipping offer, and be transparent about it.

ShopRunner 2-day shipping offer

You can also give the user different shipping options where the 2-day expedited shipping is ‘free’, subject to a commitment of an annual membership. Here is an example by Zazzle:

Zazzle membership options

5. They couldn’t find a payment option convenient for them:
According to Internet Retailer, different payment options are preferred by shoppers in different countries.
So depending on your available geographies, you should include enough payment options for your targeted shoppers.
Here is the diverse set of payment options offered by BookDepository, an Amazon company, focused on international, free shipping of books. You may also want to add Amazon checkout to this list.

Diverse payment options

6. The design was not convenient enough:
In an era when competing alternative products are offered in many other venues, you don’t want bad design to drive potential customers to your competitor’s site.

Bad design can include: not providing enough information, hiding contact information for customer service, a confusing checkout process, an inadequate site search option, poor customer service or conflicting colors, and more.

7. Didn’t want (or wasn’t ready) to create an account:
Many shopping platforms and cart management systems are offering the option to pay without creating an account. For many users, this option is attractive. Klarna, with their ‘pay later’ feature, even allows for completing the whole purchase without triggering any payment options.

In summary, shoppers abandon their cart for various reasons and there’s a lot you can do to alleviate shoppers’ concerns or mitigate their reasons for abandonment.

Hopefully you’ve found this article helpful. Have you ever experienced any of the issues above? Have any of these pieces of advice been helpful to your eCommerce store? Please comment below.

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