6 ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment rate

Shopping cart abandonment is a simple term used for when a visitor leaves an online store before completing a purchase. This could be when the visitor adds an item to their basket or when a customer is looking to book a service. Resulting in the customer exiting before making that purchase or booking.

Basket abandonment is faced the world over by lots of eCommerce retailers. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to stop, but there are plenty of ways to reduce the abandonment rate.

The average basket abandonment rate is 69.57%. – Baymard Institute

So let’s dive into the 6 points, and take a look at why your customers could be leaving your site before completing the checkout process.

1. Free shipping

Adding free shipping to all products isn’t always an option. Lower value items sometimes outweigh the cost of the shipping, but including free shipping on a minimum order value can certainly help to reduce your abandoned basket rates.

Introducing a minimum order value can encourage customers to purchase more products from your store making them eligible for free delivery.

Including free shipping before a specific cut off time can also help to entice clients into checking out. A guarantee of products being shipping and delivered to customers for a specific time frame can push abandoned carts down.

2. Checkout as a guest

Adding extra clicks into a users flow and journey can often or not result in the customer dropping from your website. Customers don’t to fill in forms. Fact. Making a potential customer register before purchasing a product can slow a users journey to purchase or result in an abandonment.

A way to overcome this problem is to add a ‘checkout as guest’ option. If you’re using Magento 2 you still have the ability for customers to create an account after purchase.

Another viable option is to provide a social media login or single click login through Gmail. Many online stores offer this option to enhance the user experience and reduce the number of forms the customer has to complete.

3. Simplify checkout process

You’re got a Magento 2, winner. It’s already simplified. But maybe you’re running a store which doesn’t have such a simple and sleek checkout. If your customers are asked to fill out 7 pages worth of details, do you think they’re going to stick around? Because I know I wouldn’t.

Think about shopping in real life. Whenever you go to Tesco ( Other stores are available ) you’ll always look for the shortest queue or the quickest way to exit the store. The easier the process the more likely you are to not give up on your purchase. This is the same for your online store, the less people have to try the easier it becomes.

Only ask for that essential information, making sure this is included in the easiest to use format preventing customers from dropping out.

4. Add trust

Everyone likes a good review. So try to build trust by using other customers experiences. You know that you’re doing a good job, but your new customers don’t. Using services like Trustpilot and YOTPO will add that trust. If someone leaves a bad review, act upon it. Try to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

Many customers shopping online will often feel unsafe about making a purchase in the online space. Provide these customers with the assurances that your site is secure. An easy and quick way to do this is to use an SSL certificate. Not only will your customers benefit but you’ll also benefit from having an SSL, as Google will now rank sites better for having one.

5. Abandoned cart emails

Follow up emails to customers who haven’t completed their checkout could be a simple way to pull the customer back to reconsider and hopefully complete the purchase.

Abandoned cart emails can be set up automatically, so there isn’t any need to worry about manually going through to check each customers information or what stage of the checkout they’ve gotten to. Tools such as DotDigital and Mailchimp will allow you to easily setup these reminded emails. And with DotDigital having an integration with Magento 2 life couldn’t be simpler.

Timing is key to sending out abandoned cart emails. Leave it too long and your customer has gone past the urge to buy. Too short and the customer will pass the email by the wayside. We’d recommend sending the first email around 1 to 2 hours after the customer abandons their cart. Then following up on this within the next day if the customer hasn’t made the purchase. Again, don’t do this manually there are plenty of tools.

6. Understand your customers

Using tools such as Google Analytics can provide a great insight into the behaviour of customers coming to your website. Gone are the days of guessing why users are leaving your site. Behaviour flow tab inside of Google analytics allows you to identify exactly where your customers are leaving before the checkout step.

Be Data Driven. Don’t let emotions dictate the user experience and what ‘you’ think is right. Use the data you gather through tools to help understand and grow.

Summary

Hopefully, our strategies have provided some ideas of how you can reduce your abandoned basket rate and boost your online sales.

Remember, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to Commerce marketing, so make sure to trial a number of strategies to find what works for your customers.

Here at aware, we create bespoke eCommerce websites that convert and drive sales.