Cart abandoners. That’s what we call those customers who change their mind “standing” before the virtual cash desk with a full shopping cart. But why?
That is one of the biggest questions of online store owners! What is even more important: are you affected as well, and if so, what can you do about it?
Find it out!
Cart abandonment – the story of unfinished purchases
We are sorry to inform you, that according to statistics you are almost sure to be affected by it. Based on total industry data, the rate of cart abandonment, the rate of those customers who leave the shopping cart without purchasing is approx. 70%, in case of mobile users it is nearly 85%.
Don’t fall of your chair based on these numbers, because these are averages, so there are online stores where this rate is “only” 50%, while at others it is 90%.
What’s the good news? Don’t worry, there is good news as well! This rate can be improved by even 35% with the appropriate corrections and development. We’ll show you a handful of these!
Let’s look at step zero!
How can you check the cart abandonment rate of your online store?
There are several ways, but the easiest is if you turn to your Google Analytics account and check the data there. You just need to check
how many visitors did your cart and checkout pages had
and compared to that, how many orders do you see in your system.
Tip: In case of some online store platforms which you can rent you don’t even need to deal with this, you can immediately check where you are losing the majority of your potential customers.
In this case each individual step of the purchase process is identified by separate subpages with different URLs by the system, so you can clearly see where to look for the problem.
Reasons behind cart abandonment
If you are done with the analysis, before getting into fixing and development, there is an important step to be taken: look at the general reasons for cart abandonment.
According to the 2010 study of Forrester these 5+1 reasons are the most common:
- High or unclear shipping costs (44%)
- The customer was not ready for the purchase (41%)
- The costumer wanted to compare prices with other online stores (27%)
- The price of the product was higher than the customer would pay for it (25%)
- The customer just wanted to save it for later, to think it over before purchasing (24%)
+1 reason, if one has to register to purchase, the customer wouldn’t like to go through this process.
Based on this the most common reason is price, and that the customer doesn’t feel pressured to decide immediately.
How can you decrease the number of cart abandoners based on the above information?
We’ll show you 7 points with which you can improve your sales indicators based on the weak points of your online store.
Improve the loading time of your online store!
As people in general if they have a clear goal, your customers would also like to make the deal as fast and easy as possible. But if your online store or its subpages load at a snail’s pace, your potential customers will leave and look for a faster alternative. What should you do? With this tool check the diagnosis for your site.
You should always keep an eye on the cart!
It’s important that the cart button is always visible for the visitors, and they should know how much is the total cost of items in it. It is important that it is clear where they should click to make the purchase. It might seem trivial, but you can’t imagine how many online stores fail at this point.
Save the items in the cart!
We know that the second and fifth most common reason behind cart abandonment is that the customer is not ready to buy, or they are having a field inspection. It is an extra if you “save” the items in the shopping cart for them, so if they close their browser and return later, their chosen items will be waiting for them.
Don’t let them go without an offer!
You can set an automatic exit popup, which only shows when someone would leave the page without fulfilling a conversion goal (e.g., purchase, newsletter subscription etc.). This popup activates and offers a one-time offer, which can be e.g., a discount coupon.
With registered customers it is easier, as you can send them an email reminder of the abandoned cart. You can also add an incentive offer to it (e.g., a symbolic 5% discount coupon).
In case of new customers, you can try and ask for their email address in exchange for a coupon or some kind of gift. From here on it is only up to the engine of your online store to look out for abandoned carts and send an automated email reminder to the appropriate addresses.
Purchasing without registering
We don’t think this needs to be overexplained: you should give an option for your potential customers to create an account only after their purchase. Not everyone likes to start with registering in each online store where they might only shop once in their life. Maybe you feel the same way too.
Make the ordering process as simple as possible!
You should offer pre-filled fields, reduce the necessary steps for purchasing and the data asked. You should have one goal: to guide them to the Checkout as fast as possible!
So, anything which is not necessary for placing the order, you should leave that for later, no order should fail because of that!
Do you offer free shipping or is it a discount period? Advertise it!
On areas of your online store, because these offers are incentives for purchasing (of course that is your goal with them). If you currently offer free shipping, or you always do above a certain number of orders, indicate that for customers at each step of the purchase process.
We’re not saying that you should shove it in their face every time, but indicate it clearly so that it is always visible for them. It is important, because the shipping options and their cost is one of those pain points which could prevent a purchase.
We hope you found our article useful, and you head into upgrading geared up with proper solutions!
Are there any tips which could be useful but aren’t on our list? Write it in a comment under the Facebook post!
