Knowing how to reduce the rate of shopping cart abandonment on your website is what many site owners want to learn. However, many are unsure how to do it or where to start.
Abandoned shopping carts are one of the biggest problems that are present in online businesses. In fact, billions of dollars are lost annually because potential customers and site visitors won’t check out their chosen items.
In this article, we are going to help you deal with this issue and lower the rate of shopping cart abandonment on your site.
Knowing More About Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment happens when a site visitor or potential customer adds an item to their online shopping cart.
However, they just leave it there without proceeding with buying it. There is a good chance you did this a few times before and you just thought that there’s really no problem with that. Well, that’s just what you think.
What’s really happening is that there’s a lot of money left on the table because of your irresponsible behavior.
According to statistics, around 60% of shopping carts have been abandoned. This also translates to around 2 out of 3 people adding items on their cart but not buying them.
Although they didn’t really buy them, there is still a huge missed opportunity here. What’s worse is that revenue is also lost in the process. Good thing that there are ways to lower down these rates so you can increase your profits.
1.- Offer free shipping
The first thing you can do is offer free shipping. This is one of the best ways you can avoid abandoned shopping carts.
Note that the major reason why people don’t proceed in checking out is because of the hidden fees of shipping which they can only find when checking out. To make things worse, shipping costs and taxes make the fees much higher, which is enough to turn off buyers.
An example of this is if you add an item worth $20 to your cart. And when it’s already time for you to pay, the item surprisingly skyrockets to $40 because of the additional fees and shipping fee.
You can avoid this by providing free shipping. Incentivize your potential clients and make them see that they’ll benefit a lot when they buy your product.
2.- Personalize communication
What many websites do is that they give out multiple popups. This is a very bad thing to do because this will surely annoy customers.
Show them one or two popups and you increase the chances of them leaving their cart and getting out of the site. You need to work on your site’s user experience (UX) to avoid these costly problems.
One good way to do this is by optimizing the things that show up on your site. You can have a chatbox that shows up in an unintrusive way.
You might also want to make sentences shorter and make them less formal to better connect with the visitor. Another nice thing to do is to address your customer via their name or mention their location so that the site can provide better suggested products.
3.- Showcase the thumbnail
Many people are less likely to forget the items they placed on their shopping cart. But there are times when they do, or perhaps they just think it’s alright to leave them.
Well, a good way to counter this is by showing the thumbnail of the item they have chosen. Making them see the picture reassures them what they are buying.
It’s a different setting when you’re buying from an actual physical store because you see the product in deep detail.
However, there’s a chance you won’t see them when checking out online. That’s why it is best to show the photo of the image so that the buyer is assured that what they are checking out is actually the item they want.
This also removes the chances of them being distracted. Aside from that, they can also remember the product they are buying if they have a physical reminder.
4.- Smooth navigation
Navigation is another important thing to consider if you want to lower the rate of shopping cart abandonment.
Buyers want to have a smooth and seamless experience when it comes to buying something. This is why you need to make sure that your site won’t lag.
The items should also load fast so that there will be a very minimal turnover rate. The easier your customers can move between their chosen products, the higher chances they are going to buy them.
You should make the whole buying process effortless for them so they will be compelled to buy. Always remember that site visitors are less likely to buy if they exert too much effort. So, as much as possible, make the whole process easy and fast.
5.- Ensure maximum security
Another reason why some shoppers don’t proceed in buying their items in the cart is that they aren’t sure if the payment method and process are secure. It will surely help a lot if you provide them with reassurance that they are in safe hands. Trust in the brand is an important feature to have. But this can become even better if you combine it with a well-designed website.
A website that looks nice, aesthetic, and simple to use builds customer trust. You can also display security icon marks such as Verisign and Norton to provide additional assurance of the security measures put in place.
Conclusion
Shopping cart abandonment rate is a serious issue in the world of ecommerce. Although this doesn’t directly lead to lost profits, it wreaks havoc on the inventory part of the business because items that are added to the cart are usually marked as sold.
Well, even if it’s not really. We also can’t blame the users because there are many factors playing. Just make sure that the website is nice and fast, always provide security measures, and make the whole process as visual as possible to increase the chances of finishing a purchase.