3 ways to stop shopping cart abandonment

Online shoppers abandon carts. In fact, statistics show during the first quarter of 2018, 75.6 per cent of customers abandoned their online retail orders. With so many marketing decisions driven by data, it’s easy to pinpoint the technical reasons why shoppers are ditching their carts. To win them back, we first need to understand why they left. With so much content focused on ways to stop shopping cart abandonment, we thought we’d put ourselves in the customer’s shoes to give this topic a fresh perspective. Read on for 3 reasons why your customers are abandoning their carts and what you can do about it.

Purchase pressure

Read any blog on ways to reduce cart abandonment, and they’ll all encourage you to remove navigational elements and enclose the checkout process. The rationale is – by eliminating distractions, you bring the focus back to the purchase and reduce abandonment rates. While this may be the case for some websites, from a customer perspective, it may not be so effective. By stripping all the familiar trust markers away and navigating users through a sterile environment, customers might feel they’re being pushed into the purchase.

Putting checkout blinkers on the customer can make it hard for them to navigate back into the site and may wipe all the information already entered into the checkout. Going through the process again is frustrating, and ultimately customers are inclined to give up.

With privacy and data policies playing a crucial role in conversions, your users may still want information. For some retailers, it may be an all or nothing scenario, while others may find leaving essential information, such as a telephone number, and links to privacy policies and terms and conditions may have a more positive impact on conversion rates.

Virtual window shopping

It’s not uncommon for online shoppers to use their cart as a shopping list or a way of vetting pricing before committing to purchase. A recent study by PwC shows 52% of global shoppers prefer to research clothing and footwear purchases online before going through with a purchase.

There are ways to use effective cart-abandonment emails and discounts to win these customers back after the fact, but eCommerce managers should look for ways to stop it happening in the first place. Being transparent with pricing, shipping and return policies helps reduce the amount of on-site research a customer has to do. When it comes to dishing out discounts, online retailers could try enticing first-time purchasers with a coupon code at checkout, as opposed to after abandonment.

Alternatively, shoppers doing research online may add items to their cart with the intention of buying them in store. In this case, sending them a cart abandonment email with a discount code after they’ve bought the items doesn’t bode well. Instead of attempting to win them back by email when they had no intention of purchasing online, consider adding alternative steps when they click away and offer an option of saving the basket to a wishlist.

Virtual window shopping isn’t a cart abandonment issue, but without providing an alternative way to browse, it becomes one.

Freight frustrations

In recent years, online shoppers have come to expect attention to detail from retailers – specifically, fast and free shipping. And while this may not always be possible, at a very minimum, shoppers like to know where they stand when it comes to freight. Shipping is a deal breaker. Offer free shipping and nine out of 10 times, the customer will take you up on it. On the flip side, if you spring a surprise delivery fee on a customer – they’re likely to abandon their order.

To avoid nasty surprises, be upfront about your shipping and returns and display this information as clearly as possible.

From a customer’s perspective – transparency doesn’t stop at the checkout. Once they’ve placed the order, put the control in their hands with up-to-date, trackable shipping data. Using Shippit’s Track & Notify platform, customers get instant access to a single tracking link which keeps everyone on the same page, from your store, right to their door.

With as many as 40% of visitors ditching their carts due to sneaky shipping costs – transparency always wins. Click here to find out how you can make smarter shipping decisions.

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