As a merchant, you’d like to get as many visitors as possible to your store, and to achieve this; you put expensive search engines and social media experts to work and spend much money on online advertising. Such choices are logical because search engine optimization is ‘the key’ and social media is ‘extremely hot.’ But investing in attracting visitors to your store without looking at why they leave that same store is an error. Especially since research has shown that approx, based on the Pareto principle, 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from 20% of your existing customers; therefore, in this article, we will explain what an abandoned shopping cart is, common scenarios you can face, and tips to minimize it.
The Abandoned Shopping Cart
You put everything to get consumers to your store. But do you also put the same effort into preventing visitors from leaving your shop? Often this is not the case, which is a shame. In 70% of the cases, customers leave the shop without having made a purchase. In addition, many merchants feel or think “there is nothing they can do about that.” But there may be numerous reasons besides ‘no interest’ why consumers leave the shop. For example, because something intervened or consumers still need more information to purchase.
Let’s look at the main reasons you face an abandoned shopping cart!
The Visitor is Still In the Orientation Phase
Imagine that I want to buy a PlayStation 4 or a Wii. Or the X-Box? Many consumers have such questions when they think about buying a particular product. Therefore they search online for reviews, talk with one another on forums and look at product videos on YouTube. Consumers could also ask a staff member questions in physical stores, but this seems less evident on the Internet. That’s why you can consider that customers need more time to be ready to buy. Consider highlighting product reviews and demos for this customer segment. That way, they can understand more about how the product works and which they want the most.
The Webshop Does Not Look Professional
How much time and effort you put into search engine optimization, or advertising does not matter. If your store does not look professional, it likely scares many visitors. As with everything, you only have one chance for the first impression. A well-designed webshop not only consists of a beautiful design, but a professional UX designer also cares about the usability and navigation of the store. Unfortunately, too often, there hasn’t been thought well enough about the design of the Webshop. Before you spend money on all sorts of ways to get visitors to your store, invest well in the shop’s design. If you do not do this, it will likely result in a higher bounce rate, which is a shame.
It’s Mandatory to Create an Account
Account creation asks for extra effort. Customers might not want to spend their time, especially if they only plan on making a one-time purchase. But businesses often insist on account creation to retarget customers with emails. Many first-time shoppers would prefer a streamlined process. They want to make a purchase and leave. But if you require an account as a mandatory process, you can face an abandoned shopping cart. Consider activating a visitor’s shopping so that you can minimize cart abandonment.
The Visitor Found A Better Deal
The ease of comparing prices and products means that customers can find an identical or similar product from a competitor. If the competitor’s price is more reasonable for customers to pay, they can abandon their purchases. That’s the main reason why it’s crucial to track your competitors’ prices. Because price tracking can help you find the price positioning you want, decide to offer dynamic or competitive prices as you wish. Initially, you will increase your profit margins and minimize losing customers.
The Visitor Scares During the Checkout
Why do visitors abandon shopping carts behind your online store? The average person also wouldn’t do this when shopping at the supermarket. Leaving the shop may have many reasons, such as unexpected delivery costs, the obligatory need to create an account, or ambiguities concerning the returns policy or terms used by the merchant. Although they did not proceed to carry out a purchase at that time, this does not mean they do not or will not do this later. But how do you get the consumer back to the checkout?
Now, let’s look at some tips that can help you minimize cart abandonment.
Tips to Minimize Abandoned Shopping Carts
Tip 1: Use The Live Chat
Use the live chat to translate the experience from the physical shop to the online world. Many merchants have yet to discover the live chat and its opportunities. When you apply live chat in your store, you can have real-life conversations with your consumers. Do the consumers have questions about a specific product? You can quickly help them by chatting and discussing the questions and assisting consumers in real-time increases the chance that they implement the order at your Webshop.
Tip 2: Clarify Shipping Time
Consumers may also need clarification on ordering a product from you or your competitor. Is the shipping rate compared to your competitor higher or lower than yours? And what about the delivery time? You can help consumers by creating a competition overview that allows them to search.
Tip 3: Optimize Your Online Store
Do you have a large budget? Then, SaaS (software-as-a-service) is your solution. You might not own the Webshop, but you rent an optimized web store for a fixed monthly amount. There are plenty of Saas providers, each with its advantages, including SEOshop, CCVshop, Shop Pages, My Online Store, Shop, and Trader Luondo.
Tip 4: Increase Page Speed
An essential part of a well-designed web store is the speed with which the shop is opened within the browser. When the time takes less time, then you run the risk that a customer leaves your shop. Even if they like to make an order at your online store. The tip here is to optimize the speed of your web store.
Tip 5: Track Competitor’s Prices with Automation
In ecommerce, prices can change in seconds. You need to be aware of your competitors’ prices and offer the most suitable price for your business. When a customer compares your prices, your price should be attractive to win that customer. It’s possible to track competitors’ prices automatically. Price tracking tools allow you to get price change notifications and offer competitive prices. Consider working with them if you sell in a competitive market and minimize cart abandonment.
Tip 5: Continue Testing and Improvement
Test continuously and improve the design of the checkout. Avoid additional costs (‘surprises’), show that you are reliable (e.g., by offering our Trustmark and consumer reviews), and use different payment options. When the checkout is as simple, clear, and transparent as possible, you prevent consumers from leaving your shop without paying.
Autofill data, for example, based on the postcode + house number. This can be done via the postcode.nl API.
Tip 6: Send Abandoned Cart Email
Make use of the so-called “abandoned cart email. But what are the clever moments of sending such mail?
– Half an hour after the cart has been abandoned. At this time, you can send a customer service email asking whether everything went well and if there are any questions. This mail is opened by more than half of the customers.
– The second mail possibility is after 23 hours. In this mail, you describe why you are correct in that your online store should carry out the order. This mail is opened by an average of 40% of the customers.
– A week later, you can send an email with a clear call to action and a warning that, otherwise, the items will be removed from the cart. This mail is opened by an average of 28% of the customers. Could you leave it in this mail? Otherwise, you will be seen by customers as intrusive.
Conclusion
A well-designed online store is more than an attractive design; marketing is more than bringing in consumers to your store. Do you want to achieve good results with your shop and get a minimum abandoned shopping cart? Research why visitors leave your store and process the results in your web store. Do you find out that a particular page on your web store has a high bounce rate because of the large images the page contains? Then optimize the photos to reduce the loading time of the page. Lastly, track your competitors’ prices all the time. Because ecommerce is a competitive area when it comes to pricing products. You can lose some of your customers due to them finding a better deal in other stores. In this post, we have given you three common scenarios in which people tend to leave the shop and how to solve the problem. Do you have other tips for fellow merchants? Then let it be known by responding on this blog.
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