Is Shopping Cart Abandonment retarding your E-Commerce Business?
Last week, as I walked towards the Subway on my way back home, my eyes were fixated on a lemon yellow blazer displayed at the Ann Taylor store near Madison Avenue, NYC. Little skeptical about indulging in in-store shopping experience, I immediately opened their website and searched for the product on my iPhone. I am not a frequent shopper at this brand, so didn’t have an existing account with them. However, their website didn’t disappoint me! It offered an overall smooth checkout experience. On adding the product to my cart, I had the choice to checkout as a guest which really impressed me. Further, the checkout page loaded real quick and I had access to available coupons at this point, which simply doubled my shopping delight!!! At this point when I was about to complete the purchase, I noticed that I didn’t have the choice to pay using Apple Pay. Though their website offers other payment methods, it simply didn’t work for me!
While this is just my story about how an amazing online shopping experience couldn’t convert into a purchase, the issue of digital cart abandonment can be really big in the era when online shopping is growing so fast that the global online shopping market size is projected to grow to 6.54 trillion US dollars in 2022.
As of a recently surveyed period (2006–2019), 69.57% of digital shopping carts and baskets were abandoned and the purchase was not completed.
To better understand how e-commerce businesses can reduce cart abandonment, let us first look at the study conducted by Nielsen on the primary reasons for digital cart abandonment worldwide as of January 2019.
This data tells us that money remains the main motivator for cart abandonment. 41% of shoppers had abandoned a digital shopping cart when the cost of delivery turned out to be higher than anticipated. However, elements like speedy delivery times, multiple payment options, and a hassle-free purchasing process are all elements that customers look for in an online shopping experience.
So, How can your business combat abandoned carts?
- Optimize Mobile Experiences
Mobile has the highest cart abandonment rate at 85.6% compared to Tablet (80.74%) and Desktop (73.07%). Looking at the trend, we can say that the smaller the size of the screen, the more likely a customer is to not purchase. Clearly, many e-commerce sites are still not optimized for mobile. Lack of responsive design, slow load times, longer checkout processes are some of the key pain points which must be addressed. Try to offer shoppers a smooth, faster, intuitive mobile shopping experience.
2. Offer Free shipping/ Express Shipping options
Since high delivery costs remaining the #1 reason for cart abandonment, one way to get around this pain point is by offering free shipping to customers. In most likelihood, the potential gain from converting these new shoppers will be higher than the costs associated with shipping.
Also, often customers will shop online for a good that they need for a certain event with a strict deadline. If you’re not able to get that good to them by that event, then there’s really no point in them making the purchase at all. Since 26% of shoppers abandon their carts because the estimated delivery time is long, you should seriously consider offering multiple express delivery options for your customers.
3. Integrate Multiple Payment Options
Though only 20% responders cited unavailability of preferred payment methods as the reason for not completing the purchase, catering to your customers’ payment preferences can mean more fulfilled purchases. Just like my personal experience shared earlier in this blog, I would have completed the purchase if the site offered Apple Pay payment.
Also, if a customer is able to pay in interest-free installments, for example, using Klarna., the costs associated with shipping, or tax might not bother them.
4. Ease the Return Policy
One of the top reasons that may drive potential customers to other websites is a painful Return Policy. As more and more people choose to shop online, offering easy, flexible returns options can do wonders for your business. However, you might consider doing a cost-benefit analysis weighing the potential costs with the potential revenues of adjusting your return policy to improve cart abandonment rates.
5. Offer Guest Checkout
Another very important element at tackling the abandoned carts is to allow Guest Checkout to your online customers. Instead of forcing the shopper to create an account and provide personal information at the checkout, give them time and option to create one post-purchase. Allowing them to complete the purchase simply by entering their email address can drastically reduce time and effort for the customers. This might be very helpful for customers shopping via mobile devices.
6. Re-Market to bring back Shoppers
Remarketing is an ideal way of reaching out to customers who were very close to making an online purchase with your brand. This works by simply keeping your product at the top of the customer’s mind as he/she browses other sites. One way to do it is by sending automated messages to the customers reminding them about the item in the cart. You can also remarket the customers on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook. Also, offering special discounts or coupons at re-marketing efforts can increase abandoned cart recoveries significantly.
7. Build Trust at Checkout
While shopping online might feel like the new normal and we all love the convenience associated with it, we might be reluctant to shop at a website that isn’t familiar to us. In other words, we associate trust with the brands and their websites that decide to shop at. As a customer, we want to be sure that our card and shipping details are safe with the e-commerce brand.
Therefore, it is very important for brands to improve their brand visibility and reputation. You need to make sure your site design and overall branding are welcoming to customers. This can be also be achieved by adding genuine customer testimonials, or adding trust logos on the checkout page of your site. Some of the popular trust logos are Google Trusted Store, PayPal, Norton and SSL Secure Connection
