Shopping cart abandonment is not just about losing sales; it is also about burning up more of your marketing budget to acquire new customers and keep the show going on.
However, ecommerce brands cannot always go out and capture new customers whenever they feel like — this is where recovering abandoned digital carts and retaining top customers becomes critical.
The average shopping cart abandonment rate stands at more than 69% for all ecommerce niches. This means that almost 7 out of 10 customers will leave without purchasing from a brand. And, these potentially lost sales amount to $4 trillion cumulatively. Thinking about recovering a hearty piece of that lost sales pie? We’ve got you covered!
Here are 10 tips to help your ecommerce business reduce shopping cart abandonment and recover up to 60% of the lost sales.
1. Leverage WhatsApp for Cart Recovery
Many ecommerce brands don’t realize it, but WhatsApp is a critical communication channel to engage customers personally in real-time. With over 1.5 billion users across the globe, it is highly likely that a major chunk of your customers uses this popular messaging app. Brands can send personalized offers, order updates, and cart-recovery nudge messages to push more sales.
But how?
Recovering abandoned carts is fairly easy now, to be honest, with AI-based marketing automation tools.
For instance, with Wigzo’s WhatsApp cart recovery capability, automated cart recovery messages can be sent to the customers who added products to their carts but left without purchasing them.
They receive a custom personalized message with a link. Upon clicking the link, the customer is taken straight to the checkout page with their original products and pricing still intact in the digital cart.
This powerful feature has helped numerous ecommerce brands recover more than 60% lost sales in this manner.
2. Harness the Power of SMS
Think beyond just an internet connection to engage your customers. SMS is still relevant to a large and young population – and for all the good reasons. It is a proven channel to acquire new customers at scale, send personalized offers, recover abandoned shopping carts, and boost sales.
- SMSes have an open rate of more than 96%
- Users can be engaged offline
- Their text-only structure is simple and non-complicated
This is the reason why the trend of recovering abandoned digital carts via SMS is catching up with -commerce players, e.g. SMS automation technology allows customers to recover their abandoned shopping carts with a single click included in the SMS.
3. Ensure a Trustful Checkout Experience
As the digital landscape continues to expand its global footprint, consumers are becoming more aware of online security and the protection of their personal interests. Now, ecommerce brands must adapt to this level of consumer scrutiny.
Your customers might be abandoning shopping carts because of the lack of transactional trust and online security. To provide them with a secure and reliable checkout experience, ensure;
- Trustworthy security labels during checkout – payment gateways, antivirus safety labels, SSL certificate, etc.
- Display transactional steps transparently
- Use product thumbnails at every step of the checkout
Implement the above pointers to see increased conversions!
4. Allow Multiple Payment Options
Seriously, don’t limit your sales because you don’t accept a particular payment method. This is the digital era and everyone uses at least two or more types of payments methods including credit/debit cards, Paypal, UPI, Netbanking, Digi Wallets, and even cryptocurrency.
Make sure you embed all the major online payment methods to maximize captured sales.
5. Simplify Cart-Homepage Navigation
It can be incredibly frustrating for your users to navigate to the e-store’s homepage without saving current cart products. The navigation between their cart page and main e-store pages must be seamless – with a cart autosave option.
6. Include Guest Checkout
Some of your customers expect a simple ‘fill the cart up and pay’ approach without wanting to exchange their personal information. This might be for privacy reasons or simply to avoid too many promotional offers. If you don’t allow the guest-checkout option yet, think again – you might be able to recover 14% more sales.
7. Transparent Refund/Returns Policy
Whatever your refund/return policy is, include it clearly in the product descriptions as well as the checkout page. This establishes strong trust among the users who are uncertain about their purchase and do not want to tie-in their money over something that cannot be returned. This will reduce cart abandonment as well.
8. Hidden Pricing Equals Bad Practice
During the checkout, if suddenly a shipping cost pops-up, or a ‘service fee’ comes up, the customer will probably drop the purchase. To avoid cart abandonment because of final pricing expectations, ensure that it is fully transparent and everything is mentioned including shipping, taxes, etc. so that the customers always know what they will finally pay.
9. Make Your Pages Faster
Slow loading pages are a big turn-off for prospect buyers, especially if they are going for an impulse purchase. If your checkout process is slow, the cart abandonment rate will go up. To mitigate this loss, optimize all your web pages and make your purchase process effortless and lightning fast.
10. ‘Bribe’ Your Way to Recover Abandoned Carts
And by ‘bribing’ we mean last-minute ‘discounts’ based on the cart value. Your customers might have added multiple products as a result of ‘window web shopping.’ If you top this cake with a cherry of a limited-time discount, it is highly likely that the customer will end-up purchasing the products.
Recovering a large chunk of potentially lost sales in the abandoned digital carts can uplift your revenue bottom line dramatically. It sounds tedious but it doesn’t have to be. Think ecommerce marketing automation and a great customer experience to revamp your online marketing and sales operations.
Happy selling!
