Proven Tactics to Avoiding Shopping Cart Abandonment

You may not realize it, but you probably do it all the time when you’re shopping, especially online. In a brick-and-mortar store, you are less likely to leave without buying what you came for because you went through considerable trouble to go there in the first place.

When you shop online, there’s very little effort involved in anything you do, including abandoning your cart. Simply close the tab, and that’s it. When you’re on the other side of the cart, however, it means that all that effort and time you spent to get them to that point is flushed down the drain.

Some Shocking Statistics

The fact is shopping cart abandonment is the most difficult roadblock for online retailers to get past. According to the digital marketing platform Listrak, an average of 81% of shopping carts are abandoned. Others report the number as 73% for desktop users, on tablet 80%, and 85% on mobile.

This article reports that 68% of all eCommerce sales were via a mobile device, which means that the percentage would be even higher if more mobile users actually went all the way to checkout.

Think about those numbers for a second. At best, it means that for almost every seven people out of ten that shop on your online store do not go through with the purchase. It’s enough to make you weep, isn’t it?

Of course, that is the average, which means there are retailers that get much better results than others do, and your goal is to be on the winning team. To do that, you should learn from the mistakes of others before you also become part of a sad statistic.

These proven tactics can help you avoid shopping cart abandonment on your eCommerce site as much as possible,

Use Familiar Trust Signals in Your Transaction Form

Remember that song “Trust In Me” from the Jungle Book, where the treacherous python Kaa tries to lure Mowgli into his coils? That is essentially what you are doing with a transaction form without familiar trust signals. You’re telling your buyers to trust you blindly with sensitive personal and financial information.

That’s fine if they do, but unfortunately for you, 61% of shoppers say they will abandon their cart because there were no security logos, and 75% will do the same because they didn’t recognize the trust signal you put on your trust form. Surrender to the inevitable; place a recognizable security logo on your transaction form.

Be Upfront About Added Costs

Your promotion or sales pitch was successful, and you get your shoppers to click on the ‘Buy Now’ button. Lo and behold, you hit them with shipping costs and other fees, and they abandon the cart. A whopping 44% will not go through with a purchase when they perceive the shipping and handling costs to be too high.

More importantly, unexpected shipping costs at checkout is the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment. Shoppers don’t like nasty surprises.

If you can’t afford free shipping, then at least be upfront about it. Let your customers know how much they should expect to pay before they add the item to the cart. If they add it to the cart anyway, they are less likely to abandon it.

Go for Free Shipping

According to a report from UPS, 38% of shoppers state that they have purchased from a site because of a shipping offer, and 39% are willing to purchase enough to qualify for free shipping.

It is obvious that going for free shipping for your eCommerce site is a great way to get people to go complete the checkout process, so it is worth considering.

If you will incur considerable costs to offer free shipping, crunch the numbers so that your customers will buy enough to make it worth your while. It works for Amazon, why not you?

Have a Retargeting Strategy

While your goal is to have 0% shopping cart abandonment, that just isn’t going to happen. There will always be people that will abandon their carts even if you do everything right.

The good news is about 72% of people that abandon their carts have some intention of coming back. Your best reaction is to retarget those customers by sending them an email reminding them that they haven’t completed their purchase and maybe offering them a freebie or other incentive.

Have a Cart Icon Visible at All Times

Sometimes, people abandon their carts because they were distracted by a burning smell in the kitchen or they had to go to a meeting.

It is important to remind them about it the next time they visit your site by having a cart icon clearly visible that displays the number of unbought items, or they’ll simply forget.

Make It Easy for Them to Buy More

Shopping navigation has to be a seamless experience to encourage people to buy more. If they click on a product, which brings them to the cart, you should have buttons on that window that allows them to “Continue Shopping” or “Proceed to Checkout.”

If you make it hard for them to get back to the product pages, you might frustrate them, leading to just the one purchase, or worse, cart abandonment.

Offer Several Payment Options

Online shopping is convenient in many ways, but it has its downside. One of them is the availability of the preferred payment method. Some people prefer PayPal or similar, others want to pay with a credit card, while still others prefer mobile payment systems like Apple Pay.

If you don’t offer the payment option they want, they will go elsewhere. Sure, it’s a hassle, but you want their money, so make an effort to give them what they want. Have as many payment options as you can manage to capture more sales.

Accommodate Guests

Registering an account to buy a $2 item is a pain, and most people simply won’t bother. Don’t force your buyers to create an account to buy. You can make account creation optional, so it is easy for them to make a purchase anonymously through a guest checkout.

Maybe later on, when they are regular customers, they won’t mind doing so, especially if you offer them an incentive to do so, such as a discount code for their next purchase.

Streamline the Checkout Process

If you are playing an online game, going through several stages to get to the Big Boss is a good idea. Not so much when you’re trying to sell something. For that, you want the checkout process to be ridiculously fast and effortless.

Reduce the number of pages your customer has to go through to get to the checkout to as few as possible. Remember that each click they have to make increases the chances of abandonment, so keep the count low.

Activate Exit Pop-up Reminders

You’ve probably seen these several times when you’re about to leave a site. A window pops up that asks you if you’re sure you want to leave the page.

On eCommerce sites, these pop-up windows usually come with some incentive for you to keep on browsing, such as a reminder that you still have items in your cart or a discount offer for concluding the purchase. It is very effective, and easy to implement

Offer Them Their Money Back

Finally, convince the fence-sitters to take the plunge by offering them a no-questions-asked money back guarantee. It reassures the customer that if they change their mind later on, or they’re not satisfied with the product or service, they don’t risk anything by giving it a try now.

It also makes them trust your site more, because you stand by your product or service.

Don’t be under any illusions; you will still have some cart abandonment on your site. However, if you follow the foregoing suggestions, you reduce the risk considerably. Any decrease in your cart abandonment is well worth the effort in the long run.