The True Story of an Abandoned Shopping Cart

Imagine you run a physical store that sells lawn and garden supplies. You see 200 customers per day, and all 200 of them fill a shopping cart with items from your store shelves. They line up like the loyal patrons they are and wait their turn in the checkout area.

Then, this happens: Throughout the course of the day, 154 of the 200 shoppers simply push their loaded shopping carts aside and walk out the front door. This leaves you to wonder what caused them to abandon the items they carefully selected and placed in their shopping cart?

The answer? A whole host of challenges and concerns that affect customers and retailers across virtually all industries and platforms. According to a Barilliance, 77% of online shopping carts are abandoned before a customer has an opportunity to complete the order. The rate rises to a staggering 85.6% when an e-commerce site is accessed via a mobile device.

Knowing this is a big concern today, how can retailers reduce shopping cart abandonment and boost conversion rates among their customers?

Show Total Costs Up Front

Reports indicate the number one reason shopping cart abandonment before paying is due to surprise shipping costs that inflate the total out-the-door cost. Companies can create a dynamic shipping amount that instantly varies depending on the items in the cart. Better yet, consider a sitewide free shipping mentality.

Create Exit-Intent Popups

If you’ve never witnessed the power of a pop-up like one that shouts “We see you’re leaving items in your cart, how’d you like an extra 10% off for purchasing now?” – you have no idea how these marketing tools can help your bottom line and maximize conversion ratios. An extra discount may be just what the shopper needs to counteract a competitor’s online offer, too.

Simplify for Customers

Know what people hate doing? Loading items into a cart, getting ready to pay, and then, having to manually enter all kinds of information. What makes it worse is being forced to register on a site in order to purchase items. Online retailers can create a checkbox that enables guest checkouts without having to create a profile or memorize new passwords. The goal is to expedite the checkout process as much as possible.

Enable Save Cart Features

Since online shoppers tend to be comparison shoppers by nature, make it easy for your visitors to place items into their cart. Allow these products to remain in their digital shopping cart even if they’re bouncing back and forth among numerous sites. Shopify lets retailers email clients about their shopping cart abandonment, while other e-commerce platforms create a unique link that allows users to retrieve their cart at a later date.

Motivate By Scarcity

An Amazon retailer may show decreased abandonment rates by listing “Hurry! Only 8 left at this price!”. By allowing customers to see real-time inventory levels for certain products, they may be more likely to complete the order and avert the risk of an out-of-stock situation. Flash sales, countdown clocks, and time-sensitive special deals can work as cart abandonment solutions by motivating shoppers to complete the sale.

Optimize for Mobile

As mentioned before, mobile shopping cart abandonment rates are incredibly high, and part of this issue correlates with the less-than-optimal focus companies have placed on making their websites mobile friendly. If a site is hard to navigate, especially during the checkout phase, customers may simply walk.

Since shipping costs are the top shopping cart abandonment reason and more mobile customers walk away from potential purchases than those who search on traditional computers, it makes sense to work with your preferred digital marketing team on these two issues first.

Run the numbers and ask yourself – will I benefit from offering site-wide free shipping? Can I easily optimize my site for mobile or create exit-intent popups to capture those who are about to leave? These e-commerce strategies can help you minimize the pervasive issue of shopping cart abandonment.