Businesses are all about facing issues and overcoming them through finding efficient and effective strategies. Some e-commerce store owners struggle to achieve their conversion rates for online businesses.
And one of the reasons you are not getting the conversion rate you want is because your abandoned cart rate is high.
Shopping cart abandonment is typical in e-commerce sites, but it can be reduced with cart recovery strategies using email marketing campaigns.
Let’s learn the most common reasons for shopping cart abandonment and how to optimize your marketing strategy to reduce shopping cart abandonment in this blog.
What is Shopping Cart Abandonment?
“Shopping cart abandonment” is defined as accessing an e-commerce store to purchase products, picking the required items and putting them in the cart, then leaving the site without making a purchase. This is the primary issue that every online business in the e-commerce market deals with today.
Email Marketing is a great weapon that reduces cart abandonment. Doing a thorough analysis of the causes of the problem and adopting the appropriate strategic email sequence helps maximize Return On Investment.
How to Calculate Shopping Cart Abandonment?
The shopping cart abandonment rate in your e-commerce store can be calculated by dividing the number of completed purchases by the number of shopping carts created by customers. Then subtract this value from one and multiply by 100 to find an exact percentage of cart abandonment.
What are the Causes of Shopping Cart Abandonment?
Understanding the reasons for abandoning the shopping cart and ways to address these issues is one of the most important parts of an e-commerce business.
People who want to make a purchase online usually add items to their shopping cart and go through check-out. But what happens when they get to the point, face some discomfort and walk away. Let’s see some problems people face and their solutions below.
Problem 1: Unexceptional shipping charges
When a customer adds an item to their cart, they are shocked by additional expenses, which causes them to reconsider their purchase. Some buyers will even add goods to their cart simply to see how much their order would cost. They are less likely to continue once they notice the additional expenses.
Pro-tip:
Provide clients with a complete breakdown of expenses, including any shipping costs, applicable taxes, and any additional fees they should expect. By asking the buyer for their zip code on the product detail page, these details may be shown. Customers are more likely to complete a transaction if they are less shocked after adding an item.
Problem 2. Need of account creation before purchasing
It’s never a good idea to make customers establish an account or register to add things to a virtual shopping cart. It adds a step to the purchasing cycle, which will turn off some shoppers.
Pro-tip:
Allow guests to check out without having to create an account. Do it after the consumer has completed the transaction whether you wish to gather emails and other contact information for remarketing reasons. Ask the customers whether they want to get email updates about their purchase and other special offers or something similar on the confirmation.
Problem 3. Convenient delivery options
The e-commerce experience is incomplete without delivery. Customers demand convenient shipping alternatives as well as on-time delivery.
Pro-tip:
Allow buyers to choose from a range of delivery alternatives and personalize shipment information. Allow customers to choose delivery schedules to achieve their desired experience.
Problem 4. Return policy is insufficient
After adding things to their cart, customers check for information about those items’ return policy and warranty. If the return policy is poor, customers will leave and look for a better site to buy products. Customers may not return to the site if they find a better return policy elsewhere.
Pro-tip:
To assist clients, provide a strong return policy and a clear customer service system. Link to the return policy early in the process so that customers are confident in their decision to buy.
Problem 5. Payment options are limited
Customers who shop online want to pay using their preferred manner. Customers are more likely to leave if fewer choices are accessible to them. Customers might go away from the site if they don’t see their required payment method.
Pro-tip:
Provide your consumers with as many payment alternatives as possible. Focus on the most common payment methods first, then expand as needed. Offer MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal as a starting point, then extend to additional specialized payment methods as needed.
Problem 6. Prices are shown in a foreign currency
Pricing is frequently shown based on your e-commerce store’s main line of business. Many e-commerce shops, on the other hand, offer a considerably larger marketplace and may even operate overseas. Customers will likely seek another business if they cannot locate pricing in their local currency.
Pro-tip:
Use a plugin that allows multi-currency transactions based on the customer’s location. The IP address of the consumer can be used to establish their location. Give them the ability to choose another currency as well.
Problem 7. Challenges with the website’s performance
Customers would want a better user experience due to major performance issues, such as crashes and failures. Minor performance issues are less likely to drive consumers away, but they will still influence their experience and should be avoided.
Pro-tip:
Measure load times, downtime, and responsiveness while testing and analyzing the performance of your shopping basket and checkout. Identify errors and weak points in your shopping cart’s performance for customers as needed.
Problem 8. Checkout is tough or time-consuming
One of the most common reasons customers skip a payment is because the checkout procedure is long and complicated. Every additional step and form field makes it more difficult for the user to complete payment. Customers expect a simple, convenient process, so any additional steps distract attention from the user experience.
Pro-tip:
To make the checkout process more efficient and easy, eliminate stages, reduce data entry, and improve the checkout process. Set up an auto-save feature for when consumers abandon their shopping cart while things are still in it, as well as auto-fill forms where possible.
Problem 9. Failure to estimate entire expenditures in advance
For online customers, price is a big consideration. When customers shop, they are not provided with all pricing information, including taxes and delivery fees. Many shoppers add goods to their carts to figure out how much their order would cost in total.
Pro-tip:
Before products are added to a shopping cart, provide customers with all pricing information. Customers are more inclined to continue if they know the total price before they get into billing.
Problem 10. Website is not mobile-friendly
Most clients are dissatisfied with e-commerce shops that have poor mobile designs. More than half of all e-commerce sales are happening on mobile devices.
Pro-tip:
Make your e-commerce store’s mobile design a top priority. Create a responsive design that works on both mobile and desktop devices. Ensure that your shopping cart and checkout designs are consistent across all device types so that consumers have a consistent purchase experience.
How to Reduce Cart Abandonment with Email Marketing?
When you think to resolve the customer loss, e-commerce marketers used to go for retargeting ads. But they have forgotten the best strategy of applying email campaigns to their customers that brings more return of investment than spending money on ads.
Though retargeting ads are effective, email marketing plays a major role in the e-commerce industry. It is proved that emails are personal and customizable to every set of customers than conversion-based. It is also found that it has a high CTR and open rate. So, here you can learn the best strategies of email marketing a business can use when facing the loss of potential customers.
1. Attractive subject line
The subject line is an essential criterion for a high opening rate for recovery emails. Based on the subject line, people get the curiosity to take action. Crafting a subject line should be unique and impressive. Over 35% of the email’s open rate is based on a unique subject line.
A well-written subject line may pique the interest of even the most disinterested clients. Your recipients should remind what they left behind when they read your subject lines. You can trigger customers using words that define urgency, scarcity, or emotions like worry to persuade uncertain customers. Some eye-catchy subject lines are:
- When you finish your order, you’ll save [Percentage].
- Today is the last day to get free shipping on [Product].
- The good news is that your pricing has lowered!
- Here‘s your one-time 20% discount code.
Always keep your subject line short. You should use a maximum of 5 to 7 words because more than half the ratio of the opening rate of emails is happening on mobile devices. So it is better to use mobile-optimized subject lines.
2. Device responsive templates
People will use all types of devices such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets. So, it is mandatory to build a responsive design for every device.
Device-optimized email template designs create a good impression on the brand and complete the purchase when people are comfortable.
Device responsive emails are the key factor that give customers a user-friendly experience while shopping online.
3. Triggering CTA and Copy
A call to action button is a link that will direct the customer to see the abandoned products waiting in the shopping cart. So, the CTA should not be the usual “buy now,” “shop now” kind of terms. It is advisable to use more persuasive words like
- “Your products are waiting.”
- “Grab your deal.”
- “Don’t miss it.”
- “Avail soon.”
The CTA must be simple and persuasive in a way the customer feels to click the button to see the products in the cart.
Use a casual tone in your writing, just like you did with your CTA. The last thing you want to do is arrive inside a potential customer’s email with a soft copy that reminds the user of their abandoned cart.
Every piece of marketing material, including cart abandonment emails, should reflect your personality. Recover sales by standing out in a crowded inbox.
4. Sending an email sequence
Sending a sequence of three emails helps to achieve the goal of purchasing. It is possible people may miss the emails in the sea of emails. Ensure to send only three emails in the proper interval of time.
The retailers should send a sequence of three emails at specific intervals. The first email might be sent within an hour, which could be a polite reminder that a consumer has left something in their cart.
If the first email fails to persuade clients to finish the transaction, a second email to create urgency might be sent. A third and final email might be sent to those customers who still haven’t converted to convince them to finish their purchase.
5. Make use of testimonials and social evidence.
People nowadays are known to seek reviews of any product on the internet, influenced by the opinions of other users, and deciding whether to buy or not to buy the products.
So, it is good to go with a list of the most outstanding reviews and include them in your abandoned cart email. If you don’t have any reviews, ask for reviews from your regular customers for them.
Show the doubters how excellent the product is and how delighted the customers were by providing testimonials. People are readily persuaded by user reviews, which develop trust and encourage them to purchase the products.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Solutions
Though you have learned many email marketing strategies above to recover the issue, I understand what is running in your mind. Now you may think about how the emails can be designed and send customized emails to all the customers differently at the appropriate time in an effective way.
Various email marketing tools are available in the market to provide shopping cart abandonment solutions. In that, I have analyzed and chosen the best email marketing tool one can opt to do each and every email marketing activity, from designed templates to automation in a single platform. That tool is called “BayEngage.”
BayEngage is an email marketing automation tool that helps in all ways to support email marketing activities a business needs. It is designed with great features that are listed below.
- BayEngage provides over 250 pre-built templates for users that can be customized with easy drag and drop widgets to deliver great emails to customers.
- You may send different emails based on the segment categories and upload many email recipients.
- It contains a coupon feature that allows you to make any form of offer for your consumers.
- It comes with a pre-built registration form that you can use as pop-ups while integrating with your website, and it can be simply customized to capture more email addresses from your clients.
- You may import any picture file from your PC into the media library and even search the internet for photographs. It also provides millions of stock photographs, which you can browse for and use for free.
- It offers an automated function that allows you to simply schedule emails using the workflow option at any moment to save time, which works for you even when you sleep. This automation is mainly used to recover cart abandonment and enhance sales with a higher Return On Investment.
All of these capabilities are simply accessible, and you can test them out with a 14-day free trial option that does not require a credit card. It’s a very remarkable tool that works wonders for all of your email marketing requirements.
Bottom Line
Shopping cart abandonment has a massive impact on your checkout process, affecting the conversion rate of your e-commerce shop. Take all of the problems and solutions listed above and use the ideas to design a fantastic email sequence that will improve conversions.
Sign in with BayEngage, “a true cart abandonment protector” for your business, to get the best results in recovering cart abandonment. It improves the performance of your email sequence and encourages doubters to purchase items, resulting in higher conversion rates.
