Cart Abandonment: The Age-Old Problem of Digital Entrepreneurs

Picture this: you’re checking your total sales today, and you’ve thought of clicking on the “Abandoned Checkouts.” Now, you may be surprised at the high number of shoppers who chose not to buy your products.

Most of the time, the problem isn’t with your products—it’s an issue with your website.

Cart abandonment is such a common problem that over 75% of shoppers abandon their carts online. So it isn’t you. It’s most likely the system.

Of course, it’s impossible to get rid of this issue altogether. There’s always that someone who would change their mind at the last minute. But there is a way to reduce that dismal rate significantly.

Before we check out (pun intended) how you can reduce your cart abandonment rates, let’s take a look at where the problem lies exactly.

Why Do Shoppers Abandon Their Carts?

High extra costs - Surprising shoppers with high taxes and shipping fees = them losing interest in paying extra just to get your products.

Complex checkout - Do they need to create an account just to buy your products? Is the checkout process too lengthy? Your customers might find that to be a waste of their time.

Lack of trust - As technology becomes more readily accessible to people, scammers grow in numbers. You can’t blame customers if they aren’t comfortable entering their credit card info on your checkout page.

Slow website - It happens to the best of us. Websites are prone to lagging, crashing, glitching, and other technical issues. And, needless to say, such a cumbersome user experience can turn shoppers off.

Insufficient payment options - Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Would you pay for products when you can’t use your credit card or Paypal account to do so?

What Can You Do About It?

Apart from the above mentioned, there are various reasons why customers abandon their online shopping carts. There are also tons of ways to solve this problem. See what many Shopify store owners are doing for the fight against cart abandonment:

1. Email and SMS Remarketing

Remind customers of their abandoned carts through effective marketing channels, i.e. text messaging and email. Whether they’ve just forgotten about their carts or not, remarketing through email and SMS is the most powerful way to recapture their attention and create a sense of urgency.

To make your remarketing campaign more powerful, send them three emails about their abandoned carts—24 hours after abandonment, two or three days after, and the following week. Or better yet, offer them a discount code or other incentives to make their carts a lot more tempting to return to.

2. Retargeting Ads

Another way to remind shoppers of something they already want is to invest in retargeting ads. Hit them where they’re at: social media.

Again, including special offers and incentives in your retargeting ads can entice shoppers to go back to their carts.

3. Streamlining the Checkout Process

You might think that building your email list through the first step of the checkout process is a great way to make effective advertising campaigns. But don’t let your customers’ checkout experience suffer from that.

Make your store’s account creation optional for customers and let them use a guest account instead. Trust me, they’ll love the checkout process.

And if you’re using Shopify as your platform, you can choose to install a Shopify plugin that allows customers to enter discount fields on the cart summary and see their savings (and even the shipping fee costs) right away.

That way, the costs become more transparent to customers, and finishing the checkout process becomes more appealing.

4. Social Proof

How to convince your customers that your store’s trustworthy? Easy. Place verified reviews on your pages.

Over 60% of shoppers read reviews before they make a purchase, and when reviews come with trust badges, chances are they’ll feel more confident purchasing from you.

5. Payment Options

Choose the most popular payment methods and make them available to shoppers. The more flexible your payment options are, the more comfortable your customers are with making their purchases.

6. Store-Wide Optimization

Is website speed an issue? Are your product photos low-res? Does your copy sound plain awful? There’s no time as good as now to optimize your website.

The bottom line is: improving your customer experience can lead to higher conversions and lower cart abandonment.

Summary

Reducing cart abandonment rates is something that most (if not all) online store owners have to face now and then. It all boils down to pointing out where the problem lies and trying out the tips above to see which works best for your store.