Every online store faces one major problem with their web store – shopping cart abandonment. You must be thinking, whether you followed the right steps or, was the idea of owning a web-store a rewarding prospect or an overhyped statement?
Well, the answer is, you are neither taken a wrong decision nor have you taken any wrong steps. It’s just, you need to take some extra effort to stop the abandoned shopping cart problem. So read on and find out how to win back abandoned shopping carts.
What is Abandoned Shopping Cart Problem?
When a user visits your web store, he might or might not purchase any product. But there are cases when the user selects the products he wants to buy and puts them in the shopping cart but doesn’t complete the transaction.Thus, the product stays in the shopping cart of your web store while the user leaves your website. This is known as shopping cart abandonment and such amounts to a loss in revenue of $31 billion annually worldwide. Being said that, you still can somewhat check this menace if you find out the reason why visitors abandon carts in the first place.
- Inclusion of unexpected cost – A toy costs $20 on your web store, but after putting it in the cart another $10 are added to it, for the shipping, packaging charges or any other surcharge levied on the product. This sudden and unexpected increase in the product cost demoralizes the users and is thus considered the prime reason behind cart abandonment.
- Casual browsing – It is a general tendency of all online shoppers to browse through the complete web-store before purchasing any product. And this practice leads to the accumulation of a number of unclaimed products in the shopping cart. It is said that around 80% of online merchants feel that it is a waste of their time, but the fact is, 75% of these abandoners do have a strong intention to buy.
- Comparing expensive items – Shoppers always want the best price. Thus, they often compare the products available at your web store with other stores as well and finally opt for the one with the best prices. So they leave their selected items in the carts itself.
Different Ways to Recover the Abandoned Shopping Carts
- Emphasizing the perks – One of the best ways of attracting the customers is to highlight the key features of your website and throw the limelight on the key aspects. For example, those products for which the option of free shipping is available, can advertise and highlight certain perks like, “Free shipping”, “Live support”, e.t.c.
- Loyalty program to cart abandoners – Let’s assume that your web-store provided an additional 5% discount and free shipping for your first purchase. Can you guess what impact would it have? Well, we can’t guess this action’s response from the financial standpoint, but from the publicity standpoint, it would definitely make a lot of heads to turn. So by providing such loyalty programs, you can increase shopper annual visit by at least 20%.
- Retargeting and call tracking – Once a few customers of yours have abandoned their cart, it’s time to remind them of their action and what products they abandoned. By display add retargeting you can display the relevant ads on the screen of customers, especially for the products they abandoned. By combining call tracking, retargeting and click-to-call advertising, you can improve sales by 23%.
Recovery Emails Are They Effective?
According to a popular survey, cart abandoners will spend 55% more when they return to your web-store. In this way, cart abandonment can be used to your benefit. But to ensure that they do revisit your website, you need to take the most effective and widely used method of them all.
The best way of ensuring that abandoned shoppers do visit your website is to send the recovery emails. By taking the help of recovery email, you can not only notify them of the cart they have abandoned but also highlight the perks of buying the commodities from your web-store. You can highlight the special discounts and offers the customer could avail if he does actually purchase the products from your store. Such reminders are used by over 30% of web-stores as it increases the probability of a customer’s revisit.
How to Write Effective Recovery Email.
While writing a recovery mail you need to ensure that the content is to the point, customer specific and never abusive. Apart from such style of writing, the recovery mail should also focus on the following areas:
- Timing – The time when the recovery mail is sent is extremely important. You should make sure that you send the first recovery mail within 24 hours.
- Images – You should always incorporate images of abandoned shopping cart items in the mail. This will provide intimation to the users about the products and items they have left behind in the cart.
- Phone number – It is necessary to provide a contact number to your users so that they can contact you in case they face any problem. Such moves instill faith in your service and instantly sets you apart from other web-stores.
- Reminders – While sending recovery emails, never forget to mention perks of your web-store and the discounts that are currently available. Including such information increases the users’ call for action.
