You have powered your copy and website for optimal conversions. Your sales funnel is immaculate and leads the customer to the ultimate goal without a single hiccup. You propose different checkout options and juicy incentives along the way. Yet your cart abandonment rate is still too high.
And you are not alone here. According to recent research, the average cart abandonment rate among ecommerce companies is a whopping 68.63%.
The question is – how do you deal with it? Instead of using one quick fix, try looking deeper into the root of the problem – why do customers leave their goodies in the first place and how you can break this vicious pattern? Here are 3 solid strategies that can help your ecommerce business:
Optimize For Mobile
Mobile commerce is close to hitting $79 billion in revenue by the end of the year and pass the $284 billion benchmark by the end of 2020. However, the overall customer experience, in this case, is far from being great.
According to another research done by BI Intelligence, the conversion rates for mobile checkout are still low due to poor optimization. Customers use various devices to access the store, yet in most cases, it’s harder to find the product details and finalize the purchase on a smaller screen.
Additionally, a lot of users prefer to browse goods on their mobile and later transfer to a laptop or tablet to finalize the purchase (or forget/ditch it)
So, how do you reduce the cart abandonment rate in this case?
- Responsive design is a must. Most visitors will leave the checkout page, which requires them to pitch and zoom.
- Simplify your mobile design – make the key buttons bigger; remove distractive form fields and consider creating a shorter checkout flow.
- Break checkout page into multiple steps e.g. billing, shipping, and confirmation.
- Offer auto-detect, auto-fill support to make filling forms faster and simpler.
Jiri Maly, Head of International Marketing at Alza also suggests the following tip:
“If you are still optimizing your mobile experience and cannot reduce the checkout form steps, consider offering your customer the ability to save their order details and receive a summary email to finalize the payment via desktop. This option should come as an alternative to creating an account, which isn’t often great from mobile either, and has proved to reduce the abandonment rate in our case.”
Facilitate Future/Delayed Purchases
Again, taking into account that most people just browse not actually shop from their portable devices, think about the ways of how you can retain them for future purchases. Emailing order summary is just one trick to try.
Here’s another one – offer a “wish list/save for later” feature.
A user should be able to add an item to their list without being requested to create an account or login – that could be done later via a desktop device. A “wish list” gives you a second chance to capture a sale, which the customer decided to postpone for some reasons.
Make one step further and blend in the urgency component:
- Allow saving items for a limited time e.g. 30-60 days.
- Follow up via email when a saved item is low in stock.
- Follow up once or twice via email to remind about the saved items.
Don’t Forget About Those Reminders
Your game isn’t lost yet if the customer placed some goodies in their cart, yet left without checking out. Email reminder campaigns are an excellent way to reinforce the deal in this case.
Here are some essential tips for creating efficient email reminder copies:
- Don’t follow-up the same day. Give them at least 1-3 days to think about it.
- Create a catchy email subject line, which clearly states that there are some goods left in their cart.
- Include attractive bright visuals of their goods.
- Keep the copy customer-centric and friendly. You can blend in the sense of urgency/scarcity to mention that the goods are almost gone.
- Include a prominent Call to Action linked directly to the shopping cart.
- Mention the exact time and date when their deal will expire.
Additionally, you may want to chase them up with a special, time-sensitive discount for their purchase or another perk like free shipping or coupon code for the next purchase. However, be careful here and don’t undermine the value of your goods and your store image. Don’t shell out too many discounts and keep this strategy just for the first-time buyers only.