Do you have a problem with abandoned shopping carts on your website? Well, the Baymard institute in the UK has collated statistics on abandoned carts since 2009, and found that on average 67.9% of online carts are abandoned (the range varied between 55% to 80.3%).
That is a massive percentage of shopping carts that are abandoned before the online transaction is completed. Clearly, some consumers may return and complete the transaction of their own violation, but what can online marketers actually do to reduce these percentages?
Well, a recent survey by North American Technographics found that the three most common reasons consumers abandoned their shopping cart were:
Based on these figures, there are 3 actions that every online marketer can initiate today – to reduce abandoned shopping carts.
Present shipping costs upfront or better yet have free shipping. If a customer can buy the same or a similar product elsewhere and there are no shipping costs involved, particularly for international customers, then they will take that option.
An example is Fishpond.com.au which has free shipping vs. Amazon.com.au that does not. In many instances, the exact same book can be bought from both of these online retailers – so with which retailer do you think the book lover will complete their transaction?
If customers don’t actually abandon their carts, but intend to return at some later date, then saving the contents of their cart will make your customers life a lot easier.
A saved shopping cart means that they don’t have to go looking for items that interested them the last time they were on your website and can make completing transactions much easier.
Another tip is to send your customers an email reminding them of their abandoned cart. Not everyone will respond, but you might just be surprised at how many of your customers respond favourably to this type of email. Try Volusion’s AutoResponderMax or MailChimp’s integration for Magneto – MageMonkey. If you are tech-savvy, check out this Woocommerce plugin.
The easiest way to do this is to reduce the number of clicks between a customer locating a product and purchasing the item. One way is to give them the option of creating an account then and there or making the purchase without registering.
Many consumers are just too busy to spend the time filling in pages of information and would welcome the opportunity to bypass this stage and just complete the transaction. Also make sure that you offer a range of payment methods including PayPal – many online purchasers now prefer this payment method as they feel more secure.
For more information on reducing abandoned shopping carts or for help designing your eCommerce website, contact us on 02 8097 7957, or complete our online enquiry form.
