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Increase your sales with optimized shopping carts

Think of whatever you want to buy, and the internet will be able to provide you with it, even more so now than before the pandemic. A lot of businesses were forced to go online to keep themselves afloat, creating a huge growth spurt in e-commerce. Not only did companies have to reinvent themselves online, but many customers also had to try new ways of shopping as well and had to go online because of the global lockdown. 

Even though non-essential stores were closed in most parts of the world and more customers were forced to go online, the average global cart abandonment rose slightly in 2020. According to a study by Baymard Institute, the average global shopping cart abandonment rate has been slowly increasing over the years and was as high as 69.8% in 2020. About 7/10 customers don’t finish their purchase, resulting in a lot of lost money for companies. Let’s make a quick and easy calculation, saying you earn €10.000 each month.

If you could lower your abandonment rate by 20%, you would make an additional €2.000 a month or €24.000 a year. Furthermore, new customers not only bring additional revenue for your business at the moment of their purchase, but they also bring extra future opportunities for you as a brand. 

Let’s look at how to optimize your shopping cart and how to lower these numbers. 


Why are your customers leaving?

The main reasons why customers are abandoning their shopping carts, according to Baymard Institute, are the following:

1. The extra costs are too high for 55% of the visitors

The internet made us extremely cost-sensitive because chances are other businesses are offering a similar product at a similar price. One of the main reasons shoppers abandon their cart is when they notice that they don’t get free delivery and the shipping rate is too high. Delivery fees aren’t always clearly communicated until you actually have to pay. Solve this by communicating your pricing clearly on your shopping cart page, and don’t wait until the moment you want your customers to check out. 

Offer free delivery and display it clearly on the checkout page to keep your customers happy and get them to finish their purchase.

If free shipping isn’t cost-efficient for your business, you can easily integrate recommendations on your checkout page. A few recommendation options are specifically designed to get your audience to finish their purchase.

The first option might be the most crucial one for shopping cart abandonment. Whenever someone isn’t eligible for free shipping because they don’t have the right budget in their shopping cart, you can recommend products that have about the same price as the amount they’re missing for the free shipping. You’ll get customers to spend more this way because we’d rather buy something extra than simply pay for shipping. 

Checkout bargains are another valuable implementation of recommendations on your checkout page. These are small and inexpensive items that match your customer’s initial purchase and can easily be added to your shopper’s order. This gives you an extra opportunity to cross-sell some of your products without disturbing the customer journey and coming across as pushy. 


2. 34% of potential customers bounce because an account is required 

1 out of 3 customers bounces because they have to create an account before finishing their purchase.

Making an account is a time-consuming practice because you first have to fill in all your details. You will get a confirmation mail afterward to complete your account, and then you can finish your purchase. 

We live in a society where people don’t have much time and hate wasting their valuable time on useless things. One of these useless things that makes people bounce is the time-consuming process of creating an account to finish a purchase. 

Make sure your checkout is fast without having to complete too many details. Offer a quick checkout option, make customers continue as a guest, or use a system that remembers customer details to keep the conversion threshold as low as possible. 


3. Long checkouts make 26% of the shoppers leave

This goes hand in hand with the previously mentioned point about having to make an account before completing your purchase. I briefly mentioned offering a fast checkout without too many details. 

The problem we see on a lot of websites nowadays is that even though you might not have to create an account, you still have to complete a lengthy form before completing your purchase.

Long and detailed forms are a good way for you, as a marketer, to understand your customers and to determine demographics and other metrics. It, however, scares your visitors away at the same time and makes them exit your checkout page. As mentioned before, people don’t have a lot of time and/or patience for things like this. Ditch all the unnecessary form fields and make sure your customers complete their purchases. Once you’ve turned them into a customer, you can still retarget them later on and capture more of their information. 

Another way to eliminate the endless forms is by introducing alternative checkout options like PayPal that automatically completes the necessary shipping information.

A buy now, pay later option like Klarna might be an excellent go-to for customers that don’t have their credit card details at hand but would still like to make a purchase. 


4. 21% bounces because of hidden costs

Communicate your pricing clearly on your product pages from the first moment a shopper is browsing your website. Suppose you have a webshop that has a lot of international visitors. In that case, it might be a good thing to communicate international shipping rates and currency rates on your product page or whenever international customers add something to their shopping cart. This will eliminate the unpleasant surprise of hidden costs at the checkout and a purchase that turns out to be a lot more expensive than your customer had previously expected.

5. 17% don’t trust the website

We live in a digital society, and unfortunately, this comes with some downsides. People are in general more aware of the information they share on the internet and the possible dangers. One of these dangers is directly linked to the fear of identity theft and the hesitation some customers feel towards sharing sensitive information like credit card details and home addresses. 

Highlight customer testimonials, reviews, and warranty policies to show them you’re a legit brand, and they don’t have to fear being scammed.


Retarget abandoned carts

Even though you’ve upgraded your shopping cart, you’ll still experience people bouncing and leaving their shopping cart behind. Don’t worry yet. We’ve still got a few tricks up our sleeve to make them come back and finish their purchase. 

There are two options to retarget abandoned carts, the first one being email retargeting and the second one being social media retargeting.

Let’s take a closer look at email retargeting first. The important note to make here is that the shopper who bounced your website must somehow have left his or her email address. 

The first obstacle you need to overcome when using email retargeting is that it has become much harder to stand out in your customer’s inbox. Be authentic, and don’t try to come across as too pushy. 

Your first email should be a gentle reminder that they left their cart and are missing out on the items they were interested in. Keep it light and simple with a return link to their shopping cart.

If your lost customer hasn’t interacted with the first email yet, you can send a second email that creates some sense of urgency. This could be a special time-limited offer, limited availability, or anything that might make your audience feel as if they’re missing out on something.

The third and often final email is to close the deal. You don’t have anything to lose since your first two attempts weren’t successful. Use this last attempt to try to close the deal. This might even involve some kind of discount.

According to MoosEnd, optimized abandoned cart emails on average have a 45% open rate with a 21% click-through rate. 11% end up finishing their purchase. 

The second option is retargeting your lost audience on social media platforms. You’ll be able to do this once your visitor has accepted your cookies and you have created a pixel event. This makes it easy for you to retarget your audience on Facebook and Instagram and to pull them back to your website and make them finish their purchase.

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