Adding products to a shopping cart and abruptly stopping shopping is an increasingly common behavior among online store customers. If you work in the e-commerce industry, you have surely encountered this phenomenon many times. Interrupted processes are a huge problem, as you don’t know for what reason your purchases were ultimately not finalized, despite your interest in the offer. We can help you reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts and encourage customers to come back to complete their actions on your site.
What can cause a high number of abandoned shopping carts?
You’ve probably wondered many times why some people abandon processes and whether it’s somehow possible to get such customers back. There are quite a few reasons why those interested in your offer stop their activities, some of which you have a great deal of influence over. Remember to pay attention even to the small elements, because for the user they can be perceived negatively. To begin with, it’s worth thinking about whether your site works properly and doesn’t cause difficulties. We will give a few examples of mistakes made that can discourage people from completing their purchases.
Offering products that do not match the description and receiving negative feedback
Imagine you want to buy a new leather jacket in black. From the description and photos, it looks perfect. You’ve already added it to your shopping cart, but you prefer to be careful and browse everything carefully. You see some reviews from other buyers and it turns out that in reality the jacket has little in common with the one offered in the store. Its material is very artificial, the color is washed, none of the reviews are positive. Will you continue to want to buy it? Take care that the goods offered in your store are accurately described and consistent with reality, and customers will gain trust and pay for the items added to the cart.
Unfavorable return policy for customers
Nowadays, many people attach great importance to being able to send back goods in an easy and pleasant way. When you run an online store, you have to keep in mind not only the transactions themselves, but also the items sent back. Return policies written in convoluted language, and on top of that, ambiguities related to at least transferring money after returning products are some of the most common reasons for not completing the transaction.
Slow, problematic website
I guess everyone has encountered a cumbersome loading “window” at some point. Many customers appreciate the speed of online shopping, and a poorly designed website can alienate users and tire them out with constant waiting. No one likes to stare at an endlessly spinning wheel before making a payment, so make sure that all processes start on your site in a few moments. Also, be sure to customize your shopping experience for different devices, unless you want to constantly note abandoned shopping carts of smartphone users, for example.
Hidden costs that appear before payment
When building customer trust and loyalty, you can’t hide fees. If you were to buy something from an online store yourself and suddenly at the summary it turned out that you have to pay an additional amount worth half of your order because, for example, it exceeds the allowed weight, you have to add packaging costs and many other things were not added beforehand, you would rather not be happy, right? Don’t add extra charges to your offers in the fine print. Shopping with clear terms and conditions and upfront rules will encourage customers more and make fewer people abort the process.
How to save abandoned shopping carts
Even the strongest players in the market have to face people who leave an unfinished purchase. There are various ways you can contact a customer with an abandoned shopping cart and encourage them to return and complete their purchase on your site.
Remarketing, or reaching out to a potential customer
Suppose someone once clicked on your ad, browsed the offer on your site, but ultimately left without making a purchase. Using tools such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads, you can easily find such people (via cookies) and tailor a remarketing offer to them, e.g. by offering a discount on their first order. This way you will save some of the abandoned shopping carts and gain new customers.
Send messages to recipients with abandoned shopping carts with iPresso
One of iPresso’s features is abandoned process responses, which makes it easier to contact a person who has not completed an action on the site. This feature allows you to automatically send email, push and pop-up notifications to customers with abandoned shopping carts, among others. In addition, it can also be used for people who started filling out a form for your service, but for unknown reasons did not complete it. With personalization, a specific user will receive a message relating to their process. For example, a customer who added a wooden table to the shopping cart may receive an email reminder to complete the purchase and a 10% discount, while a user booking airline tickets to Italy will receive a text message about a limited-time promotion for that flight. In our system, you will customize outreach to your audience depending on your preferences and industry.
Summary
Abandoned shopping carts are a growing phenomenon especially for the e-commerce industry. Sometimes their number can be reduced with a properly configured page with real descriptions and customer facilities, but sometimes it’s also worthwhile to contact people with interrupted processes and, for example, through email, encourage them to return and complete their purchases, using marketing automation tools.
If you haven’t tried our features yet, we encourage you to take advantage of a free 30-day trial access to the iPresso platform. Just fill out and submit this short contact form. Reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts today!
Leave a Reply