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How Retailers Can Reduce Abandoned Shopping Carts

November 8, 2018 / 6 minute read / By Michele Salerno

Learn three ways to decrease your shopping cart abandonment rate on your eCommerce site

Imagine a store where customers are ready to buy something, but then they change their minds and leave without buying anything. This is called cart abandonment, and it’s a common problem in the world of eCommerce.

In fact, more than two-thirds of online shopping carts are abandoned before the customer checks out.

Common Reasons for Online Cart Abandonment:

Unexpected costs:
Customers may be surprised by additional costs, such as shipping, taxes, or fees.
Checkout process is too long or confusing:
If the checkout process is too long or complex, customers may give up and leave.
Payment security concerns:
Customers may not feel comfortable providing their personal information or making a purchase online if they don’t trust your website.

Of course there can always be other reasons as well, for example a customer may be interrupted before they can finish checking out, or they may not have enough money to complete the purchase at that time.

At Celerant, we have worked with thousands of online retailers for over 2 decades and based on our experience, there are four things retailers can do to decrease customers abandoning carts.

#1: Brick-and-Mortar Store Techniques to Reduce Online Cart Abandonment

Online shopping is a growing trend, but most people still prefer to shop at physical stores. This is mainly because they can see and touch the products before making a purchase, and they can get help from the salespeople if they have any questions.

Online retail businesses can improve their sales by using the same techniques that are successful in brick-and-mortar stores. This includes training employees to be knowledgeable about the products they sell and provide good customer service.

In fact, retailers can level up their game by introducing these techniques to the digital side of their omnichannel retail business strategy.

Ways to bring your physical store experience to your website:

Offer a dynamic and fast product search, making it easy for customers to find products they are looking for.
Make the account creation process fast with social media login integrations and your check-out process faster with a single page check-out.
Accept a variety of payment options, including Apple Pay, Venmo and more digital wallets to make payments frictionless.
Offer an interactive chat tool to assist with any issues or questions your customers have, in real-time.

Using an all-in-one SaaS-based retail software businesses can seamlessly implement these techniques both in their physical stores and online. Which can help them to improve their sales and customer satisfaction.

#2: Real-time Assistance with Online Shopping Carts

Real-time access to shopping carts means that customer service representatives can see what customers are buying and when they are about to abandon their carts. This allows them to intervene and try to save the sale. For instance, they could offer the customer a discount or free shipping coupon.

While small retail businesses may not have the resources to monitor many customers, they can still offer chat support. This will allow users to get help from a customer service representative if they have any questions or concerns related to a product they want to purchase.

When customers feel they are finding answers to their questions quickly and their problems are getting resolved, they tend to complete the purchase.

Businesses can set rules and parameters for when and to what degree incentives are offered. For instance, they may only offer free shipping if a customer makes purchases over a certain amount of money.

#3: Automated Email Marketing Campaigns for Abandoned Cart Reminders

Automated email marketing for abandoned carts can help you recover lost sales.

When a customer fills in their email address during checkout, the Conversion Center can capture their information. This means that you can start using automated email marketing even if they don’t complete the checkout process.

Learn how to send automated emails based on abandoned carts and more!

When customers are logged in, or they have at least submitted their email address, you can then use this information to set up automated email campaigns to remind customers about their abandoned carts. You can decide how long to wait before sending out these reminders and what triggers to use.

For instance, you can shoot a reminder email one day after the customer abandons their cart, and then another reminder email one week later. You can also offer incentives to users who come back to their abandoned carts, like a discount code or free shipping.

Step by Step: How to Automate Abandoned Cart Emails:

A customer abandons their shopping cart.
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A week later, they receive an email reminding them about their shopping cart. The email also includes a message that makes it clear that they can chat with an agent in real-time.
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If they still don’t make a purchase, they could get an email with a coupon code that makes shipping free if they order above $100.
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And if after a month, they still haven’t come back to their abandoned shopping cart, they might get an email with a 10% discount.
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Email automation can be used to send targeted emails to customers based on their actions on your website. For instance, you can send an email to a customer who has abandoned their cart with a link to a landing page that highlights the product they left behind.

You can create a landing page to display the product’s features and benefits to encourage the customer to complete their purchase.

Businesses can track the results of their campaigns and see what works best for them using email automation. This can enable them to improve their conversion rates and make the most of their marketing efforts.

Takeaways for Reducing Online Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is inevitable, but the goal for every retailer is to eliminate it as much as possible.

By following these 3 steps, you can significantly reduce your abandoned carts and keep your customers coming back for more.

Bring your store experience to your website for an unified shopping experience
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Offer real-time assistance during the check-out process by your customer service reps
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Send automated emails to every customer who abandons their carts
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With an all-in-one retail solution, that connects your brick and mortar store and online eCommerce, combined with an integrated email marketing platform- all of this becomes possible.

Learn more about how you can revamp your digital marketing and sell more products with an integrated system by clicking below.

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