Cart abandonment is a real scourge for e-tailers. According to the various studies on the subjectBy 2022, this rate would have risen to 79%. This corresponds to around 8 out of 10 users.
It is therefore important to work on this specific aspect of your business, which represents a real loss of earnings.
Find out more about our tips.
What is an abandoned cart: definition
Cart abandonment corresponds to the number of orders that have been started by your customers, but not finalized.
Regardless of the sector and typology of your targets, all users experience cart abandonment for a wide variety of reasons. Some are linked to your site, while others are not your responsibility.
We tell you everything you need to know about shopping cart abandonmentfrom the reasons for abandonment to solutions for improving your e-commerce site and checkout process.
Main reasons for abandoned baskets
Fortunately, the main causes of abandoned baskets are known. So it’s easy to work on improving this trend.
Here’s what surveys and studies have to say on the subject:
- Delivery costs too high and delivery options not very attractive ;
- Lack of confidence in payment methods ;
- Ordering process too long and complex;
- No double authentication.
If at least one of these proposals applies to you, you need to act now.
How to calculate the shopping cart abandonment rate?
Here is the formula to calculate your cart abandonment rate :
Number of sales / number of baskets x 100
If it’s close to 70%, you’re within the industry average.
9 tips to limit abandoned shopping baskets in your e-commerce store
After theory, let’s move on to practice.
Discover our tips for keep cart abandonment to a minimum.
Be transparent about your costs
There’s nothing worse than hidden fees that only show up when you pay.
This may be the price of service charges that have not previously appeared, or delivery charges that are higher than expected.
In any case, to reduce cart abandonmentyou need to be as transparent as possible about the final price.
Offer delivery
Speaking of delivery, you’ve already realized that this is one of the main causes of shopping cart abandonment. So, by offering free delivery to your customers, you have a good chance of reduce cart abandonment rates and therefore boost online purchases of your products.
It’s up to you to calculate the cost of free delivery and what you stand to gain: what you lose on the one hand can be recouped on the other by making consumers want to complete their order.
Avoid mandatory account creation
Creating accounts can be interesting for both consumers and e-tailers. Internet users can save their personal information, enabling them to order more quickly for future purchases, or benefit from gifts and promotional offers.
Merchants, meanwhile, can set up a loyalty program and obtain qualified emails.
However, not all users are in favor of creating accounts. Especially if they’re not planning to recommend in the near future.
In this case, rather than losing them, it’s better to give them a choice.
Offer a quick and easy ordering process
Studies have shown that the more steps you multiply between adding to the shopping cart and actually buying online, the more likely you are to lose your users along the way.
It’s therefore preferable to set up an order tunnel that’s as simple and quick as possible, and reduces the number of steps as much as possible.
Obviously, every main button on every page must be clearly visible.
Multiply your means of payment
On the Internet, payment is often made by credit card. But this is no longer the only way for Internet users to pay for their purchases online. Today, some people prefer to use PayPal or other payment methods.
What’s more, if you sell relatively expensive products on your e-commerce site, don’t hesitate to offer payment in instalments.
Just like delivery methods, the more payment methods you offer, the greater the chance that shopping baskets will be converted into purchases. This mathematically reduces basket abandonment.
Reassure your customers
If web users know you, you don’t need to reassure them any more than necessary.
If this is not the case, we’ll need to emphasize these reassurance elements.
For example, you can display a telephone number or offer a chat service to answer your prospects’ questions. Implementing a money-back guarantee (with free returns) is also an excellent way to reduce cart abandonment.
Check that your site is responsive
Today, it’s easy to buy online on your phone or tablet. The desktop era is over, and e-tailers need to take this into account.
There’s nothing worse than a site that doesn’t display properly or hasn’t been designed for small screens.
From the main button, which must be easy to click, to the right sizing of the usual navigation elements: everything must be designed for mobile use.
If not, the customer may go elsewhere.
Follow up your customers
Some customers may have been disturbed while navigating through your e-commerce site’s order tunnel. Result: a cart abandonment which isn’t really a problem at all.
In this case, all it takes is an email to remind them that their basket is still waiting, to encourage them to take the next step.
Establish a precise reminder scenario with a carefully timed mailing, offering a discount voucher as a last resort.
Here again: the main button in the email to return to your site must be clearly visible.
Test and optimize
Finally, we advise you to test different actions over a specific period, analyze them and optimize them if necessary. It’s the best way to improve your site and, since this is the subject we’re interested in here, to reduce cart abandonment.
Affiliation Marketing at your fingertips
THE KEYS TO MAKING THE MOST OF THIS BOOMING LEVER Download the guide!
