How can you address abandoned online shopping carts?
An abandoned cart is an online shopping cart that someone has filled with items, but they’ve walked away without purchasing anything. As the site/business owner, you may even see this person visiting the same product page repeatedly as they consider what they want to buy. Eventually, they move the item into a cart, but they stop the checkout process before finishing. They never return to the cart and they never make a purchase.
If this sounds like a rare occurrence, it’s important to point out that it’s very common, and e-commerce websites lose around $18 billion annually, according to some reports. These reports also claim that almost 70% of all shopping carts on the internet eventually get abandoned, with only 30% of consumers actually moving forward with the purchase.
Why does this happen?
There are many different reasons why this happens. Some people are simply considering products and using the cart as a way to save them. They’re not sure if they want to buy anything, but they put the item in the cart so that they don’t lose track of it.
In other cases, people may be considering products and adding them to the cart so that they can see the total price. But if they add a few items and the price is higher than they’re comfortable with, they may walk away without making a purchase.
How can you prevent it?
There are a few things you can do to stop this from happening – or to work against it when it does. For one thing, make sure that the checkout process is streamlined and simple. If it’s long or confusing – or your site is written and designed in a complicated way – some consumers will simply give up. The easier you can make it for them, the more likely they are to make that purchase.
Another thing to consider is if you are marketing to the correct audience. Carts are sometimes abandoned because consumers realize that the products don’t actually meet their needs. It could be because you’ve optimized for the wrong keywords, so you’re getting web traffic from people who are simply less likely to make a purchase.
Finally, you may want to consider marketing directly to these individuals. If they have created an account that is connected to their cart, for instance, you could run an email marketing campaign alerting them to the fact that they abandoned the cart. This may renew their interest in the product. It may also cause a purchase if they have honestly forgotten about the cart and they did intend to buy the products. Maybe they just got sidetracked or distracted by their children. Email marketing like this can be very effective because the person receiving the messages has a clear interest in those products. You do not have to work as hard to make a conversion.
Increasing your sales rate
At Content Customs, we can help you with everything from site design to content creation to online marketing as you look to increase your sales rate. Just get in touch with us today to find out more about how we can help.
