How can you address abandoned carts?
When it comes to online shopping, there’s an epidemic of abandoned carts. Some studies have found that about 70% of carts get abandoned across all devices, but the type of device does make a difference. For example, the rate is 85% on smartphones and just over 80% on tablets. But one thing that is consistent across all devices is that the majority of people who put items into their online shopping cart will never buy those items. They will simply walk away without completing the purchase.
If you run an online store, this can be very frustrating because you can see all of the lost revenue. You’ve already done the work to get users to your site. You have products that they are interested in, and the product descriptions and reviews were good enough to get them to add the items to their cart. So why is it that they will then abandon that cart without buying anything, and what can you do to stop them?
Reasons vary for different consumers
The truth is that consumers do this for variety of reasons. For instance, some evidence shows that carts are abandoned more often when it takes people a while to decide exactly what items to purchase. If they can make a quick impulse purchase, they’ll do it. But if it takes a few minutes for them to figure out the details, that may be enough for them to walk away.
In other cases, consumers are comparing prices and using various websites simultaneously. They may be adding items to the cart just to check the shipping and handling costs, for instance. They want to look at all of their options. But if that person has four different carts with similar products, and they only complete the purchase on one, the other three carts are then abandoned.
Finally, some consumers may just get distracted. Say that someone is adding items to their cart when they get an important phone call from work. This pulls them away from the computer, and they move on to other things. They never return to make that initial purchase, and they forget that they even put the items in the cart to begin with.
So what can you do?
One tactic that you can use to address these abandoned carts is simply to reconnect with those users. If they already have accounts with email addresses, for instance, you can send marketing emails reminding them about the missing carts. These emails should be quick and to the point, but it can also be helpful to highlight some of the benefits of the product to get the user excited about the purchase again. If the price has dropped since they put that item in their cart, it can help to make a note of this in the marketing materials.
It’s also helpful just to think about why the cart was abandoned in the first place. For instance, 13% of the time, users cite website crashes or errors. It could just be that your site design is not intuitive or that the site contains numerous broken links, which derail consumers and make it less likely that they will trust your business. Refreshing the site with new content and working links can help to increase your conversion rate and prevent some of these abandonments.
Getting started
The above just scratches the surface of the abandoned cart issue, helping to delve into a few reasons why it happens and steps you can take to increase your sales numbers. Here at Content Customs, we have extensive experience creating marketing emails, on-site content, product descriptions, social media posts and much more. Our friendly and helpful team will work closely with you to find solutions, so get in touch with us today to get the process started.
