When you go to retail stores or grocery stores, you’ll see people walking around with their shopping carts full of different items, going up and down aisles browsing the shelves… You might even see a few shoppers multiple times in the store and exchange friendly “hello’s,” and then finally see each other again at the checkout line…
This is the moment of truth…
It’s fight or flight…
Are you going to actually purchase the products sitting in your shopping cart or are you going to leave your shopping cart at the checkout counter and leave the store?
Can you imagine a shopper standing in line with their grocery cart, with tons of people in line behind them, and then they just walk out of the store, leaving their shopping cart at the counter? Fortunately, this doesn’t (typically) happen in real life at brick-and-mortar stores. But this indeed does happen all the time with e-commerce stores.
When you’re first starting an online business, there are so many factors to consider. There’s your brand image, your logo, and what website builder you want to go with Shopify (shopify.com/website/builder) and Woocommerce (woocommerce.com) are two of the most popular options. But among other things, one of the biggest considerations that most budding entrepreneurs fail to think about is shopping cart abandonment.
A study by the Baymard Institute revealed that 70% of online purchases are left unfinished… that number is quite astonishing. But the real question is why are so many people abandoning their shopping carts? People in physical stores aren’t leaving their shopping carts in the middle of stores or at checkout lines and leaving… they actually buy what they came for.
The reasons vary as to why so many people are abandoning their shopping carts but some of the primary reasons include:
- Shipping costs are too expensive/unexpected costs
- Shipping time is too long
- Have to re-enter credit card info
- Discount codes don’t work
Again, the reasons shopping carts get abandoned vary but the above are just a few of the most common reasons it happens. As a budding entrepreneur, the last thing you want to do is build an e-commerce store that people visit and then never make any purchases. Of course, this instance isn’t completely unavoidable but there are some preventive measures you can implement to reduce your likelihood of shopping cart abandonment.
Here are a few tips to keep your customers on your site to actually make purchases.
Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment on Your E-Commerce Site
Give Visitors the “Guest” Checkout Option
How many times have you been looking for something online but didn’t want to go through the process of creating an account? It’s probably happened more than you realize but the point is to not force your customers to create an account… it makes them feel like the buying process is longer than what it should be.
The good aspect of giving this option is that you can capture all their information during the shipping process and later offer to save their information for future purchases. You have to give customers the chance to “try on” your business first before creating an account. If they like your products and decide to purchase again, they’ll more than likely create an account.
Send Cart Abandonment Emails
This particular tip is pretty logical: if someone abandons their cart, send them an email reminding them that they still have items in their shopping cart. With this approach, the thing to take note of is that if a customer has made it to the checkout process, they’ve likely already entered their email information in the system, so you can email them as a reminder.
Simply set up an autoresponder email series that will notify them from the moment the cart is abandoned up to 24 hours later with one to two emails. In the email, show them what they left in their cart with a CTA to return to your site to finish the checkout process. This is actually one of the most solid forms of email marketing to get people to open your emails.
Implement Social Proof to Your Site
If we’re going to be completely honest here, people are just more conscious of where they spend their money, and the last thing they want to feel is buyer’s remorse or regret about what they just bought. Social proof is a great way to eliminate that particular customer concern. To implement social proof, you can:
- Ask customers to leave product reviews
- Show customers other customers using your products
- Feature product reviews and testimonials to specific product landing pages
Build Trust in Your Store
Shopping online is pretty scary if you really think about it. Consumers are handing out their personal information and their financial information as well. CNBC reports that there have been 163,551,023 individuals impacted by data breached in 2020 thus far. So for people to shop on your site, know that they’re taking a huge risk on you and trust is one of the best ways to convince them to buy.
To assure them your site is a trusted site, make sure to display a valid SSL certificate and trust symbols as well from well-known security brands. This is at the very least, visual proof that your site is one that they can feel comfortable in knowing their sensitive information is protected and safeguarded from the many online threats facing online businesses and shoppers.
Reduce the Likelihood of Price Shock
One of the biggest reasons people tend to abandon shopping carts is due to unexpected costs. These costs typically aren’t shown until customers reach the checkout process and see all the small fees add up to the overall purchase price. Consider being transparent with your prices on the product pages while customers browse. You can even add a shipping calculator to help customers have a better idea of shipping costs which will then minimize the likelihood of price shock.
