Struggling to reduce your eCommerce shopping cart abandonment rate?
You’re not alone. In 2018, the average global shopping cart abandonment rate stood at 74.58%.
Shopping cart abandonment is when a potential buyer initiates a checkout process, but doesn’t complete the transaction.
This usually happens for a few reasons but the main one being not following eCommerce best practices to capture the attention of their buyers.
Fortunately, there are some reliable techniques that can help reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate.
Keep in mind, even a small decrease in shopping cart abandonment rates can result in huge revenue lifts. You should constantly be testing your funnel and squeezing as much out of your traffic as possible.
So let’s get right into it. Here are 21 ways you can increase your shopping cart conversion rates right now!
When shopping at local supermarkets, buyers have complete control over the process.
They know all the steps they need to take to purchase something – enter the shop, locate and gather items in their carts, bring them to the POS, and then pay.
By examining their surroundings, they can easily anticipate the time it’d take to complete the process.
You can provide the same ‘sense of control’ to your online customers by adding progress indicators in your checkout process.
A progress indicator bar (or list) shows all of the steps that a buyer has to go through to complete their transaction – all the while indicating the step they’re at – like so:
Here are some benefits of adding a progress indicator:
It’s easy to add a progress bar on your website. To do so, you can follow these tips:
With the help of a progress indicator, you can simplify your website’s transaction process and ultimately, increase conversions.
When shopping online, buyers tend to jump from one tab, or app, to another.
Unlike traditional shopping, buyers can easily compare prices of two or more stores by filling their carts, and then proceeding with the best option available.
On top of that, they may be multi-tasking, which means they can get distracted easily.
In any case, you must provide your buyers with the convenience to return and pick up where they left off.
If the data is lost once the buyer returns, they might just give up on the transaction altogether, and you’ll end up losing a sale.
This can either be done by using a cart with an auto-save functionality, or allowing users to save the contents of their carts manually.
Some popular extensions/plugins that provide these functionalities include:
Some platforms – such as Magento – have this functionality built in. However, you may have to set it up and configure it.
Needless to say, you can lower your shopping cart abandonment rate by making it easier to save cart items.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to not have some kind of shopping cart abandonment rate. At times, regardless of what you’ve implemented, users will abandon their carts.
However, just because you lost a sale, doesn’t mean you lost the buyer.
By using retargeting campaigns, you can target the same visitors and retrieve those potential sales.
If you’re not already leveraging retargeting (or remarketing), you’re missing out on some big sales. Customers who see retargeting ads are much more likely to convert.
So, how do you create a retargeting campaign? Here are the steps:
With the help of retargeting, you can recapture lost buyers with ease.
While filling up their cart, a buyer may get distracted and forget about their on-going transaction.
A great way to tackle this problem is by adding compelling calls to action as reminders across the website.
Whether it’s the homepage, a product/category page, or the checkout page itself – you should include a CTA (or two) to remind the visitor that they have items in their carts, and lead them to the checkout page (or compel them to continue shopping).
This CTA is a perfect example:
Here are some tips on creating and placing checkout-CTAs on your website:
These CTAs can nudge your buyers in the right direction and help close more sales.
Another major culprit behind shopping cart abandonment is ineffective and non-intuitive navigation.
The easier it is to navigate between the store and the cart, the more likely it is for a prospect to convert.
Buyers should be able to add or remove items to and from their carts – without being completely distracted from the store.
The simpler the navigational flow of the website, the better the user-experience.
Here are some of the best ways to ensure seamless navigation:
Remember – the goal is to reduce the efforts your buyers have to make to purchase something on your website or app.
As the name suggests, exit-intent popups are special overlay-messages that are displayed when a visitor moves their cursor towards the address bar (usually signaling that they’re leaving the website).
These messages include offers that compel the user to stay and/or continue shopping.
This exit-intent popup is a great example:
Think of these pop-ups as a last attempt (besides retargeting) to re-engage a potential buyer who’s about to slip through your fingers.
Here’s how you can create an effective exit-intent popup:
By using exit-intent popups, you can significantly increase your conversions and reduce shopping cart abandonment rates.
Having a progress bar indicator doesn’t mean that you can make the buying process as long as you want.
While breaking the entire journey down into multiple steps can be helpful, make sure not to overdo it.
This means keeping the entire transaction limited to as few pages as possible.
In fact, according to Baymard Institute, 28% of online US shoppers stated “Too long or complicated checkout process” as a reason for shopping cart abandonment.
There’s no one-size fits all breakdown of the checkout process. However, the following steps should work for most websites:
Another method is to have a single page – broken down into multiple sections – instead of having separate pages.
Again – it’s all about making things as simple and as quick as possible for your buyers.
It’s possible for a buyer to forget what they’ve added to their shopping cart, halfway through the process.
This could result in abandonment.
Therefore, it’s crucial that you display the contents of the shopping cart at every stage of the checkout process.
Displaying only the names of the items no longer cuts it – you should also display thumbnails, as well. Take a look at this screenshot, for example:
Adding thumbnails to items can:
Most eCommerce platforms come with this functionality built-in.
Woocommerce doesn’t have this ability built in but your developer can easily edit some code to make it work.
In terms of conversion funnels, “leaks” are the steps or spots where potential buyers leave your website.
Tracking these leaks can help you understand the flaws in your funnel, and help you take the necessary steps to ensure more people make it to the end.
You can track these leaks using an analytics tool. Let’s stick with Google Analytics for now.
Here’s how you can get started:
Once Google Analytics is all set, you can start tracking the leaks with the Funnel Visualization report, like so:
By using this report, you can easily check which pages have the highest leaks, and optimize them (or your offers) to create a smoother experience.
As an eCommerce retailer, one of the biggest obstacles you have to overcome is buyer hesitation.
This is why you have to offer a solid, 100% money back guarantee to your buyers.
This can benefit you in two ways:
It’s important to remember that your money-back guarantee should be visible throughout your shopping cart.
Don’t just place it on your homepage (or somewhere deep within your terms and conditions, where most buyers won’t see it). The same thing applies to all other offers that make you stand out from your competitors.
Everyone wants free shipping (even if it means waiting an extra day for their shipment).
Many buyers will abandon their shopping carts if they have to pay for shipping costs.
Keeping this in mind, you should consider reducing your profit margin and start offering free shipping to your buyers.
However, not every merchant can realistically afford to offer free shipping. It mostly depends on the profit margin, the type of product(s) they’re selling, and where their buyers are located.
Here are some options that you have:
By shipping items for free, you can experience a marked drop in shopping cart abandonment.
There’s nothing wrong if you’re unable to offer free shipping at the moment.
However, if that’s the case, the least you can do is to clearly state – throughout your website – that shipping costs will apply (preferably in bold letters) and how much it can cost.
It’s common for buyers to abandon shopping carts if they don’t see the payment merchants or options of their choice. As a result, it’s crucial to provide as many payment options as (reasonably) possible.
Here are some of the go-to methods for any online business:
Additionally, to process payments from different sources, it’s recommended to use a versatile payment merchant, such as:
By having diverse payment options, you can experience a drop in shopping cart abandonment rate.
One of your primary sources of data is your website and the forms customers fill to create their accounts.
However, that data may come at a cost if your website doesn’t let buyers checkout as guests.
This is because most users don’t have the time to create their accounts – they just want to purchase their items and be done with it.
So, while it may seem detrimental to your retargeting efforts, allowing users to checkout as guests without having to provide their personal information can reduce shopping cart abandonment rate.
At the end of the day, this isn’t an “either this or that” situation – you can still acquire the data of your buyers – and let them checkout as guests – by:
That way, if a user opts to checkout as a guest, you’ll still have some data to work with.
If your website isn’t loading at an appropriate speed, you will continue to lose potential sales (you can check the speed at PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix).
To tackle this problem, you’ll have to optimize page load times.
There’s a lot you can do to make that happen. Here are some tips to increase the speed of your website:
Some popular plugins and apps that can help automate this process include:
If there’s one thing buyers truly dislike – it’s unexpected costs.
The final price should always be clearly displayed throughout the process – from adding items to the cart to clicking on the checkout button.
This should include all of the costs, such as shipping costs, sales tax, customization fees, etc.
With fixed costs, it’s easy to calculate the final figure. However, for variable costs (such as shipping), you’ll need a plugin or an app.
Some of those include:
In the end, break down the total cost with specifics. The more transparent you are, the less likely it is for your buyers to abandon their carts.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your buyers won’t need help or have any questions during the checkout process.
Besides having a FAQs section, you should also provide live chat support to customers who have specific or unique queries.
Some popular platforms include:
Other than having a live support feature, you should also display your company’s contact information clearly at the top of the pages (besides having a separate page), which will make your buyers trust you more.
Since trust is now a bigger deal than ever, you have to get your payment/checkout processes secured and approved by the relevant authorities.
This will protect your customers from cyber-attacks and increase the credibility of your business.
After finalizing a safe checkout procedure, you’ll still need to provide further proof throughout the process to secure their trust.
You can do that by using different trust building icons and logos on your shopping cart/landing pages.
Some popular trust seals (and their issuing authorities) include:
Here’s an example of a checkout page/shopping cart using trust seals:
There are only two steps that you need to take to add trust icons on your website:
By displaying these badges on your site, you can solidify your business as trustworthy, and as a result, reduce the number of abandoned transactions.
Another great way to reduce shopping cart abandonment is to place the shopping cart somewhere visible (like the top), on all of the pages.
Making the cart visible and accessible from anywhere on the website can result in a seamless experience.
Amazon is a good example:
You can use the following plugins/apps to create a custom cart icon for your website:
By making your website more accessible, you will experience higher conversions.
Making your funnel mobile friendly will decrease shopping cart abandonment rates for your mobile traffic.
Here are some tips to help you do that:
By making your sales funnel mobile-friendly, you can retain a substantial percentage of your audience.
At times – even when they’ve made up their minds – buyers need an extra push to click that checkout/buy button.
You can do that by using the scarcity principle.
Items that are scarce/low in stock are perceived as more valuable.
A tried-and-tested strategy is telling customers how many items are left in stock.
By using copy like, “Hurry up while it lasts” or “Only X-amount left in stock,” you can compel your visitor to purchase something.
A buyer trusts another buyer more than anyone.
So, apart from placing special offers and using informative copy, you have to leverage social proof.
Contact one of your old buyers and request them to write reviews/testimonials, and proudly display the positive ones on your pages.
Even small decreases in shopping cart abandonment rates can result in huge revenue lifts!
Give your business the boost it deserves by executing on the techniques mentioned in this article to improve shopping cart conversion rates. To summarize, here is a list of those techniques. Do your best to execute on every single one!
What have you done to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rates? Tell us in the comments section below!
Great content! Super high-quality! Keep it up! 🙂
Looking at the rate of Cart abandonment, Companies should invest in a better Navigation and Site speed module.