Cart abandonment is when people add products to the cart and then leave the site without completing the checkout process. There are many reasons why prospects may do that; the most common reasons for cart abandonment are high extra costs, having to create an account and complex checkout process. Cart abandonment, if not properly optimised can be seen as a hole in the bucket, which is your site. This means that no matter how much water (traffic) is being poured in the bucket, it leaks out somewhere else because of the hole. Cart abandonment is the hole which can never be 100% patched but the aim is to reduce the amount leaking out as much as possible. Patching this hole can optimise the sales generated from your already earned (and paid for) traffic.
See also: Learn about customizing the woocommerce cart page,
Why customers abandon carts?
Giving prospects choice to create an account is a deciding factor regardless of whether they leave. Making the creation of the account compulsory before the checkout process is likely to deter customers to checkout. If they can completely process their order without having to create an account, they are more likely to stay and more open in creating one at the end. The process of making a new account needs to be easy and quick.
People abandon their carts because of the high extra costs. Unexpected delivery costs are a major deciding factor for some prospects. The surprise extra costs discourage customers to finish their checkout process.
Another reason people may abandon their cart is because of the process being too complicated. This usually includes having too many fields to fill in. Extra fields can be unnecessary to do for some customers, which can make their decision of not completing the process.
There are numerous methods these issues can be addressed; these vary in labour and cost and will broaden the scope of solutions with an optinmonster alternative.
Ways in which this abandonment can be neutralised
Carrying out substantial research to figure out the reasons for abandoned carts by prospects will help to decide what method to use to neutralise cart abandonment. There are a few ways a business could consider using to increase completed sales and extended income.
To increase sales cart recovery plays an important role in reducing cart abandonment. This is a chance for a business to capture prospects after they have abandoned their cart. The main method used by many businesses is sending abandoned cart emails. This is a great way to convince a prospect to finish their payment process by including a discount code which they could use when making a purchase. It is a good way of increasing sales and patching the hole in the bucket.
For some businesses it might be hard to show all extra costs, such as shipping costs, upfront. But for customers it can be frustrating to find out that they need to pay extra. This might be one of the holes in the bucket which needs to be fixed to keep the water from flowing out. A simple way to do so if a business cannot give a final shipping cost to the prospect, they should display an estimated cost for the order.
Sometimes the checkout process can be too long and complicated for customers to complete. Using a progress indicator bar during the checkout process helps to eliminate customer’s anxiety. Showing fewer steps of the process is important as this cancels out all the worries of prolonged checkout process. This allows the customer to commit to buying your product and completing the process.
Exit intent pop-ups can change prospect’s mind within seconds. As soon as the prospect is about to leave the pop-up is triggered. These exit intent pop-ups provide a high value offer to the prospect such as, 10% discount. This could change their mind of abandoning their cart and finishing the checkout process. A business can outsource this to a third-party company to help with software of exit intent pop-ups such as Socital.
There will always be some cart abandonment, even for reasons out of business’s control. By implementing some methods mentioned above there will be an increase in sales and a decrease in cart abandonment. These simple methods might help to fix the holes in the bucket so that the business is not losing out on any income. By fixing the holes in the bucket a business will be able to contrate on maximising sales rather than maximising traffic.
