The web statistics indicating that at least the 70% of online orders is not completed, this implies that your e-commerce is constantly losing 70% of potential customers. On mobile the average rate of abandonment of trolleys rises to 85%.
How to reduce this loss rate and how to recover abandoned carts?
The communication and automation techniques aimed at completing the check out are called "abandoned cart recovery" or cart recovery.
Why do people abandon carts?
According to research carried out by Baymard and Forrester the most common reasons for cart abandonment are:
- Unexpected or too high shipping costs
- Need to create an account to complete check out
- The customer is not ready to complete the purchase yet or wants to compare prices elsewhere
- Delivery times too long
- Lack of trust in the site and in giving credit card details
- Slow site or complicated checkout
- The check out asks for unnecessary information
- Inability to calculate the total cost immediately
- Errors present on the site
- Unsatisfactory return conditions
- Lack of satisfactory payment methods
- Credit card declined
What are the tools to recover abandoned carts?
The most common technique for recovering abandoned carts is tosend an email to the customer who has abandoned the cart containing useful information to complete the purchase, there are two other ways: the retargeting and the chat.
What information to enter in the abandoned cart email?
Which sectors have the highest dropout rate?
Strategies for retrieving carts
Optimize your shipping processes:
Offer free shipping or low cost shipping options
Provide clear delivery estimates.
Offer faster shipping options.
Be upfront about additional costs
Build trust and credibility:
Resolve doubts about payment security.
Have a friendly return policy.
Offer many communication channels.
Provide social proof.
Improve payment usability:
Offer a variety of payment options
Troubleshoot website issues:
Improve the mobile usability of your site.
Keep your website error free.
Other strategies:
Use scarcity to your advantage.
Use the exit pop-up to prevent people from leaving.
Reference> WP Astra
Best practice: About shipping in checkout
The information that can be entered in the abandoned cart is:
- Product information> useful to remind the user that they have a product in their cart
- Ratings and reviews from other users> Social proof
- Information relating to customer service and online assistance
How many emails and when to send them?
The best practice is to send the first email approximately 15 minutes after the cart has been abandoned. The second email can be sent the next day and a third email on the third day.
Use a chat to reduce the cart abandonment rate
The chat can be a useful tool to use on e-commerce sites to improve the conversion rate, the chat has some advantages:
- It makes the shopping experience more personal
- Reassure the customer
- Allows you to clarify any doubts about the purchase
- Facilitate the purchase decision
- It allows you to collect insights from the customer on what information to add to the page
What features should a chat service have?
- It must have customizable graphics, for example with the colors of the site and a photo of the operator
- Have automatisms that allow you to define the right moment to take action
- Send different messages depending on the page the user is visiting
The average cart abandonment rate is calculated around 70% for desktop devices, but rises to 85% on mobile devices
5 essentials for the recovery cart email:
1. information on the products left in the cart; Information about the abandoned item (s)
2. A clear call-to-action (CTA)
3. A method of contacting you
4. Positive customer reviews
5. Link to the conditions of purchase and delivery
Example of an abandoned cart recovery email
The subject of the email
The status of your order.
Your shopping cart is waiting.
Complete your purchase.
You have left items in your cart.
Complete your purchase.
You left something behind.
We have saved your shopping cart for you.
You seem to have left something behind
Your order status.
Your cart is waiting.
Finish your purchase.
You left items in your cart.
Complete your purchase.
You left something behind.
We saved your cart for you.
Looks like you left something behind
Abandoned cart email example
Winning cart recovery emails generally have these 5 elements:
- 1. information on the products left in the cart; Information about the abandoned item (s)
- 2. A clear call-to-action (CTA)
- 3. A method of contacting you
- 4. Positive customer reviews
- 5. Link to the conditions of purchase and delivery