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7 out of 10 customers visiting your store today are probably going to abandon their shopping cart.
Shopping cart abandonment takes place during the checkout process of an online order when potential customers change their minds and drop off before completing the purchase. Cart abandonment is an important metric to measure for online retailers of all sizes, as it has a direct impact on conversions and revenue.
For the sake of discussion, let’s say your site brings in 100,000 visitors per month, the average order value is $50, and the visitor-to-sale conversion rate is 2.5%.
If you increase the conversion rate by about 0.5%, you would earn an additional revenue of $25,000 per month. Accumulate this amount over 12 months and the total additional earnings would be $300,000.
Shopping cart abandonment currently causes eCommerce brands to lose a staggering $18 Billion in yearly sales revenue, according to Forrester research. It is one of the primary sources of revenue leakages and often an indicator of poor customer experience along the online customer journey. So optimizing the checkout process is the main area of focus for online retailers.
Poor User Experience:
If shoppers find your website difficult to navigate or the checkout process is long and complicated, they would abandon their customer journey to purchase. Every additional step and an extra input field in the form at the checkout page slows down customers from reaching the ultimate goal of finishing payment and arriving at the order confirmation page.
Applying Wrong Coupon Code:
A whopping 67 percent of online shoppers are actively looking for deals. These customers will visit multiple affiliate websites hunting for the best price, and base their buying decision on how much they can save. Referred to as coupon runners, these deal seekers visit popular coupon sites or search online for a coupon code before making any purchase on your website. An incorrect or expired coupon results in instant frustration and cart abandonment.
Getting Distracted by Competition
Customers love your website and show a strong desire in buying products, only to be distracted by competition ads displayed on your website. Browser ad injections take control of your customers’ website experience by displaying unauthorized ads on the checkout page and other web pages throughout the website. These ads redirect customers to competition websites under the pretext of offering discounted deals and encouraging customers to abandon shopping carts.
Online retailers are often unaware of this problem as ad injections infect the visitor-side website sessions and not their website servers.
Conducting Research to Buy Later
Customers have found a creative way of using a shopping cart. Online shoppers research products, brands, and deals before making a purchase. Often, customers will add all items of interest in the shopping cart to refer them later. It is not uncommon for customers to abandon their carts with the intention of visiting them again but this does not guarantee a conversion.
You can identify the poor customer experience by collecting feedback about your website on eCommerce metrics. The responses will help you dig deeper to identify existing issues in customer experience that may cause shopping cart abandonment.
How to Reduce Cart Abandonment Rate
1. Optimize Your Checkout Page
Minimize the number of fields in the checkout form. Only ask for necessary information. Checkout pages can be also optimized by using exit-intent technology. Although exit-intent pop-ups help reduce cart abandonment, it does not have the ability to go a step further and show personalized offers based on the contents of a shopping cart. Online retailers need a better and intelligent tool for minimizing the gap between shopping and buying.
Adding “trust signals” to the checkout page also helps increase conversions. Around 18% of shoppers abandon checkout pages because they don’t trust sites with their credit card information. Ecommerce retailers can create a positive perception by including trust seals, using symbols (like padlocks) to denote security at the checkout page to show the site is secure.
2. Understand User Intent with Trigger Mechanism
Successful online companies are leveraging sophisticated but easy-to-implement technology to understand customer behavior and the hurdles they face during their online journey to reduce cart abandonment and optimize conversion rate.
Coupons, offers, and deals motivate shoppers to complete their purchases. When coupon shoppers enter a wrong coupon code, they may leave your site and never return again. An undesirable experience causes buyer frustration and adds friction to the online buying journey. By implementing a wrong coupon trigger, your website realizes that an incorrect or expired coupon is applied and immediately suggests alternative coupon codes on the cart page.
A large number of shoppers are occasionally on the fence about completing their purchases. A promotion-based trigger determines the minimum and cost-effective promotion needed for converting these hesitant shoppers into buyers. An easy-to-deploy, machine learning-based trigger can take your on-site promotion strategy to the next level by understanding customer behavior and offer personalized deals in real-time.
3. Create a Distraction-free Customer Journey
About 10 percent of web sessions are under attack from ad injections and unwarranted browser extensions. Unwanted ads enter customer-side web sessions and lure them away from your website hurting the online customer journey. Ad injections not only hurt sales but brand reputation too. Certain ad injections are designed to display malicious content and siphon off affiliate fees.
Online businesses need to ensure that the websites are protected from competitor pop-up ads, price comparison, and other forms of under-the-radar advertising to keep them on the intended journey to purchase.
Conclusion
Once you have understood your cart abandonment issues and implemented the necessary changes, continue tracking to see if your website’s conversion rate is improving or if you need to make any changes in the future.
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