Getting someone to visit your site is not easy, but it’s even more frustrating to see visitors leave the cart behind without checking out. Cart abandonment is one of the most serious challenges that every online merchant has to respond to.
In this article, we would like to discuss why cart abandonment happens and how to reduce it. Check it below!
Reasons Why Visitors Abandon Shopping Cart
According to WorldPay, here are several reasons that increase the cart abandonment rate:
We could divide them into several groups:
- Transaction Irritation: This includes complicated registration forms, technical problems, the lack of some payment methods, or unexpected costs (like high shipping or high tax)...
- Entertainment Purpose: Some visitors put an item into their cart just because they are bored and want something to kill time. They don’t really need the item or can’t afford it at that time.
- Research Purpose: Cart abandonment happens because visitors want to make a price comparison. They will check the cart regularly to make sure they could get the item when it is at the lowest price.
- Fear Of Risk: Some customers have a fragile trust in the security of the eCommerce business. They’re afraid that their personal information might be stolen, the items might not be delivered, and so on…
- Pre-decisional Conflict: It is the consumers’ hesitation of whether they should buy the item or not.
Tips To Minimize Cart Abandonment Rate
From the reasons above, we could come up with several solutions to deal with each problem. We could minimize cart abandonment rate by:
Simplifying And Optimizing The Checkout Process:
It is recommended that the checkout process should be seamless so that the shoppers can complete the transaction quickly. The registration form needs to be practical as well, with unnecessary details reduced or gotten rid of.
If possible, add a bar showing full checkout progress so that the customers can know which step they are in, thus restraining their impatience and frustration. A checkout progress bar could look like this:
Offering As Many Payment Methods As Possible
1 out of 4 people says that they abandon shopping carts because the site doesn’t offer their preferred payment methods. What could you do from this statistic? Well, just offer more payment methods for your site!
In addition to cash and credit payment, you can consider other methods like Paypal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and so on…
Upfronting Shipping Fee And Other Additional Costs
Imagine that you’re a visitor, you have chosen an ideal item and gotten ready to pay for them. However, it turns out that you need to pay a high fee for the shipping at the very end of the checkout process. How annoying, isn’t it?
Therefore, being honest about these extra fees right from the start is a good tactic. This is how Shopee applies this tactic:
Stressing The Urgency
If some people browse your site just to kill time, why don’t you urge them to buy that item indirectly? You can tell them the items are going to be out of stock, or the discounts are going to end in a few hours. In that way, visitors will have the motivation to complete the purchase more.
Comparing Yourself To Your Competitors
Consumers always want to buy something at the most reasonable price, and they will do research at several shops to find out the answer. You can make use of that psychology and compare the products before they could do that!
The two main criteria should be the price and the feature. Why the feature as well? Because even if your price is higher, it’s still a big deal due to some advantageous features over its counterparts.
Below is the comparing table of InMotion vs other hosting services:
Establishing Your Credibility
Since customers share their personal information with you, it’s necessary that they trust you and your store so that the payment process could be completed. The most familiar way to build up trust and authenticity is adding social proofs, such as (1) testimonials or reviews of old customers, and (2) a pop-up message showing your visitors that others have bought a similar item with them.
Take a look at some reviews of Yotpo for example:
Sending Cart Abandonment Emails
The last method to adopt is sending cart abandonment emails and reminding customers of the items in the cart. If possible, you can offer some discounts so that they will feel more excited to go back to your online store.
This is how Huckberry sends cart abandonment emails to customers:
