4 Ways to Combat Shopping Cart Abandonment

A staggering $4.6 trillion is lost each year to shopping cart abandonment. This is when shoppers add products to their online cart but leave the site before they actually buy the items. So when it comes to closing online sales… how do you combat shopping cart abandonment? Let’s look at four marketing strategies to help you convert potential customers into successful sales.

#1 Send Cart Abandonment Emails

This email serves as a friendly reminder to your customers that they left some items behind in their cart. But don’t stop there! This is a huge opportunity here for you to win back a buyer. Consider sweetening the deal by offering a discount, free shipping or some other incentive to complete their check out. 

#2 Use Popups

Popups are even more flexible than abandonment emails and are easy to customize based on the context of the purchase or your customers’ personal info. You can use them to reach the right person with the most relevant message at just the right time– pulling back shoppers who are on the brink of exiting. And to create a sense of urgency, for example, you could offer a discount voucher that expires if they don’t check out in fifteen minutes.

#3 Retarget on Social Media

With one-third of all online purchases beginning on social platforms, this offers a great opportunity to win back a buyer. Social Media is a great place to remind them of the new toaster oven or leather jacket they’ve had their eye on. Social is also a great place to engage with your customers in a more relaxed and natural way. Consider trying retargeted ads that look like organic posts to keep your brand top of mind after they’ve had a look at your products.

#4 Simplify Your Checkout Process

Consider this: over one-quarter of abandoned carts are left behind due to a complicated or overly long checkout process. That’s huge! Most sites require an average of four or five clicks to make a purchase. If you get past six clicks, you’re on a slippery slope to cart abandonment and likely overcomplicating things for your customers. 

Cart abandonment is a real thorn in the sides of online sellers. The current rate is around 76% — that means 76 out of 100 shoppers just click away from their carts. That’s a lot of lost sales! If you can’t implement all four of these tactics at once, just putting one of these practices in place can have a big effect on your bottom line. 

For more marketing tips to help grow your resale business, check out our article 5 Marketing Tips to Reselling Online.