You may not realize it, but you lose money regularly when selling online. How is that so? Well, research suggests that the shopping cart abandonment rate is 70.19% – just take a moment to think about what this percentage truly means. For every 100 customers that could potentially buy from you, 70 of them leave your website without purchasing anything. If you do the math, you’ll figure out that this translates into significant lost sales. But why does this happen? There are many reasons for this, such as high extra costs, very slow delivery, or a lengthy checkout process. Or, customers may be unsatisfied with the fact that they can’t find their preferred payment option on your website – for instance, there are now many individuals who are interested in the ethereum price usd and want to use it to further purchase different products or services. If you don’t give customers what they want, you lose them – it’s that simple.
Cart abandonment hurts your business’ bottom line whether you realize it or not. But the good news is that you aren’t powerless when it comes to this. You can take action that helps you convert leads into customers. Keep reading to learn how you can capture more sales in your business by reducing the number of abandoned carts.
Optimize the performance of your website
Here’s the thing: customers’ expectations have increased. They now expect a better experience from brands, and website performance plays a massive role in this, as glitches or slow loading times can determine them to buy from one of your competitors instead. Given this aspect, it is imperative to optimize your website not only for desktop interfaces but also for mobile ones. Since many customers tend to switch between devices when shopping, you want to ensure that their experience is seamless across all platforms. Website performance optimization will result in increased conversions, better usability, and more visibility, so it’s worth your time and effort.
Be transparent with pricing
Providing transparency when it comes to pricing is incredibly important, because it helps establish trust among potential customers. One of the most common complaints that customers have is that they often come across unexpected costs at the end of a checkout. It’s essential to address this problem if you want to reduce cart abandonment, and you can do so by displaying all the costs from the beginning of the shopping process. And we don’t mean just the product price but also any extra costs, including taxes, delivery, and additional fees. It can also be a good idea to include a delivery calculator in the shopping basket or product pages, as this can give more clarity to potential customers and ensure they won’t have any surprises in the purchase process.
Offer flexible payment alternatives
We can’t overstate the importance of offering flexible payment methods to customers. A huge reason why many people abandon their shopping cart is that they cannot find the payment option they are looking for.
So, be sure that you can cater to everyone’s preference by accepting everything from standard options like credit cards, to modern ones like digital wallets. By offering flexible payments, you respond positively to the evolving customer needs, thus making them feel empowered and allowing them to afford the purchases they desire (which they might cancel otherwise). This can benefit your business tremendously, because it boosts customer loyalty, ensuring they will buy from you again.
Ensure a seamless checkout process
The success of your business is highly connected to the checkout experience. What does this mean? Well, it’s simple: if the experience is positive, shoppers will complete their purchase in a few clicks, while a negative experience will likely cause them to leave your ecommerce site. 18% of cart abandonment is due to a complicated checkout process, so it’s imperative to pay attention to this, and create a smoother experience for your customers. You can do so by implementing techniques like auto-fill options that can reduce friction and reduce the number of steps that potential buyers need to take. Also, utilizing consistent A/B testing of different checkout flows enables ventures to implement processes that lead to high conversion rates, so consider this technique, too.
Highlight your refund, cancellation and return policies
Ensuring clarity when it comes to your refund, cancellation and return policies is essential to give confidence to potential buyers and let them know what they should do if they aren’t satisfied with the service or the purchase they make. You can display these policies clearly during the checkout process to relieve any concerns about post-purchase regret. Whether you run a subscription-based business, a platform, or a marketplace, this means that you have to allow customers to change, pause, or cancel the type of subscription they’ve made.
Now, you may feel like this is counterintuitive when it comes to reducing cart abandonment – after all, why make it easier for them to leave? But wouldn’t it be worse if you tried to stop them from ending their relationship with you and causing more significant damage to your brand through negative word of mouth? If you think about it, it’s definitely better to be transparent and let them choose.
Use retargeting strategies
Do you know what makes online shopping so great? It’s the fact that customers use multiple channels at once, and you can take advantage of this to reduce cart abandonment. Retargeting strategies allow you to re-engage customers who haven’t completed their purchases- and they are effective, as research has shown, bringing up to 26% of customers back to your e-commerce website. Email campaigns are great when it comes to retargeting customers, serving as persuasive reminders. Also, dynamic ads on social media platforms can be helpful as well, as they showcase precisely the services or products that have been added to the customers’ baskets, reigniting their interest and, ultimately, convincing them to head back to your website and buy the products or the service.
Make sure that the user experience is engaging
Keeping users engaged when navigating your ecommerce platform is paramount if you want to ensure they will complete the purchase. And it’s not just about the aesthetics of your website – sure, catchy visuals and detailed product descriptions are indeed important, but they aren’t the only things you should focus on. It’s also essential to provide live chat support, as this will give customers peace of mind knowing their concerns can be addressed in real-time; ultimately, this will play a role in reducing cart abandonment.
Takeaway
As you’ve probably figured out by now, more than half of people who add a product to their cart leave your website without completing the purchase, and this happens for many reasons. But the good news is that you can prevent it from happening, and the techniques above can help you do so, thus increasing your business’s profitability.