You’ve put in the effort to attract visitors to your online store and showcase your products in the best light possible.
… Only to see many customers browse, select, and leave without completing a purchase.
Unfortunately, this scenario is all too familiar, and represents one of the significant challenges e-commerce businesses face: Abandoned carts.
Why is it important to recover abandoned carts?
First up, 69.82% of carts are abandoned, accounting for $18B in lost revenue each year. Ouch.
Solving your high abandonment rates can save you a lot of lost revenue.
But more revenue is not the only advantage you gain, either.
Fixing your abandoned cart problem can also:
- Reveal your customers’ pain points. Maybe the shipping costs are too high, the checkout process is too complicated, or trust badges are missing. Addressing these can uplift your overall conversion rate.
- Help you use your budget efficiently. You’ve already spent resources attracting these potential buyers to your store. When you remind them about their carts, and they purchase, you’re making the most of the budget you’ve invested.
- Build trust. Sometimes, customers abandon carts because they’re unsure about product quality, shipping times, or return policies. Addressing these concerns in your retention efforts in your cart recovery strategies can establish trust.
So ultimately, abandoned cart recovery is about increasing sales and understanding your customers better so you can refine the shopping experience.
… Which leads to more sales over time.
Strategies for recovering abandoned carts?
Let’s talk about how you can win your cart dumpers back:
- Retargeting ads. On Meta and Google, you can target users who have visited your site and left without making a purchase or who have abandoned carts. Craft these ads to remind them of what they left behind and perhaps offer a little incentive to seal the deal.
- Email sequences. Engage customers with a series of emails post-abandonment. Start with a gentle reminder within a few hours, follow up with a more detailed message, and finally, consider offering a discount or special offer to entice them back.
- Exit-intent popups. These pop up right when a user is about to leave your site, offering them an instant discount or a special deal if they finish their purchase immediately.
- Use push notifications. If you’re incentivizing shoppers to download your app, take advantage of the free marketing by using your push notifications to lure them back in. Then direct them straight to the checkout page.
Want a bonus tip?
Give them easy access to chatbots and FAQ pages. This will help your customers quench any doubt right there and then.
Remember, it’s not just about that one purchase, but nurturing a long-lasting relationship with the customer.
What when cart recovery doesn’t work?
There are many factors that influence a customer’s decision to buy something.
And despite what you might read elsewhere, sometimes the strategies that seem like they’re going to work, don’t.
Now let’s look at scenarios for when these strategies wouldn’t work:
- Expectations vs. reality. While it’s tempting to believe that every abandoned cart is a lost sale waiting to be recovered, that’s not always the case. Some visitors will browse with no intention to buy.
- You’re overcompensating for the loss. Bombarding users with too many emails and texts can end up annoying them to the point where they decide never to buy from you again.
- You’re ignoring the root problem. If there’s a fundamental issue with your product, pricing, or website, simply nudging users to complete their purchase might not be enough.
- The timing is just off. If your reminders or incentives arrive too late, the customer may have already lost interest or found an alternative. Conversely, acting too soon can seem pushy.
- They don’t trust you. A user may abandon their cart due to security concerns. If your site doesn’t appear trustworthy (i.e., it’s full of reviews and credible press) or lacks essential and clear policies… your efforts might go to waste.
To sum up
While abandoned cart recovery strategies are vital, they aren’t a magic bullet.
And if they don’t work, it could be a sign you have deeper issues to fix.
