Cart abandonment is the bane of ecommerce businesses the world over. A potential customer came, they shopped, they even went so far as putting stuff in their cart and then they ghosted you. Poof, they’re gone and they didn’t even leave a breakup note as to why they left. All you know is that you’re left holding the bag, literally.
So what gives? Why do people abandon their carts and what can you do to get them to buy?
First off, there will always be people that abandon their carts no matter what you do. The goal is to try and reduce that number as much as possible. There are few basics to keep in mind. Many of the 35 tips fall under some of these basics.
The Basics of Reducing Cart Abandonment
Trust – Before a customer will make a purchase they have to know that they can trust you. They need to know that you’re not going to steal their credit card information let alone whether or not their purchase will actually show up at their door. Basically customers want to know that you’re not a scam.
Navigation – Another key basic to reducing cart abandonment is having a website that is easy to navigate. Navigation can make a huge difference in your shopping experience. Unlike shopping in a brick and mortar store there’s no sales associate to ask for help when you can’t find what you’re looking for.
On-Site Messaging – Your on-site messaging is crucial when trying to get customers to buy instead of abandon. Make your top offers clear. You don’t want to overwhelm your customers with too many offers or create offers that are confusing either. Again, keep it clean and clear.
Simple – Keep the checkout process simple. If you’ve got your potential new customer this far in the process you don’t want to scare them off by presenting them with a checkout process that asks too much. Too many steps and too many requirements (like creating an account) can be really off putting.
35 Ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment
1. SSL Certificate
One of the biggest ways to increase customer trust is by having an SSL certificate. Most online shoppers now know to look for the little lock and the https in the URL. If you don’t have that it raises the risk of putting personal information in danger. It also makes you look sketchy as well. All credible ecommerce websites should have an SSL certificate. It’s good for your SEO too.
2. Free Shipping
In the world of big box ecommerce websites like Amazon have normalized free shipping. People practically expect it. They don’t like getting surprised by extra fees and shipping costs. If you can, build the price of shipping into the price of the product so you can offer free shipping. Alternatively you can offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount, this will also help to raise your average order value (AOV).
3. Abandoned Cart Emails
If you aren’t sending abandoned cart emails already, you’re leaving money on the table. Sometimes people have a reason for abandoning their cart but sometimes they just get distracted and forget. Sending a little reminder to them that their cart is still waiting might be the nudge they need to purchase. Check out this awesome example from Doggyloot!
4. Simplify Checkout
We mentioned this already but it’s worth mentioning again. Simplify your checkout process! The simpler the better. If you can keep it all in one page, that’s best. You avoid running into loading times and page timeouts. You can’t assume your customer has good internet so keeping it simple is best.
5. Personal Outreach
While a cart abandonment email is good, personal outreach is even better. Personal outreach can teach you way more about why people are abandoning carts on your site because you can ask them why. You can even offer an assistance as well if they’re confused about the site or products.
6. Identify Funnel Leaks
Speaking of getting confused by the site, a great way to find out if your site is confusing to customers is to look for funnel leaks. A quick look at Google Analytics will show you where people are getting lost or dropping off. You can find the goal flow report by navigating to Conversion » Goals » Goal Flow.
7. Remarketing Ads
If you don’t have the email of the cart abandoner, remarketing ads are the next best thing to cart abandonment emails. Some people call these stalker ads but they can be just the right nudge to buy. By pixeling the visitor you can advertise to them wherever they go whether that’s Facebook ads or ads on the sidebar of their favorite website.
8. Simplify Navigation
Another way to keep the experience simple is to simplify the navigation. You want to make it easy for people to find what they’re looking for without getting overwhelmed or lost. For example, Ikea is a huge store but there’s only one path for customers to take. Sure there are a couple detours that you can take but for the most part everyone takes one path.
9. Limit Available Choices
Research shows that giving people too many choices can make them less likely to make a decision. It’s a classic case of analysis paralysis. While launching a new product is often a great way to grab customers attention too many options is a bad thing. Try testing out a smaller product offering to see how that affects your cart abandonment and conversion rates.
10. Product Pictures
While having too many options is a bad thing having many high-quality images is a very good thing. Customers can’t touch, feel and examine products online like they would in person so they need pictures to help them make their decision. Make sure to include pictures of many angles. Pictures that “stage” the product are also useful to give context as well.
11. On-Site Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are just one way to show social proof and build trust with customers. Allowing on page customer reviews is very useful so that customers don’t have to go off-site to see what others think of your products. Keep in mind that allowing all reviews and not just five-star reviews also adds to your credibility. People want to know the good and the bad when making a choice.
12. Exit Pop-Ups
Exit pop-ups are basically a last ditch effort to get someone to stay or continue getting to know each other. You don’t necessarily have to offer them a discount or an incentive to purchase instead you could offer them something of value that will allow you to continue to build that relationship. Ebooks and guides are a great way to do this.
13. Keep Cart Visible
Make sure the cart icon is visible and accessible at all times. There’s nothing more annoying than wanting to quickly review your cart and being able to figure out how to get there. Because it’s so common people expect it at this point and if you don’t you could be making the purchase process more difficult than it needs to be.
14. Fast Check Out
Some ecommerce websites have created a one-click checkout process that can be performed on the product page. It’s all about making the purchase process as simple and convenient as possible. Creating a fast checkout eliminates clicks and steps that can prevent customers from completing their purchase.
15. Make Contacting You Easy
Contacting cart abandoners is important but allowing them to contact you is equally important. Again, customers in a brick and mortar store can walk around until they find a store associate, if they have to work too hard to find help they’re more likely to walk out. Same thing goes for ecommerce, if customers have to work too hard to get hellp or an answer they’re going to walk. Setting up a chatbot that can respond 24/7 is a great way to be there for your customers.
16. Save the Cart
Many people fill up their cart and leave it only to come back to it later on. Maybe they’re still thinking about it or maybe they’re shopping around either way they want their cart to still be there when they come back. So be sure to keep carts saved in order to allow customers to do just that.
17. Security Badges
Security badges are just another great way to establish trust. Not only do you have an SSL certificate you’re also verified by a third party that also says you’re trustworthy. The most trusted badge is Norton with 40.9% of people saying they trust it the most, followed by Google and the BBB.
18. Variety of Payment Options
While too many options during the shopping experience can slow people down and cause them to be indecisive offering lots of payment options is a good thing. You don’t want to turn someone away with wallet in hand because you don’t accept their form of payment. Accepting all major credit cards is pretty much a must. There are also other payment options that are becoming increasingly popular such as Amazon Pay and PayPal too. These can be great quick pay options that will increase both trust and simplicity.
19. Show Scarcity
Trying to increase conversion and decrease cart abandonment involves putting some pressure on the buying process. Nobody wants to feel like they’re getting the hard sell from a used car salesman but pressure is a good thing. You can do this by demonstrating scarcity. Show the options that are sold out, show how many sold recently. This will add some pressure to the buying process by simply demonstrating the demand. If a customer is afraid of missing out they’ll pull the trigger faster.
20. Create Time Crunch
In addition to scarcity put customers under a time limit. If a sale is only a limited time offer, make sure to tell them. If you only tell them the offer and not the time frame they won’t feel the pressure or need to buy then and there because they might think they have all the time in the world.
21. Progress Indicator at Checkout
Your checkout process should be simple it should also be very transparent. Let your customers see how many steps are in the process and let see where they are in that process. I really like checkouts where there are multiple tabs on one page so I can see which step I’m on. You could also consider just having a “loading” bar at the top to show them where they are and how much they have left to complete the transaction.
22. Strong Call to Action
Also include good strong calls to action. Recently I’ve used shopping carts where I didn’t know where to click in order to checkout. I was so confused and unsure where I was supposed to go next. Including strong calls to action makes it clear to your customer what their next step in the process is. Confusion is bad when you’re trying to convince someone to make a purchase.
23. Money Back Guarantee
This is just another way to build trust with a customer. If you have enough confidence in your product to give a money back guarantee there’s no reason not to buy. With a money back guarantee a customer has the confidence to make a purchase even if they’re not 100% convinced because they no there’s no risk. Getting a customer to make that first purchase and try your product is the biggest obstacle and giving a money back guarantee makes that process painless.
24. Optimize Page Load Time
We know that page load time matters but when was the last time that you checked your page load times? If your website takes longer than three seconds to load you could be losing nearly half of your visitors. That’s a lot of people that you could be losing if your page load times aren’t up to scratch. You can use tools like Pingdom to check page load times.
25. Entrance Pop
An entrance pop is a great way of being proactive. Instead of trying to get someone back to their cart or stopping them before they leave your site, give them a reason to stay, shop and buy. Entrance pop-ups for new customers are becoming more and more popular with offers like free shipping or 10% off their first purchase. Test out offers to see which one works best. You could even try offering a free gift instead of a percent off.
26. Sell Good Products
There are so many reasons to sell a good, high-quality products. It’s hard to build long-term success with cheap, sub-par products. Chances are if you sell cheap products potential customers are going to figure it out. They’ll see it in your pictures and your reviews. If you want to eliminate reasons for people to abandon their cart, sell good products.
27. Understand Your Customers
Understanding your customers is essential for effective marketing. It’s also important in understanding why people are abandoning their carts on your site. Are people using their carts like a wishlist/favorites list? Is there a problem with your checkout process? Is your competitor beating you on price and stealing your customers? When you understand your customers you can create a better game plan for addressing cart abandonment.
28. Highlight Offers and Sales
Highlight your top offers. If you have a sale going on, you want that to be clear. If it requires a coupon code make that coupon code easy to access. Include a banner on the landing page and a banner at the top of every page that reminds people of the offer not matter what page they land on. Sumo is a great tool for this because they make it easy to create pop ups and smart bars.
29. Minimize Distractions
Your brand might have a lot going on at the moment but your website shouldn’t. While you want to tell everyone about everything your brand is doing that’s just going to distract and overwhelm them. If they just came to buy one product but then you tell them about your product bundle and community and new program and sale and subscription option and, and, and… you get the picture. Remember Ikea, less is more. Play around which path works best with which customer that way you can set a customer on the right path without having to give them every offer and option.
30. Good Off-Site Reviews
Lastly, while it’s important to have good on-site reviews it’s also important to have off-site reviews too. Many consumers research in multiple places before making a purchase. Working with influencers to have them test and review your product is a great way to drive people to your site. That review is also now a resource that people on your site can refer to and feel reassured about their decision.
31. Guest Checkout
As we’ve mentioned many times already, making the checkout process simple and easy is very important. Not everyone will want to create an account, so don’t force them to! Providing a guest checkout option might be the difference between making or losing a sale. You can always A/B test this option for conversion rate and customer retention if you’re not 100% sold on the idea.
32. Thumbnail Product Images in Checkout
Sometimes when people go shopping online they throw everything in their cart that catches their eye and sort it out at checkout (guilty!). Or their shopping experience is split up across hours or days. Including small thumbnail images of the items in the shopping cart is a great way to quickly remind people what they’ve added.
33. Clear & Flexible Return Policy
Not only should you have a clear and obvious money-back guarantee you should also make your return policy and process clear and flexible. Again no one wants to be stuck with a product they don’t like. Don’t make someone regret making a purchase that they have to return. There are many people who have converted to a brand for life thanks to an easy returns process.
34. Easily Accessible FAQs
Include FAQs on every product page so that customers can have their questions answered without even having to leave the page or chat with a customer service rep/bot. If you can keep someone on the purchase path with no detours they will be more likely to complete the transaction than if they get distracted looking for the answers to their questions. The worst possible scenario would be for them to leave your site in order to find answers.
35. Make It Pretty
Last but definitely not least, make it pretty! People are more likely to trust pretty, modern looking websites as opposed to a cheap-looking, outdated one. You might think that hiring a web designer is too expensive but having an ugly website can cost you more with lost sales. A pretty website reflects well on your brand and business overall and is more likely to convert customers and keep them coming back for more.
The Takeaway
There are a lot of ways to reduce cart abandonment. There are 35 on this list alone! You don’t have to do all of them at once. In fact you shouldn’t. Start with the basics first. Do a review of your site with trust, navigation, on-site messaging and simplicity in mind. How does your site measure up to these areas?
After you do an evaluation pick a few of these tips to implement to begin your abandoned cart crusade!
Make sure your customers have an amazing post purchase experience to keep them coming back: get your order fulfillment on point!