Cart Abandonment: What Is It and Why You Need to Fix It

With the answers to these questions, you will then implement relevant and effective tactics to fix cart abandonment.

5 Ways to reduce cart abandonment

Your store’s cart abandonment issues represent a unique opportunity to boost your profit margins easily, as doing so will increase your sales volume and conversion rate with your existing, hard-earned traffic.

According to the Baymard Institute, a “large-sized e-commerce site can gain a 35.26% increase in conversion rate through better checkout design.”

Based on their estimations, this increase translates to “$260 billion worth of lost orders which are recoverable solely through a better checkout flow & design.”

Regardless of the exact increase in conversion rates, fixing your cart abandonment will be a highly profitable operation. Here are five tactics you can use to do so.

1. Nudge your visitors before exiting

Occam’s Razor claims that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Following this logic, the cause of your cart abandonment could be that your visitors forget they added a product to cart.

In this case, exit-intent popups triggered by an abandoned cart will remind your visitors of their cart before they leave your store. With the help of Getsitecontrol, you can show popups, floating bars, and slide-ins to deliver your message without ruining the user experience.

Notice that this example doesn’t just give a subtle reminder about purchasing the selected item – it also invites a customer to leave their email address, which means you’ll be able to reach them later in their inbox.

2. Offer discounts or free shipping

As the Baymard Institute shows, higher-than-expected costs — taxes, shipping — partially explain cart abandonment. If you can’t but charge your visitors for their shipping, or if there are any fees or taxes you can’t avoid charging, offer them a discount.

While the discount may affect your profit margins, the increase in conversion rate, and possibly average order value, will override the issue. Some discount types you could offer include:

• Voucher — e.g., “Get $10 off.”
• Free shipping
• BOGO — “Buy one get one free.”
• Initial purchase discount — e.g., “Get 10% off your first purchase.”

Analyze the effects your discounts will have on your finances before deciding on one, and ideally, A/B test them. While the financial impact may be the same between a 10% discount and a voucher, the way your visitors perceive them won’t.

To make the discount even more exciting and boost your sales further, consider using countdown timers and stock scarcity — e.g., “5 units left” — when presenting the offer.

3. Decrease FUDs (Fear, Uncertainties, and Doubts)

Your visitors have dozens of reasons why they shouldn’t trust your store, some that arise from the mere act of purchasing online, and some that your store causes them.

Take credit card frauds. According to a SmartMetric 2018 report, worldwide payment card fraud caused $24.26 billion in losses.

To lower their fears of getting their financial information stolen, use the latest security protocols, like the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocols. These protocols are a trust signal that shows your store is secure and poses no threat to your customers’ safety.

Also, offer multi-factor authentication methods (MFA), like the 2-factor authentication (2FA) or 2-step verification (2SV) methods. These methods require the user to verify their identity after submitting their passwords, lowering the chances of getting their accounts hacked and stolen.

What’s more, force your visitors to use strong, unique passwords. According to Verizon, weak passwords cause 81% of cyber attacks worldwide.

Finally, ask for the most essential shopping-related information you need, like the buyer's name and email address. You can ask for other information, like their age and gender, afterward.

4. Lower purchase friction

When you think about a customer purchase, think of it as a painful process for them. This may not be actually true, but imagining it this way will force you to make your shopping experience as flawless and painless as possible.

Once a visitor adds a product to cart, everything should be easy for them to buy. It should be too easy, in fact.

According to the Baynard Institute’s survey, 26% of respondents abandon their shopping cart if they are forced to create an account.

We could mention many benefits around having a visitor creating an account, but most of these benefits pale in comparison to your revenue. Let your visitors buy as guests, and you will see your conversion rates and sales volume skyrocket.

Another important aspect is to have not more than six pages in your checkout process. This suggestion comes from a study by the Baymard Institute that found the average checkout flow for a new user is 5.1 steps long—which includes the shopping cart step all the way up to the order review step.

Also, let people pay with different payment methods. The most popular ones in North America and Europe are credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets.

Regarding your credit and debit card options, Internet Retailer's research shows that, at the minimum, your store should accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.

On the other hand, the most popular mobile payment options to offer are Apple Pay, PayPal, and Amazon Pay.

5. Add social proof

People like following other people. We want to believe that other people’s behavior is an indicator of the correct behavior to follow, a process known as “social proof.” That means, show your visitors what other visitors have done, and they will be more likely to imitate them — which includes making a purchase.

To influence your customer’s love for social proof, add customer reviews to your product pages.

The Nielsen Group found 83% of consumers trust reviews over advertising, while research by PowerReviews found 97% of consumers look at reviews before purchasing.

You can add customer reviews with plugins like Yotpo and PowerReviews. To get those customer reviews, create an automated post-purchase evaluation email marketing campaign asking your customers to leave a review a few weeks after purchase.

Also, show your visitors what products other customers are buying. Tools like Proof and Nudgify allow you to do that and might influence your visitors to pick the right product for them.

It’s time to fix your cart abandonment

Cart abandonment is an expensive and unnecessary problem most ecommerce store owners face. Since all of the causes that lead to cart abandonment appear after the visitor decides to add a product to cart, you can easily avoid these problems.

Start by researching your visitors with the help of customer feedback forms. With the data you get, optimize your shopping experience accordingly using any of the tactics shared above.

Sooner or later, your cart abandonment rate will plummet, and your conversion rates will increase.