Abandoned carts happen for a number of reasons: unanticipated costs added at checkout, slow page loading, or simply that we just needed a break from scrolling through the many pages of items. This can push away the customer and end up providing potential revenue to a competitor.
But what if you could secure those abandoned carts? That’s where abandoned cart recovery comes in. With some strategic adjustments and tweaks to your process, it is possible to convert that otherwise lost sale into a completed purchase.
In this article, we’ll go over various points and factors that can aid your abandoned cart recovery in a competitive market. Through well-timed emails, targeted promotions, and personalization through retargeting campaigns, you’ll have the tools to become an expert in abandoned cart recovery.
E-Commerce Basics: What Is an Abandoned Cart?
If you’re serious about beat the competition in the e-commerce game, one of the tools in your arsenal should be understanding abandoned cart recovery. But what exactly is an abandoned cart?
Simply put, an abandoned cart is any digital shopping cart that was created by a potential customer, however, for one reason or another, the customer did not take it to completion and never completed the checkout process. Abandoned carts can result from customers getting interrupted during their shopping experience or simply losing interest before completing their purchase.
What’s important to note is that shopping carts don’t necessarily become “abandoned” once they are created, they can be recovered and converted into actual purchases. That’s why understanding how and when to implement a successful abandoned cart recovery strategy is key for e-commerce businesses!
The Different Types of Abandoned Carts
When it comes to abandoned carts, there are two main types: transactional and emotionally abandoned carts. Transactional carts are abandoned when customers run into technical problems, such as slow loading times or payment gateways that don’t work. To prevent these, make sure you’re using a reliable system with a fast loading time and secure payment processing options.
On the other hand, emotional carts are more difficult to predict and recover. These happen when customers change their minds at the last step of checkout and decide they want to abandon their cart.
To recover these, try engaging customers with personalized content such as discount codes or abandoned cart emails. You can also increase customer loyalty by offering rewards points for purchases. This way, you can encourage customers to come back and complete their purchase without feeling like they’re missing out on a special deal.
Let us go through a few crucial points to understand in order to establish a better cart recovery process than your competitors.
Point 1: Analyze Your Customers’ Shopping Behavior
Do you wish to outperform your competition in abandoned cart recovery? Understanding your clients’ purchasing habits is the solution. You may acquire insights into how people purchase and how to regain potential customers by researching their purchasing behavior.
Here are some tips to get you started:
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Look at Shipping Preferences
Check if customers prefer standard deliveries, expedited shipping, or express shipping. This can help you make decisions on which delivery option should be made available for them and shape their decisions on whether or not to complete the purchase.
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Examine Payment Methods
Examine your consumers’ payment methods; are they more likely to use credit cards, debit cards, cash on delivery, or digital wallets? Are there any new payment preferences that may be of interest? This information helps you modify your payment methods and provide customers with more choices.
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Track Engagement Across Platforms
Monitoring how customers engage with your sales channels is important too, do they prefer shopping online, visiting a physical store, or both? Knowing this will help inform your marketing strategies and optimize the customer experience. You could also create a loyalty program that’ll reward customers for spending on different platforms.
Analyzing customer trends and behaviors will give you the data insights you need to tailor messages and offers that’ll make it easier for them to complete their purchases. Doing so builds trust with customers over time and helps recover lost sales opportunities in the long run.
Point 2: Get the Timing Right When You Send Abandoned Cart Emails
Getting the timing right is just as important as getting the content right when it comes to abandoned cart recovery. You want your reminder emails to be timely, so the customer can easily get back to the product they were interested in, without too much hassle.
Here are a few tips on getting the timing of your abandoned cart emails just right:
- Send an email one hour after abandonment: If a customer has left something in their cart but hasn’t completed their purchase, send a friendly reminder email within an hour of abandonment is best practice. This will be an immediate reminder about what they have left behind for them to consider before forgetting about it or switching to a competitor..
- Send a reminder after 24 hours: After that initial email, you’ll want to send a gentle reminder reminding them that their items are still waiting in their carts. This way, you don’t bombard them with emails but still stay top-of-mind and increase the chances of following through on their checkout process.
- Re-engage customers one week later: For customers who remain unresponsive after previous reminders following abandonment, consider sending a re-engagement email one week later. This will remind them again of what they have left behind, and entice them with discounts or promotions.
Point 3: Personalize the Process of Drafting Your Abandoned Cart Emails
When it comes to crafting the perfect abandoned cart email, there are a few key points to keep in mind.
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Timing is Everything
In order to maximize your abandoned cart recovery, timing is absolutely everything. Most experts recommend that your abandoned cart emails should go out within 24 hours of the user exiting your site. This gives them enough time to consider their purchase without it being too late for them to act!
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Personalize Your Messaging
No one likes a generic, robotic message; tailor your messaging to the customer. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what resonates with you. Whether it’s providing customer reviews that other people have written or highlighting discounts they can take advantage of, personalization goes a long way when making an appeal.
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Use Automation
Using an automation platform can make sending abandoned cart reminders easier and more efficient. It’s also helpful for segmenting customers and crafting personal messages tailored specifically to each group. You can also set up sequences of emails with different subject lines, offers, and messaging, just be sure that you’re keeping track of how well each variation performs with your customers!
As a personal experience filled with wonderful reviews, the ELEX WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Recovery With Dynamic Coupons plugin is perfect for automating the abandoned cart recovery process on WooCommerce stores.
Point 4: Reduce Complicated Purchasing Processes & Checkout Times
No one likes a complicated purchase process! Your customers are tech-savvy and they want their shopping experience to be as smooth and fast as possible. The longer your checkout process, the more likely it is that they’ll abandon their cart.
To reduce the chances of abandoned carts, you should:
- Streamline checkout forms by cutting out unnecessary fields and not overloading customers with information.
- Reduce the number of steps in the checkout process as much as possible, while still collecting all the necessary information.
- Offer several payment options, so your customers can select the one that works best for them, for example, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Amazon Pay.
- Make sure your website is well-optimized to load quickly across all devices (smartphones, tablets, and desktops), so customers aren’t kept waiting while they shop online.
By reducing the complexity of your checkout process and optimizing it for quick loading times, you’re more likely to keep customers engaged until they make a purchase successfully, and help improve your abandoned cart recovery rates in the process!
Point 5: Optimize the Website Design for Mobile-Friendly Experiences
When it comes to abandoned cart recovery, ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile-friendly experiences is essential these days. According to research, over half of all online shoppers do so from their mobile devices, and those who shop via mobile are twice as likely to abandon their cart.
So, how can you make sure that your customer’s experience is optimized for mobile?
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Reduce page loading time
Long page loading time can turn customers away from completing their purchase as they simply don’t have the patience for a slow website. As such, make sure to reduce page loading time by streamlining images and other media to ensure faster loading times on your site.
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Make sure elements are easy to use
When it comes to navigating around your website on a mobile device, customer experience will be greatly improved if they can easily access items in your shop. Make sure that the layouts and design of the website are optimized for touchscreens and that checkboxes appear clickable for easy selection. Additionally, make sure that any text fields are large enough for customers to type in with ease.
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Edit the “Cart” page
In order to give customers more info about what’s in their cart without a clunky design, consider making use of product pages or interactive widgets which provide additional information such as estimated delivery dates or product variations without having to navigate away from the “Cart” page.
Conclusion
Recovering abandoned carts doesn’t have to be a daunting task! With the right strategies and tools in place, you can easily outsmart your competitors by offering more value and a better customer experience.
Maximize your abandoned cart recovery with timely follow-ups, personalization, coupons, and enticing offers. Doing so will not only help you drive more sales but also keep your customers loyal and engaged. With the ELEX plugin, a few tweaks, and the right approach, you can increase your sales substantially and outpace the competition.
