While e-commerce is quickly replacing brick-and-mortar stores in terms of customer patronage, it is still facing a rather significant challenge: abandonment rate. A cart abandonment rate refers to the percentage of the items dragged to the online cart but ended up being abandoned by would-be customers. It seems that e-commerce stores and digital shops still have to find the answer to convert online shoppers into loyal customers.
According to Statistica, the airline industry has the highest cart abandonment rate, which is 87.8%. It is followed by the travel and finance sectors, with 81.3% and 78%, respectively. The retail segment, meanwhile, has a checkout abandonment rate of 75.6%.
Calculating the cart abandonment rate is quite simple: you have to divide the number of shopping carts created by the total number of completed transactions. After that, you subtract the result from 1 and multiply by 100.
For instance, you have 100 completed purchases, and 200 shopping carts created. To compute:
1 – (100/200) x 100 = 49.4%
Consider yourself lucky if your cart abandonment rate is less than 50%. You are probably better compared to 95% of the online industries.
While online stores offer convenience, unlike physical stores, it cannot replicate the experience of touching the item and checking it thoroughly. It is one way to reduce the risk of customers not completing the purchase.
Here are some ways you can convert online shoppers into your loyal customers, and reduce the abandonment rate, as a result:
1. A follow-up email – Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools exploited by digital marketers. Email has the potential to bring in 44 USD for each dollar you spend. The message is as important as the time at which you send your email. You need to include special offers, brand messages, useful tips, testimonies, entertaining content, and new promotions or products.
2. Enhanced user experience – One of the reasons for the high abandonment rate is the difficulty of the checkout process. If you have a new visitor to the site, you want to make sure he immediately finds the item he is looking for. Promo offers should be placed at a prominent location so that customers can click on them. The local search engine box should also be visible. Your website should also suggest more items based on the purchase they made. Make sure your visitors also see the ‘add to cart’ button.
3. Optimize your website – This tip is related to the second point. You need to optimize your website, especially for mobile users. For instance, did you know that mobile users have the highest cart abandonment rate? The desktop, on average, has a 73.1% abandonment rate. The percentage shoots up to 85.6% for mobile.
4. Track the customer journey – The customer journey has five stages. They are awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy. The digital store should touch on the different points of the customer journey to increase the success of the purchase.
Of course, these are not easy fixes. But the vital part is to monitor the checkout rates and the items on the cart. The more information you collect, the more accurate your analytics results would be. You can then proceed to formulate strategies to encourage your customers to complete their cart purchases.