Abandoned carts are one of the worst nightmares for any online retailer. Attracting potential customers to your site, having them select their desired items, add them to the cart, only to have it all abandoned at the last step is a complete loss. In the world of online shopping, shopping cart abandonment is not that surprising. Many customers change their minds when they see the final price and opt to withdraw instead of completing the purchase. Unlike offline stores where customers can be personally catered and nudged to make a purchase, online retailers have to employ other strategies to ensure a lower rate of cart abandonment. Getting customers to your online store, in itself is a difficult process, so you surely don’t want to lose them at the checkout process.


What is shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment refers to the process when customers add items to their shopping cart but leave before finishing their purchase. Cart abandonment rate is an important metric for business owners to consider, as it directly correlates to sales figures and conversion rates. 

However, not all hope is lost. There are plenty of strategies that you can employ to increase the usability of the site with regards to the site design, product presentation, UI/UX, content, and communication with customers. All of these aspects determine the overall customer experience and have a huge role in consumers finally completing the purchase. 

Using a combination of strategies can help in significantly reducing the rate of shopping cart abandonment. Read to know the tactics that you can employ for your store:

1. Keep the payment process seamless

The payment experience of any eCommerce store should be simple, non-cluttered, fast, and easy. Keeping too many elements on the payment page may deter consumers from buying the products. For existing users, auto-complete details like shipping address, and show them their preferred payment method on top of the page to reduce hassle. Also, ensure that you have trustworthy payment gateway software. Consumers are wary of sharing their details online, which is why it is essential to integrate the top payment gateways to your store. Also, provide more than one payment option like Credit/Debit cards, Paypal, Amazon Pay, etc. Focus on a simplified process that is smart and saves the time of consumers and requires minimum steps.


2. Keep the quality of product images high
Unlike offline stores where consumers can view and judge the product, online stores they just rely on the available product images to make their decision. Therefore, high-resolution photos showing the product from all possible angles go a long way in boosting revenue. Use a good camera to take sharp images against a plain background. You can also use product videos to provide a more holistic approach. It might not be possible for all products, but try having some product videos especially for more expensive products. 
3. Offer Discounts and Sale
The highest conversion in eCommerce sites can be observed during Sale Season or when products are available at discounted prices. eCommerce giants like Amazon have periodic sale seasons corresponding with the holiday season of that particular area. Similarly, you can introduce lucrative offers and promotional methods during Thanksgiving or Christmas. Understand your customers’ shopping habits and give them a special sale day to improve your revenues. People will be more compelled to buy once they see their favorite items on sale. Many customers even put off buying till the holiday season, so that is something that you can definitely leverage to your advantage. With this method, you can even convert buyers who were on the fence till now. 
Average shopping cart abandonment rates for checkout pages are as high as 87%, and this rises on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays – as high as almost 90%.

4. Offer free shipping options
Paying extra shipping costs is very annoying for consumers and often acts as a deterrent to completing the purchase. While some merchants offer unconditional free shipping while with others, customers have to purchase items of a certain value to qualify for free shipping. With stores like Amazon Prime offering free shipping and one-day delivery options, people are more likely to abandon their shopping carts. If it’s not feasible to provide free shipping options, then have a minimum or nominal amount that shoppers must pay as shipping charges. 
5. Work on your CTAs
The product copy on your website should be compelling and simple. Do not use too many industry jargons that put readers off or is too complicated to comprehend. It is important to have compelling Call to Actions throughout the website, which tells customers what exactly to do. Don’t try to be too cheeky or clever with the CTA buttons, instead use active voice and simple phrases. Use intelligent designs and insightful phrases to drive the message. Keep the messaging consistent throughout your CTAs, right through to your checkout process.
6. Leverage remarketing ads
Remarketing ads are the way to go to lure back customers to your site who were browsing the product but for one reason or the other didn’t complete the purchase. Remarketing campaigns are designed to display ads to potential customers who visited your site or used your mobile app. These ads appear on Facebook or other social media sites and websites that the customers browse later. It further compels them on visiting your site to complete the order. You can also show them that the products are now available at discounted rates to further attract consumers. 
7. Make navigation effortless
Provide consumers with a smooth, streamlined checkout process and make the navigation effortless. The easier you make it for customers to reach the cart from browsing products at your store, the more likely they are to stick with it and actually check out. The web design should be smooth and discourage users from clicking the back button once on the checkout page. Make it easy for customers to save products to their carts, and later return to – their carts-in-progress, and help them to navigate your site by offering intuitive navigation options between your checkout and product pages. This will ease the process and make it more compelling and smooth for the buyers to complete their journey causing minimum hassle. 
Alongside this, you can include pop-ups whenever a customer is leaving the site without completing the purchase. Send promotional emails to existing users to buy the products on their cart and notify them whenever there’s a sale or offer. Personalize these messages to gain the maximum momentum from these promotions. Additionally, you can include a progress bar to the checkout process, which indicates the progress of each step until the final checkout. Also, use simple language and put up well-drafted product descriptions. Photos can sometimes be misleading, so having a clear product description helps. Clearly communicate the expected delivery dates and offer live chat services with dedicated representatives. Optimize your page loading speed and ensure that it is seamless and as fast as possible. According to Visual Website Optimizer, eCommerce shopping cart conversion rates drop 7% for every one-second delay in your page loading.
Reducing the shopping cart abandonment rate is something that every eCommerce site aims for and is difficult to achieve. Less number of people abandoning carts by completing the purchase would mean higher revenue and better sales figures. Though every eCommerce store is different, a combination of all the above-listed strategies can surely go a long way in ensuring that the shopping cart abandonment rate of your store remains less and you achieve higher ROI. 
If you think it is challenging to set up an eCommerce store all by yourself, then we are here to assist you. Citytech Software has extensive experience when it comes to developing an eCommerce store for online vendors. Having worked on technologies like Magento, Kentico, OpenCart, nopCommerce, etc, Citytech has helped numerous companies become scalable and profitable by developing their online stores from scratch. To get started, contact us today, we are just a click away: https://www.citytechcorp.com/company/contact-us/