Ten Simple Tricks to Reduce Abandoned Shopping Carts

In the past decade, E-commerce has spread its web across the globe. It has openly met the challenge of skeptics who believed that this form of trade would not catch on with the general populace.

Little did they know that the convenience of home shopping would far outweigh the drawbacks of this newest way of shopping.

While companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Jabong and many more are currently reaping the rewards of this glorious age of E-commerce, many upcoming E-commerce carts still have a long way to go.

The untapped potential for abandoned carts

One of the biggest challenges that most E-commerce websites (whether big or small) face is their increasing rate of abandoned carts.

It was noted in the year 2013 that almost 67.91% of shopping carts of all E-commerce companies are abandoned. That is a huge potential clientele that these websites are losing out on.

Here is a bag of amazing tricks that will help you bring these numbers down and optimize your site for your beloved customers.

Trick Number 1: Eliminate the Re-entry of address details

The opportunities for abandoned shopping carts increases as the number of steps in the sales funnel increase.

Online customers are fickle when it comes to buying online. They might fall in love with a product at first sight and lose interest by the time they are done filling in the payment details.

It will be best for you and your customer’s interest if you store their abandoned carts as well as addresses.

By giving them an option to use their regular address, you save them the trouble of re-entering the details and give them a personalized shopping experience.

Trick Number 2: Email retargeting

Most customers abandon their shopping carts at the very last moments of making the purchase. This may be due to many reasons. Either they have lost interest in the product or the product is currently not in their budget.

Sending them regular reminders about their carts can help you optimize your conversions. Email remarketing is a great way to remind your customers about the product they want to buy. So that when they do have the cash to buy it they haven’t forgotten about the product.

Trick Number 3: Retarget Customers with Discounts

Most customers leave their carts after realizing that the product that they are planning to buy is out of their budget.  While a little window shopping on your site might not hurt them, but it certainly hurts your business.

No one wants to run an E-commerce store that is cluttered with abandoned shopping carts. What you need to know is that your customers are suckers for discounts. And if you feel that you are losing a potential sale, then you can offer them discounts on the products that they want to buy; this will significantly reduce their chances of abandoning the cart.

Trick Number 4: Give your customers alternatives

All internet customers are the victims of a short-term interest span. They might love a product for one second and find it completely repellant the other. In these cases, you can show them a list of alternative products below their cart that they might buy instead of the ones that they have just abandoned.

This snapshot below is a fine example of how Amazon store shows its customers other product suggestions so that they buy another product if they lose interest in the one they had selected.

 products suggestions 3

Trick Number 5: Make your site trustworthy

While sites like Flipkart and Jabong have already created a level of trust in their customers, but new E-commerce sites have a long way to go to build a level of trust in their customers. You need to post your SSL certificates, Norton Security seals and the seal of your Payment Gateways in places of visibility to assure them that they have entered a place where all their transactions will be kept confidential.

Here are some seals that can be beneficial for building trust among your customers.

security seals

Trick Number 6: Keep Prices Transparent

Customers absolutely hate being overcharged and deceived. You will have better chances of making sales if you keep the price of your products inclusive of taxes.

They are more likely to buy an expensive product rather than buy a cheap product and then reach the cart and realize that the taxes haven’t yet been added.

It would also be in your best interests if you tell them about your shipping rates early in the buying cycle.

Online businesses can take their cue Amazon and how it built its reputation with honest prices as well as discounts.

Trick Number 7: Have multiple payment options

Limited payment options limit your clientele. Many customers still don’t trust Ecommerce stores and prefer cash on delivery payment options. And a lot of customers prefer to pay in installments.  If you are running an E-commerce store, then you need to have a variety of payment options so that users can pick an option that they are comfortable with.

Flipkart’s awesome checkout process covers every kind of payment option present for customers online.

different payment methods

Trick Number 8: Save Cart Details for Customers

Saving your customers’ cart details can go a long way in reducing the percentage of cart abandonment. When a customer revisits your site and surfs on it and gets redirected to their abandoned cart, there is a 30% probability of them completing the buying cycle.

Trick Number 9: Communicate your Return Policy

Customers have faith in websites that are upfront about their return policy. It shows the confidence in the quality of their products. If you show your return policy which gives customers a long enough time to check out the product, then customers will be more likely to make the purchase.

Trick Number 10: Make it easy for your customers to get in touch with you

Doubtful customers are the first ones to instantly abandon a cart.

A live chat system or a reliable customer service is just the thing that will help you deal with doubtful customers.  You need to put these options in reliable positions on your site where customers will be more likely to use it to get in touch with you.

Lenskart has a fairly intuitive system when it comes to getting in touch with their helpline. Users can email, call or even have a live chat with them based on their chosen method of communication.

contact details

Here is a snapshot of their live chat option.

 live chat

By incorporating these functionalities in your web store you can improve your sales up to 10% and that is a huge number for online businesses.

So, what are you waiting for? If you haven’t used any of these tricks on your cart, then start using them now.