Future-Proofing Shopping Cart Abandonment

We all know that e-commerce companies face off against the issues of shopping cart abandonment more than they’d like. A big portion of shopping cart abandonment is part of typical consumer shopping habits. The visitor will be looking to compare prices, explore options for gifting or simply check out the latest products. However, with an average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate of about 69% – it’s likely that this is not all a ‘window shopping’ issue. (Baymard Institute)

Without understanding why customers abandon carts, it’s impossible to reduce it

Some of the more common triggers for cart abandonment include unexpected/hidden shipping costs, complicated checkout processes, no option for guest checkout, comparison shopping, preferred payment option wasn’t available and of course, a distraction occurred. Customers must also feel secure within the site and low quality images, unresponsive pages or broken links can cause a loss of trust in both your brand and your customer’s purchasing decisions.
A visitor’s choice to add a product to their cart doesn’t necessarily indicate an intention to immediately buy. Moving through to checkout can be their way of assessing the overall cost to then be compared with other retailers’ prices. Comparison shopping is typical of users to understand how competitively priced an item is which can lead to that potential customer leaving their carted item and making their purchase elsewhere.
Finally, distractions can be a major problem when it comes to e-commerce purchases.
With numerous ads, notifications and emails constantly battling for the consumer’s attention, it’s also easy for a customer to get distracted and potentially put off purchasing what they have already added to their cart. Badly designed calls-to-action (CTA’s), long-winded form fields, and confusing messaging can also lead customers away from completing their intended purchases. Luckily, there is an easy 3 step formula that can help you offer the best experience for your customers.

Segmentation, Personalisation and Conversion…oh my!

It’s no secret that consumers are quickly adapting to a life online and that the average e-commerce spend per customer increases every year. It is estimated that by 2040, about 95% of purchases will be facilitated by e-commerce with 77% of UK adults having bought goods or services online. This means that if cart abandonment issues aren’t met with innovative solutions, the e-commerce landscape will get more competitive.
It also means that the AOV will likely increase for those with a solid abandon cart retention plan. According to Barclaycard, British shoppers abandon online baskets worth almost £30 a month, potentially resulting in more than £18bn in lost sales every year.
So what do you need in order to create a reduction in shopping cart abandonment?

Step 1: Segmentation

The more you understand through Segmentation, the more accurately you can gauge who your abandoners are, the pain points that influenced their actions, and how you can reduce shopping cart abandonment in the future. If you have the opportunity to understand user behaviours, product performance and trends within real-time; you can avoid unnecessary cart abandonment. There is also no better time to segment users than in real time – based on their actual behaviour.

Step 2: Personalisation

Marketing superstar Seth Godin famously said “Personalisation wasn’t supposed to be a cleverly veiled way to chase prospects around the web, showing them the same spammy ad for the same lame stuff as everyone else sees. No, it is a chance to differentiate at a human scale, to use behavior as the most important clue about what people want and more importantly, what they need.”
Personalised product recommendations, push notifications and email campaigns are fantastic ways to connect with your customers but must be done in the best interest of your audience. Successful e-commerce companies understand there is no approach more effective to making customers feel significant than online personalisation.
Christys’ London uses personalisation to share relevant product recommendations with their customers. Joseph Turner utilised personalisation to reach a 30% AOV increase in two months. Future-facing e-commerce companies can already see the immense value in segmentation and personalisation which is leading to conversion. Approximately 90% of consumers say that they are positively influenced by e-commerce personalisation and here are some concrete examples as to why.   

• If your customer seems flustered by shipping costs, offering them an additional 10% off at the moment of frustration (i.e. in real-time) to finish their purchase helps to renew trust and provide a potential for further sales.
• You have the option to surprise your customers with new arrivals, price drops or back in stock notifications for items they’ve already shown interest in to promote a purchase.
• Using ‘frequently bought together’ or ‘recommended products for you’ to pilot purchasing decisions, decrease distractions and provide a more personal experience.

According to The Guardian, it is expected that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. With personalisation at the forefront of e-commerce technology, Gartner predicts that personalisation technology that recognises customer intent will enable digital businesses to increase profits by up to 15%.

Step 3: Conversion

Standing out from competitors by making the right marketing decision at the right time can be a challenge. The ability to detect optimal or underperforming products, offers, and channels right away can help your brand make the most out of every opportunity. So how can you improve conversion rates – and better still, achieve sales with the most value? According to Commerce Futures, the answer is to give potential customers what they want, when and how they want it, even if they don’t know that’s what they want at the start of their journey. Real-time analytics will also allow you to invest in the right marketing channels and take immediate action based customer preferences. Shopping cart abandonment can be minimised with the help of segmentation and personalisation tools to ensure ‘window shoppers’ become ‘paying customers’. For more on conversion, check out our 5 Ways to Improve E-commerce Conversion article.
 E-commerce brands are rethinking the way they connect with their customers and are ditching the one-size-fits-all strategy to ensure that shopping cart abandonment becomes less prevalent within the customer journey. If you want to understand more about your customers, request for our latest ‘Health Check and Growth Report’ and get real-time reports free of charge for one month.