21 Ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment

As we all know, one of the most important criteria for measuring the success of an eCommerce site, such as average basket value, average page views, and conversion rate, is the cart abandonment rate. The cart abandonment rate can vary considerably according to the industry, yet reducing cart abandonment rates is a common problem and purpose for almost all eCommerce businesses.

There are many alternative ways to reduce the cart abandonment rate, affecting many issues, from your monthly turnover, customer loyalty, and brand image to customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV). You may already be implementing some of these alternative solutions, or your cart abandonment rate may be at your target level or lower than the industry average. Many solutions can still be implemented to have an even lower cart abandonment rate at all times. Let’s go over these solutions one by one.

1. Use Push Notification Channels Actively

As you know, web and app push channels are low-budget and effortless instruments for remarketing and facilitating customer loyalty. You can also use these instruments to remind yourself again to those who have abandoned their shopping.

Considering that the products you sell can also be purchased from different eCommerce sites, you have a limited time to remind the visitor of a product added to the basket and not yet purchased. Because during this time, the customer can buy the product they added to the cart from another site or an offline store or completely give up on purchasing it. For this reason, it is helpful to call the shopper back to your site as quickly as possible.

You can invite the shopper who has left the shopping halfway to the site by making a basket reminder a few hours after they complete their session. Remember, with push notification reminders, the first cart abandonment reminder you send will have the best chance of bringing the shopper back to the site. But this is not your only chance.

If the user does not react to the basket reminder you make after a few hours, you can, for example, make a reminder again after twelve hours. If action has yet to be taken, recommending a different product may be more efficient. For this reason, in the third reminder, you will send one day later, send alternative product recommendations instead of the product added to the basket.

If this does not work, offering a promo code related to the shopper’s basket amount and stating that this offer will be valid for a limited time in the push notification will positively affect the action that users will take.

2. Use Email Marketing Actively

Like web push notifications, email marketing is one of the most effective and cheapest ways to address and remind shoppers who abandoned their carts. With the cart abandonment reminder flows that you will build according to the add-to-basket and purchasing behaviour of shoppers, you can both remind yourself without waiting for your potential customers to come back to the site and give potential customers the impression that you are aware of their needs.

Most importantly, you can also prevent potential customers from purchasing from another site by reminding them of their abandoned shopping as soon as possible. Just like in the web push basket notifications, offering different offers according to the basket amount or reminding the user that there are alternatives to the products in the basket will also increase your chances of success.

In addition, the opening rates of personalised emails, such as cart abandonment reminders, will be much higher than those of bulk campaigns. This way, you will also increase your inbox drop rates on the email service provider (ESP) side, thanks to the high read rates of your cart abandonment emails, which can positively affect your email sender’s reputation.

3. A/B Test the Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons

Feel free to change the positions, colours, sizes and fonts of CTA buttons such as “Add to Cart”, “Buy Now”, “Complete Order”, “Go to Cart”, etc., which you have added with colours and fonts that you think are compatible with your website design and brand. By opening the changes you will make in terms of UX to a small group of variations, you can test different designs, continue with the most successful application among the variations, and increase your sales performance.

4. Offer Different Payment Options

One of the biggest reasons visitors abandon their carts is the payment options screen they encounter during the payment step. Increasing the number of payment options as much as possible and providing flexibility to the end user will also reduce the probability of cart abandonment at the last stage.

To guarantee that customers are not caught off guard by payment methods at the final stage, it’s essential to present information regarding payment options on product detail pages. This can be accomplished by utilising explanatory texts, tables, or banners. By taking this step, customers will be inclined to finalise their purchase without any surprises.

5. Keep the Purchase Steps as Short as Possible

Remember that each step in the buying process eliminates a certain portion of the visitors who have already made a purchase decision. Each extra step may result in a specific audience delaying or abandoning the order.

Your best chance of completing that order is to complete it within the session in which the order is added to the cart or logged in. It is much more challenging to achieve the same order completion rate with the remarketing efforts you will make post-cart abandonment. Plus, remarketing will require additional budget and effort.

To ensure that customers do not leave the site before completing their orders, it is crucial to make the order confirmation process as short as possible. One way to achieve this is by adding a “Complete Shopping” button next to the “Go to Cart” option in the mini cart. Another solution could be to include a “Quick Buy” button on the product display pages, which would take the shopper directly to the order confirmation page.

It’s best to keep the address and billing form fields simple and concise to ensure a smooth and fast checkout process. If the user has placed previous orders, pre-selecting and filling these fields can also help to streamline the process by combining the order confirmation and payment fields onto a single page. This will enable the end user to reach the order confirmation screen with greater ease and speed.

6. Use the Card Information Storage Feature

The payment information entry form often causes the most eliminations during the ordering process. To make things easier for your customers, consider offering the option to store their card information. Repeatedly entering card information at the paying step can become burdensome and unpleasant, especially with the additional 3D secure processes.

To keep this process as short as possible, keep the billing, address, and card information together with address preferences. Saving your customer from this hassle for their next orders will be a positive step in terms of UX and will shorten the order process. But remember only to fill in information that the customer may be comfortable with being recorded.

7. Keep the Sign-Up Forms as Short as Possible

It’s important to remember that many prospective customers sign up for an account and make their first purchase in the same session. Therefore, keeping the sign-up process brief and concise is crucial, just as it’s essential to streamline the ordering process. Doing so makes it easier for users to complete their purchases quickly and efficiently.

You may want to ask many questions in the membership step to get as much information as possible, process this information into your CRM and use it for remarketing through different channels. But consider that every additional question you ask in the signing-up step reduces the rate at which the account creation form is filled out and, indirectly, the rate at which the order is completed in the same session.

For this reason, ask as few questions as possible about demographic information in the account creation step, provide the maximum information required for an order, and pave the way for the quick completion of the signing-up process.

Suppose you want to collect different demographic information or permissions for contact channels. In that case, you can collect this data in later sessions or through surveys on the order confirmation screen. Remember, an account creation form that can be completed as soon as possible will indirectly increase the order completion rate after signing up.

8. Allow Guest Checkouts

Providing an option for guest checkout can significantly enhance the user experience on your website, especially for eCommerce platforms where orders are infrequent or one-time only. Requiring users to create an account and log in repeatedly can be discouraging, leading them to choose marketplaces with memberships instead. Hence, it is crucial to offer guest checkout to retain customers on your site.

9. Provide Detailed Information About Shipping 

Providing clear information about shipping is crucial, just like keeping delivery times short. Many online shoppers are concerned about possible disruptions or delays in delivery. Even if it’s not great news, giving details about potential disruptions during holidays can ease visitors’ worries and help positively manage their expectations.

In addition, since specifying the estimated delivery date will eliminate all these uncertainties, your users’ trust in you will increase with your transparent communication and the likelihood of completing the order in the same session.

Furthermore, notifications such as “Same Day Shipping” or “Order today and receive your package tomorrow” can effectively decrease the chances of cart abandonment by creating a sense of urgency for the customer.

10. Provide Preliminary Information About the Return Policy

Providing flexibility in return and exchange processes for products on product detail and basket pages and informing about this flexibility will directly affect your cart abandonment rate. 

Remember that the post-order support process is one of the biggest questions in the minds of customers who order from your site for the first time. Informing your customers that you will provide them with the necessary flexibility and support after the order placement and sharing the details that the required service will be provided for return and exchange requests will shorten the decision process, directly and positively affecting cart abandonment rates.

You can present these notifications on the product detail and basket pages. Or you can also remind your users who re-land on your site about their abandoned carts with chatbot triggers or on-site notification setups.

11. Create Urgency with Social Proof Marketing

It is crucial to bear in mind that customers may not finalise their orders in one session, assuming they can complete them later. To prompt them to take immediate action, implement social proof tactics such as labels or notifications like “Almost Out of Stock,” “Limited Number of Products,” or “Web-Exclusive Price” for the items they add to their cart or are browsing. This will directly reduce the cart abandonment rate as consumers will be more inclined to purchase the relevant product in the same session.

In addition, with social proof actions such as “5 people have this in their baskets” or “10 people purchased this in the Last 24 Hours” related to the products in the shopper’s basket, you can make your customer feel that the product is popular with different customers and direct them to complete their shopping as soon as possible.

12. Display Customer Reviews 

As a savvy business owner, it’s crucial to recognise the significance of your customers’ reliance on the experiences and preferences of their peers. Displaying the number of product purchases or showcasing favourable feedback from past users can undoubtedly ease any apprehension your customers may have while navigating their shopping experience.

Different customers speaking well about your brand and products and showing these references to the shopper on the basket or product detail pages will increase the likelihood of the visitor turning into a customer and reduce the possibility of cart abandonment.

13. Prepare Informative Product Detail Pages (PDPs)

When it comes to fashion, having clear pictures and detailed descriptions of the products is super important. And if you can show the product being worn by someone, it helps the shopper understand the item they’re considering buying.

In addition, providing detailed information on PDPs such as size chart displays in relation to the industry, or if the relevant product is a technology product, the compatibility of this product with other products will reduce the possibility of returning the product, as well as the possibility of a product added to the basket being forgotten.

14. Incorporate Segmentation into Your Paid Marketing Strategy

To bring back customers who abandoned their shopping carts, you can group them based on the items they left behind or the value of their cart. This will enable you to target them with tailored advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google, encouraging them to return to your site and finish their shopping.

To optimise your advertising budget for remarketing campaigns, consider offering limited-time special offers that appear personalised to the user. This can help you achieve maximum benefit from your budget.

15. Provide Personalised Offers

To improve user experience, you can offer promotional codes triggered by exit intent and based on different basket amounts. This can reduce cart abandonment rates and increase the average basket amount by providing redirects that encourage shoppers to move to the next level.

To reduce cart abandonment rates, placing time restrictions on special campaigns triggered by the basket amount is helpful. Make it clear that the discount will only be valid for orders placed during the relevant session.

16. Use Free Shipping Labels and Progress Bar

One of the essential factors causing customers to abandon a cart is high shipping costs. Therefore, reducing shipping costs as much as possible will be helpful.

However, there are other ways. Reminding the customer of the basket amount they need to complete to benefit from free shipping with different gamification methods can also increase the basket average and decrease cart abandonment rates.

17. Use On-Site Reminders

When a customer who has left a product in their basket returns to the site, reminding them of the order step they left unfinished in their previous session is a highly effective method to increase the order completion rate.

To that end, bringing the mini basket area open on the landed page, drawing attention to the basket button with flashing effects, reminding of the basket with different actions on the homepage, or informing the customers that the products in the basket are out of stock are also effective methods to direct the user to the basket page as much as possible.

Furthermore, to avoid increasing the bounce rates from the page, you should build flows for these notifications as much as possible in a way that avoids disturbing. For this reason, rather than the landed page, you can add different rules according to the number of pages or product visits. You can also ensure that different multiple reminder actions are shown in different steps.

18. Conduct Cart Abandonment Surveys

Taking action after a user abandons their cart is just as essential as taking action before. When a shopper leaves without completing their purchase, you should inquire about the reason behind their decision. This will enable you to identify any underlying issues causing other users to abandon their carts and make the necessary improvements.

Furthermore, by inquiring about the causes of cart abandonment from your customers, you demonstrate that you value their feedback and are attentive to their needs. This, in turn, can lead to a decrease in the cart abandonment rate as customers feel heard and appreciated.

In addition, you can segment customers according to the reason for cart abandonment and offer personalised content or products with on-site marketing actions in the following sessions based on the segments they were placed in.  

19. Send NPS Surveys After Shopping

The NPS survey to be sent after the purchase is as vital as a cart abandonment survey for measuring the shopping experience’s success. Conducting a post-shopping satisfaction survey after the estimated delivery date has passed, via email, push notifications, or by displaying it when the customer returns to the site will create a positive brand image.

NPS surveys are the most effective method for detecting technical problems, especially those encountered in shopping processes, which you need to be made aware of. By hearing your customers’ opinions post-purchase, you can reduce the cart abandonment rates of visitors who are not yet converted into customers.

20. Use Chatbots for Instant Communication

With chatbot or live chat services, you can solve your users’ pre-order questions and connect with users instantly. Plus, questions from this channel will help you discover what kind of information they are looking for in PDPs or FAQ fields.

Thus, according to the data you keep through a chatbot or live chat services, you can be aware of and correct technical problems on the UX side. Additionally, you’ll be able to discover how and if you should change the information and even the visual content on the PDPs. All of this will aid you in ensuring visitors come to the purchasing step with fewer question marks in their minds.

21. Make Cart Reminders with Interactive Chatbot Notifications

By targeting shoppers who have products in their carts but have not yet completed their shopping, you can remind them about the cart with notifications triggered via the chatbot, thus creating a feeling of importance in the end user and enabling them to ask if they have a question.

Wrapping Up

While the impact of all these actions varies by industry, website, country and period, implementing these practices will increase conversion rates and significantly reduce cart abandonment rates in the short and medium term.