Cart abandonment is a real issue. Ask any eCommerce marketer, and you won’t hear the end of it. On the data side, the research, too, paints a dismal picture:
- The average cart abandonment rate stands at 69.8% among all industries.
- Cart abandonment causes eCommerce brands end up losing $18 B in yearly sales revenue.
- Mobile has the highest cart abandonment rates, with an overwhelming 85.65% of all transactions ending without a sale.
The Top-3 Factors for Cart Abandonment and Proposed Solutions
1. High Added Costs
According to research, one of the primary triggers for cart abandonment is added costs (in the form of shipping, tax, and fees), with 49% of respondents citing this as the most important reason why they abandon cart:
Proposed solution: To avoid any last-minute surprises on added costs—a factor that is clearly a deal-breaker for customers—eCommerce brands should clearly highlight the added costs on the Product page, the Homepage, and the Checkout page, as ASOS demonstrates below:
It helps to prominently highlight the Free Worldwide Delivery feature as data indicates that on orders less than $50, 75% of consumers expect the delivery to be free. Here’s another example by H&M which showcases the delivery costs upfront, before the Checkout page. On selecting the terms and conditions hyperlink, the customer is redirected to the following page, which throws light on the shipping fee details:
If you are providing free shipping as an added leverage to your users, you can use Argoid’s AI platform to roll out a personalized cart abandonment email campaign--one that highlights this feature to the right target segment at the right time:
Here’s an excellent example of a hyper-personalized email that’s sent out to a customer who recently abandoned cart:
The learning: eCommerce brands need to be transparent and upfront about added costs, including shipping and taxes, from the very beginning to avoid users from jumping ship at the last moment and initiating cart abandonment. They can leverage an AI-powered email software to communicate key USPS and additional benefits such as free shipping to reel the user back in.
2. Additional Effort to Create an Account and Long Checkout Process
Data claims that 24% of people abandon carts if they have to create an account--a lengthy and tiring process considering that the average checkout flow has 23.48 form elements and 14.88 form fields. If users only plan on making a one-time purchase, it seems like too much of an effort to go through to buy a product. This is why 18% of US online shoppers abandon the cart due to a “too long/complicated checkout process.”
Proposed solution: As a best-practice, brands should provide the option to checkout as “Guest”, as Crate & Barrel’s Checkout page demonstrates below:
Plus, if you notice that your customer has added an item to the cart and is still stuck on the Account page, you can use personalized push notifications to remind them about the purchase while letting them know that they don’t need to create an account, they can simply checkout as a Guest and complete the purchase within seconds and preventing shopping cart abandonment!
You can also take your push notification messaging to the next level by integrating the checkout link within the message itself:
The learning: Think of your Checkout page as the holy grail of your eCommerce website. The faster and more seamless the checkout process is, the lesser your users will resort to cart abandonment.
3. Poor Product Recommendation:
Not all customers know what they want to purchase right off the bat. And even if they do, a little help/nudge while browsing online goes a long way. Plus, if your eCommerce website has too many product options to start with, the user might get overwhelmed and leave the website, never to return again and most of them abandon carts
Proposed solution: It’s the era of hyper-personalized service. Customers expect brands to provide them with the most relevant product recommendations as Amazon does time and time again:
This can only happen with the help of competent AI algorithms and recommender engines that do much of the heavy-lifting in terms of understanding user behavior, intent, purchase history, etc.
Brands should look at investing in a robust AI-powered tool that allows them to:
- Contextual-awareness: Understand the contextual intent of the search query and improve the user experience by providing personalized product recommendations.
- Advanced search capabilities: Provide users with the ability to search via direct and indirect product attributes throughout the product catalog.
- Customization to the core: Enable a powerful personalized search experience by providing relevant search results that are tailor-made to the user’s buying behavior and preferences. Additionally, it should allow the brand to offer personalized “In-Cart” recommendations that are relevant and useful. This doubles up as the opportunity to upsell/cross-sell effectively and boost your bottom line thereby preventing cart abandonment.
The learning: Personalization empowers brands to rise above the competition and provide a unique experience to the customers--an advantage that builds customer loyalty and prevents instances of cart abandonment in the long run.
Final Words
A lot has been written and spoken about cart abandonment issues, particularly for the eCommerce sector. But what’s missing out from the narrative is how AI can play a powerful role in driving personalized, real-time communication to reduce average cart abandonment rate and supercharge the overall customer experience.
AI-powered tools can boost your marketing, sales, and CX strategies while providing a seamless, consistent, and convenient user experience for shoppers who love retail therapy. Try these strategies outlined above and reduce your cart abandonment rates for good.
For more details about how Argoid works, book a demo right away.
FAQ's on cart abandonment
How can personalized recommendations prevent cart abandonment?
Offering personalized customer experiences can help reduce cart abandonment by offering right product at the right time to the right customer. Along with great customer experience, and a fluid checkout process, you can definitely reduce cart abandonment rates for your online store with recommendations.
Does long check-out process cause cart abandonment?
Long checkout processes is annoying to customers. Oftentimes, unnecessary forms also does contribute to unease and can even become more confusing. All of this contributes to bad experience, resulting in abandoning their carts.
How does push-notifications help to reduce cart abandonment?
If you notice a customer has added an item to the cart and also stuck on the Account page, you can use personalized push notifications to remind customers about the purchase while letting them know that they can simply checkout and complete the purchase within seconds and preventing shopping cart abandonment.
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