Customer Retention Strategies that Reduce Cart Abandonment & Increase Order Value

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M-Connect Media
  • Date Published
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There are several causes of shopping cart abandonment and you really need to work on those facets to dwell success for your store. Find the proven ways!

Cart abandonment is one of the primary reasons why eCommerce merchants and stores opt for various analytical tools. Without knowing what your customers want, why do they desert the cart, you can’t lower down the rate of abandonment.

Shopping cart abandonment is a painful script. It depicts a complete story where:

  1. You somehow manage to inform your customers that your store exists.
  2. You attract them to your website by some marketing gimmicks.
  3. You allow them to skim through the unique products in your store.
  4. You let them select the product and add it to the cart.
  5. And you let them desert your cart throwing water on your hopes.

The bottom line is: you did 80% job perfectly but the remaining 20% hit your business. Had you been considerate about their requirements, you would have done much better in converting them. Think like a customer before you go public. Here is a list of problems which shoppers face which propel them to abandon the cart. Check the necessary steps required to filter such problems from your side:

  • PROBLEM: To prove your store as a better alternative, you need to work on certain areas. You may lure customers for the first time by marketing strategies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean conversion. You need to feed specific features of your website in their brains. If you fail to do so, you may face the greatest fear of eCommerce merchants, i.e., Shopping Cart Abandonment.
    • SOLUTION: Give Coupon Codes, Assure Them That You Won’t Exploit Their Pockets

The stunning way to develop relationships with your customers is by offering coupon codes. Some stats suggest that 8% abandon their shopping carts because they couldn’t find any promo codes or schemes. If you can maneuver their brains in a positive direction by letting them know that you are not here to exploit their pockets but offer them the best rates, they won’t turn their backs and decrease the cart abandonment rate.

  • PROBLEM: You may do everything right but just in the end, you somehow miss the credo of eCommerce, i.e., to save the time of the customers. Why is saving the customers’ time a vital need? It is a vital need because you can’t afford to kill their time. And if you couldn’t fulfill the basic need of the eCommerce platform, your customers will give up their products on the carts.
    • SOLUTION 1: Get Away From Long And Confusing Checkouts, It Is An eCommerce Curse

To talk plain horse sense, you can’t leave too much for your customers to do. They enter your store only to stash their time, not to waste their resources. Confusing and long checkouts have been one of the dirty reasons why carts are abandoned at last. Around 10% of the shoppers feel negative about long checkouts which result in abandoning the carts. Your job is to make a hassle-free checkout process. Make sure that you don’t demand huge efforts from them.

    • SOLUTION 2: A Big No To Forced Sign-Up, Host Them As Your Guest

Much like longer checkouts, forced registrations lead to frittering of their time. These are just the trifling matters and you shouldn’t make it a compulsive procedure for buying. Stats by Statista suggest that 22% of the shoppers don’t fear to cast aside your store when they have to undergo the mandatory procedure of registration. Since the percentage of users turning-off to the forced sign-ins is big, try for an alternative like guest accounts. This not only saves their time but also improve the shopping experience. And better the shopping experience, lesser the shopping cart abandonment.

  • PROBLEM: The most dangerous aspect of eCommerce is payment security. Payment security dreads new users and despite their selections, they may jilt your store.
    • SOLUTION: Make A PCI Compliance System, Gain Their Trust

eCommerce stores should follow certain rules and meet specific guidelines to safeguard the customers’ private credentials. According to some reports by Statista, a weak payment security results in 15% of the cart abandonment. Any failure to meet these needs might not only lead to shopping cart abandonment but some serious offenses. eCommerce stores have to follow the PCI compliant system where they promise to keep things secure. If you win their trusts, your abandonment rate would automatically drop-down.

  • PROBLEM: Intense competition. No, intense competition is not a problem but the trends which competition sets demand quick responses from your store. Delayed or laid-back attitude can get you nowhere. The return policy is one of the essential services which customers demand.
    • SOLUTION: Give Users The Right To Return, They Would Compensate With Loyalty

With the introduction of cancel and return policy, the ordered item is not sold until the returning period is completed. As soon as customers add the products to their carts, they check if the product avails return policy. Lack of immersive environment and fear of quality affects the purchase decision. And this is why customers prefer return policies. If it is a difficult suit to follow, you can issue them the credit note or token of exchange.

  • PROBLEM: Payment Security? Yes. PCI compliance? Yes. Different payment modes? Well, why? This is another payment related problem which results in uncountable shopping cart abandonment.
    • SOLUTION: Target The Demography, Offer Multiple Payment Modes

Different countries have different modes of transaction. Some prefer digital transaction while some opt for cash on delivery. Your store should have multiple payment options because Statista’s report says that 16% walk out of the cart because of unsuitable delivery options. Subcontinent countries like India, Pakistan, etc find COD the most optimized form of payment mode while Germany and Singapore like to have online transactions. Read the economies and demographics of the countries you like to work with and set your delivery options based on that.

  • PROBLEM: Unexpected charges basically dilute the purpose of eCommerce. eCommerce is a transparent system which not only saves time but offers the best deals to the customers.
    • SOLUTION: Free Shipping For Retention, Free Shipping For Acquisition

Out of all the unexpected charges, free shipping jolts the customers’ decision disastrously. Why should they pay extra for the shipping when they can get the same item from the conventional store without any additional charges? Shipping charge accounts up to 25% of the shopping cart abandonment. Now, that’s a huge number. You need to hit the psyche of the customers where they don’t feel that they are getting overcharged. How can you do it? Simple. By making shipping free for them. Now, being a small enterprise, following the course of flat shipping rate may cost you large. Using Free shipping bar grants your users to avail the benefits of free shipping without making you lose much from your pocket.

Free Shipping Bar is an extension which triggers the brains of the shoppers psychologically. It creates a sense of urgency and leads to the additional sale because it creates coherency in their purchase decision and incites them to buy until they reach the threshold value set by the limiters. What does this mean? In order to reach the threshold value, customers are willing to spend even if the average order value increases.

The eCommerce market is mainly comprised of Magento developers. M-Connect Media is one such Magento eCommerce development company which has worked really hard to read the plausible reasons behind shopping cart abandonment. Its extensions are proof of how the company wants to minimize the abandonment procedure.

Features of Free Shipping Bar (Fast Cart Checkout):

  • It helps in setting up the threshold cost for the customers to reap the advantages of free shipping.
  • Make the customers know about free shipping offer in intuitive ways.
  • It automatically calculates the remaining amount needed to obtain free shipping, when a shopper adds the products to the shopping cart.
  • Merchants get rights to add their own custom messages for free shipping.
  • Moreover, the merchant can also set font size and color of the message text.
  • A progress bar is also included to show how far the customer from availing the free shipping offer is.
  • The Merchant can set the background color of the progress bar.
  • It offers to upload images for the mini-cart loader and empty mini-cart.
  • It allows setting of own shopping cart title.
  • Reflects a successful message which shows when customer avails free shipping.

The Inference

You can’t get free of cart deserting but you can minimize it by working on the mentioned problems. Work on the above problems hit the customers’ expectation, and reduce the shopping cart abandonment.