Abandoned Cart Race: Help Your Customers Finish What They Started

You thought things were going along smoothly, but what happened?

They’ve clicked through your app, navigated the shopping experience, and they’re just about ready to seal the deal…

Then they’re gone. They exit out of your app and go about their day, never to return again.

So, how can you stop your prospective customer from calling it quits?

Abandoned online shopping carts are a nuisance to your business, yet a lot of mobile marketers don’t understand how to resolve this issue.

In fact, the cart abandonment rate is the highest on mobile devices with 85.65% abandoned shopping carts on mobile in 2017, according to Barilliance.

If you learn what drives people to say goodbye to you and your products, and then study the strategies used to bring them back, you can avoid being just another statistic.

How does cart abandonment affect your business?

Now, let’s look closely as to how abandoned carts impact your business.

As a mobile marketer, you’re focused on long term engagement and retention rates with your customers. That’s because if you keep customers happy, they’re more likely to deliver a positive review on your app and tell their friends and family, giving you more business.

But as more of your valued customers abandon their carts, it’s a sign that your users are losing interest in your products and services. And why should a bored customer go out of their way to spread the word about you and your app?

Soon, you’ll start to completely lose those users. Your business depends on them, so you’re left with no other choice but to capture new ones.

This leads you to drive up your customer acquisition costs, therefore exerting financial pressure on the life of your business.

Why do people abandon their online shopping carts?

It’s clear now you can’t afford to have your customers exit out of your store when they’re so close to buying. There must be a variety of reasons for why your customers leave last minute.

Well, the good news is that a customer adding products to their carts is someone already willing to navigate through your app all the way to the checkout line.

Let’s study what leads them to leave:

Here are the top reasons:

• 25% of people don’t want to deal with unexpected shipping costs
• 22% are turned off by account creation requirements
• 17% feel as if they need to invest more time to research
• 15% feel crippled by payment security concerns
• 9% deal with a difficult checkout process
• 8% leave to search for their coupon code(s)
• 4% couldn’t find an express shipping option

This paints a better picture because there’s not one sole reason for why people don’t want to pull the trigger and buy your product right at that moment.

People want to compare your product and features to other vendors. Sometimes they need time to weigh their decision as to whether the risks and rewards to your account are worth it. If it’s also too confusing and time-consuming to buy from you, they’ll leave. Simplicity is key.

Of course, there are plenty of other reasons aside from this list. It’s probably not even your fault. Your users could be easily distracted by the outside world around them, leaving them to put their purchase on hold.

That’s where you come in to remind them.

The wrong way to carry this out

Mobile marketers believe that they can reach out to their users that abandoned their purchase with a single email, and then everything will be okay.

Users could already be reluctant to give you their email, and it takes more than an email to re-engage with them. Aside from email, you should take advantage of push-notifications, in-app messages, app icon badges, and more. Let’s cover some of those strategies in more detail. 

The top strategies you should use

Here are some vital tips for recovering abandoned carts.

Abandoned cart reminders bring better conversion rates as compared to a standard promotional email

A direct and to the pointed reminder via push notifications or SMS marketing is valuable to your user. For bonus points, add in an offer letting them know that if they follow the link back to make the purchase, they’ll get a discount.

Use cart saver pop-ups when a user signals they’re about to take off

You can design your website so that when your users hover over the exit button, they’re greeted with a reminder that they left some items in their shopping cart. The discount message strategy explained above works well in this scenario too.

Analyze your user journey and discover at what point they decide to leave

Other than hovering over the exit button on their screen, you can discover at which points you should look to re-engage with them. Keep them focused while the purchase is still on top of their mind.

Use retargeting to build your brand along with a third party website

Running retargeted ads on similar platforms can draw your users back to your app. Because your ad will appear with a brand they’re engaging with, this in return will incentivize them to go back to your app. ThriveHive revealed that 26% of retargeted prospects return and then complete their purchase.

Use RFM analysis to segment users

Mobile marketers can analyze groups of users based on whether they’re at risk of churning, if they need attention, or if they’re already loyal customers. That way, you can focus your strategy and efforts onto the users that actually need it.

Let’s Recap(ture)

Remember, nearly 85% of mobile users (Barilliance) abandon whatever is in their online shopping cart. If you don’t take action, your users will lose interest. And your app can’t survive without a healthy base of engaged customers and users.

These strategies will bring your customers back to you so they don’t wander off and go through someone else’s checkout line. You’ve worked too hard to settle for your customers pushing their shopping cart off to the side.