How to avoid (and recover) abandoned baskets?

It's the nightmare of e-retailers, the bête noir of e-retailers... we named it; abandoned carts. A flawless customer journey, a smooth product experience, a clear and attractive website where visuals, texts and why not videos demonstrating the product have led your customer to add the item in question to his cart. But here's the thing: they don't buy. 

Why do you have abandoned baskets?

67% of shopping carts are abandoned on e-commerce sites. There are several possible reasons why your prospects and potential future customers abandon their items and do not complete the purchase process until payment. The consumer, or rather the visitor in this case, may not have converted because the checkout page or the pages of your website load too slowly, constraining the path of the shopping tunnel and the fluidity of the customer experience.

A lack of visibility on the shopping cart, while the visitor is shopping, can also be a brake and a cause of abandonment. The visitor does not have the transparency (and therefore in a way the confidence), and all the information concerning the added items; the unit price, the final price and the delivery time. He is obliged to click on the cart to know all the key information related to the payment, an additional obstacle that disrupts the finalization of the purchase process.

Also, thelack of readability of the shopping cart, of the information on the items it contains, does not push consumers to validate it, by lack of transparency, which can, in the end, represent a high rate of abandonment on the part of the Internet users and a consequent loss of turnover for your online business.

The need to create an account on your online site to be able to make the payment and/or the imperative of having to fill in too much personal data can also discourage potential customers who will then abandon their shopping cart.

Our techniques to avoid abandoned carts

It's not rocket science; it's all in the details, but in the details that for your visitors are not details at all. Here are 4 tips to optimize your e-commerce strategy and prevent buyers from abandoning their shopping cart on your online store:

• Displaying the shopping cart while browsing the website, either permanently or by hovering over the shopping cart icon, makes it possible to give information about the contents of the shopping cart right away, without any effort (or almost). This product information must always be up to date, reliable and of high quality and this simultaneously on each online sales channel, which is easily possible with PIM. By keeping the shopping cart displayed or making it easily accessible, visitors no longer have to go to the trouble of clicking and loading a page to access the products in their cart, and this does not disrupt their online customer experience. 

• Remind your prospects: if these visitors have been inactive on your site for a while, why not send them a notification encouraging them to come back to the website and their shopping cart like: "Still here? Your cart is waiting for you".

• Work on the payment page: a payment page that highlights the security elements and thus reassures future customers allows them to finalize the purchase process serenely. Moreover, if this page is simple, clear and uncluttered, without popups, loads quickly and highlights only the information strictly necessary for payment, visitors will see no obstacle to validate their cart and pay.

• Simplify online payment: the possibility to pay without creating an account but by being "invited" facilitates the simplicity of the customer's path to the final step, which is payment.

Reconquering abandoned baskets

If, however, your visitor has really left by abandoning his items and his cart, a recovery strategy is necessary.

Email reminder modules exist and seem to be the right solution for this situation. Be sure to personalize these reminder emails to continue to make the customer experience unique. The creation of a certain sense of urgency (shortened delivery and shipping time, free delivery during this period of time, imminent stock shortage on this item) mixed with a pleasant and reassuring speech will push your future customer to definitively validate his cart in confidence and proceed to the payment.

An email including positive reviews on Google or other and customer testimonials playing in your favor are also powerful arguments of authority. 

Conclusion

A number of elements slow down your visitors in the customer journey on your site and do not facilitate their approach until the final payment. Fortunately, the implementation of the various tips and techniques mentioned above have already proven their worth and allow many businesses and companies to avoid abandoned shopping carts and toconsiderably increase their turnover.

If your visitor has added items to his cart but has not proceeded to purchase, it is wise to re-engage him by automatically programming a sequence of reminder emails, while keeping the timing correct to avoid a feeling of harassment.

Finally, if you want to avoid abandoned shopping carts at all costs, the implementation of a PIM to deliver product information, always up to date and of high quality, is essential.

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