5 Smart Strategies for Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment

Have you ever added something to your online shopping cart only to abandon it before checking out? If so, you’re far from alone. 

Research shows the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.57%. In other words, for every 100 people who add items to their cart, only 30 will actually go through with the purchase. Sounds high, right?

There are many different reasons for a high cart abandonment rate. Whatever the core cause, the impact is the same; it will have a major impact on your profits and long-term growth. If you’re losing a lot of sales, it’s important to take steps to reduce it.

Today, I’ll share five smart strategies for reducing shopping cart abandonment. We will cover everything from improving your checkout process to building customer trust.

By following these strategies, I firmly believe you can get your abandonment rate below the average and dramatically boost sales.

Let’s dive in!

Minimize Unexpected Costs

Unexpected costs can be a major turnoff for potential customers and can often lead to people abandoning their carts before they hit the checkout button. 

In fact, surveys show that unexpected fees are the number one reason customers leave without paying. You can avoid this problem by being transparent about all costs upfront and offering clear and concise pricing information.

Here are a few actionable tips for keeping costs crystal clear throughout the sales process:

Show all costs upfront, including shipping, handling, and other fees.Introduce a free shipping option for users who spend over a specific amountOffer people discounts and promotions. This can help to offset any unexpected costs and boost satisfaction.Have an all-star customer service team available to answer questions about costs and ease your customers’ minds.

When someone adds your product to their cart, they are far more likely to click the purchase button if the total doesn’t change drastically between “add to cart” and “checkout.” 

Use a Mobile Responsive Design

If your website is not mobile-friendly, you are missing out on a massive opportunity to connect with your customers and reduce cart abandonment. Globally, 5.45 billion people own mobile devices, and many use their smartphones to shop and research brands. 

Mobile responsive designs are a way to build your site that automatically adjusts to the size of the screen it is being viewed on, which means that your website will look great and be accessible on desktop and mobile.

Not using a mobile responsive design can cause an increase in cart abandonment. When people use their phones to shop, they expect to easily add items to their cart and complete the checkout process. If your website doesn’t perform well on mobile, these people will be more likely to abandon their cart and shop elsewhere.

You can see where you stand by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. This tool will scan your website and let you know whether it is mobile-friendly. If it is not, the tool will give you suggestions on how to make it more mobile-friendly.

Making your website mobile-friendly is a simple way to improve your website’s usability and increase your sales. If you are not already using a mobile responsive design, now is the perfect time to set it up.

Streamline Your Checkout Page

Next, let’s talk about your checkout page. It doesn’t matter how great a visitor’s experience is until now. If the final part of the process is clunky, complicated, or takes too long, you can expect most people to leave before they pay. 

Optimizing your checkout page is one of the best things you can do to reduce cart abandonment.

Here are a few actionable strategies for streamlining your checkout page.

Make sure your checkout process is easy to follow and understand. Add a progress bar if necessary.Use clear and concise language.Avoid asking for too much information. Keep your payment forms short and sweet.Offer multiple payment options.Provide a secure checkout experience.Offer a discount for completing the checkout process quickly.

Turn First-Time Visitors Into Email Subscribers

I highly recommend turning first-time visitors into email subscribers if you want to keep your abandonment rate low. This way, you can stay in touch and remind them about the items they left in their carts.

There are a few different ways you can make this happen. The most common way is to offer a discount on their first purchase if they subscribe to your email list. Another name for this type of promotion is a lead magnet. 

You should also ask users to enroll when they create an account and add an item to their cart. 

Once you have their email addresses, you can send cart abandonment emails. Cart abandonment emails are designed to remind users about the items they left in their carts and offer them a discount or incentive to complete their purchase. We found that sending a cart abandonment email one hour after they leave can help you recover 6% of lost sales. 

These emails are an excellent way to recover lost sales and increase revenue. But for it to work, you have to convince them to join your email list. 

Show Social Proof

Social proof is a powerful psychological phenomenon. Essentially, It refers to the idea that people are more likely to do something if they see others doing it. You can use social proof to reduce cart abandonment by showing potential customers that others are happy with your brand and products.

There are three core ways to use social proof to reduce cart abandonment. 

They are: 

User reviewsTrust badgesLive sales notifications

Reviews show potential customers what other people have thought of your products and can help to build trust. For context on how much reviews mean to customers, consider this; 90% of shoppers say user reviews directly affect their daily shopping habits. 

Trust badges are small seals of approval often appearing on payment forms and at the bottom of your site. They indicate to readers that your website is secure and trustworthy. We found that by simply attaching a reliable badge to our forms, we could increase conversions by as much as 42%.

Finally, you can also use live sales notifications to show potential customers that other people are currently buying your products. This is the equivalent of seeing a line of people outside a new restaurant or at the release of a new iPhone. People think, “If others are buying now, I should too!”

All these methods can help reduce cart abandonment by making potential customers feel more confident in your business and your products. If you’re looking to reduce cart abandonment, social proof is a powerful tool you can use to your advantage.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to keep people from leaving before they place an order. The strategies outlined today will help you keep first-time visitors and existing subscribers engaged, which is bound to improve sales and spark long-term growth.