According to shopping cart abandonment recovery specialists and Miva Merchant partner, Listrak, more than 70% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before making a purchase. This means that the average emerchant is losing money on a regular basis, and most aren’t even aware of this fact.
However, many online retailers are not even aware that this is an issue, either because they have no way of tracking cart abandonment or because they don’t understand how to market to shoppers who have abandoned their carts at some stage in the checkout process.
“The results surprise me: there are still few retailers with a cart abandonment practice in place and those that do aren’t using best practices to optimize the results,” Ross Kramer, Listrak CEO told BizReport recently. “Implementing a cart abandonment email series and offering discounted or free shipping can greatly improve conversion rates.”
While most abandons happen at the actual shopping cart itself, significant abandons also occur at the shipping and billing pages. While the reasons for shopping cart abandonment can vary widely, the important thing for emerchants to do is to track the rate of abandonment, and remarket to potential customers in an attempt to convince them to return to the site to complete their purchase.
Listrak recommends several methods to emerchants wishing to reduce their cart abandonment rates, including sending out a series of emails to potential customers 3 hours, 2 days, and 5 days after the cart abandonment occurs. These emails should motivate the customer to return by offering exclusive coupons, free or discounted shipping, and recommending similar items that customers may be interested in based on their shopping histories.
Considering that abandoned carts represent an estimated $18 billion in lost revenue, shopping cart abandonment recovery is something that all emerchants should be concerned about.