Conversion Rate Strategies: 8 Tips on How to Reduce Cart Abandonment

In 2021, almost 80% of global online shopping orders were abandoned. 

This whopping statistic shows just how hard it is for businesses struggling to stay competitive in eCommerce markets. Working out how to reduce cart abandonment is one of the best campaigns your business can invest in to drive more sales. 

Now that we know how big of a problem shopping cart abandonment is, we can take steps to rectify the issue for your eCommerce business.  

Stay with us to learn:

  • How abandoned cart rates are calculated
  • What causes shopping cart abandonment 
  • How to reduce cart abandonment 
  • How to turn abandoned carts into valuable sales

What Is the Number One Reason for Shopping Cart Abandonment? 

Around half of US consumers abandoned their shopping carts due to additional costs. These costs are typically taxes, fees, or shipping. The other leading reasons for abandoning the checkout process are displayed below in the infographic. 


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How Is Abandonment Calculated on a Shopping Cart?

To calculate your business’s unique shopping cart abandonment rate, take a peek at the following formula:

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This formula gives you your business’s shopping cart abandonment rate for a specific time period. Consolidate transactions for a quarter or two and divide them by the number of initiated transactions to discover how many prospective customers didn’t make the journey through to paid customers. 

A high cart abandonment rate implies that there are issues with your eCommerce website’s checkout process or shopping cart design. 

A standard smooth and frictionless eCommerce purchasing journey looks like this:

Image created by writer 

Digital goods orders or orders processed by fulfillment by Amazon services will vary from this model. 

If there are any roadblocks at any of these customer touchpoints, the sale is in jeopardy. Optimizing the customer journey is integral to the success of reducing your eCommerce cart abandonment rates. 

What Causes Shopping Cart Abandonment?

We’ve already mentioned that unexpected costs cause shopping carts to be abandoned. This can be resolved by giving customers the total order costs upfront to avoid any nasty surprises. 

But what else is at play?

Account Registration 

Signing up on a business’s website for an account is a hurdle in a purchasing journey, and it’s one that 24% of customers refuse to jump. Creating an account slows down the ordering process and leads to a reduction in your business’s sales. 

How to avoid it: enable guest checkout options on your eCommerce website to remove this barrier to potential sales. Your customers can still create an account after checkout if they want to. Consider a discount on future purchases if they register with your website to capture their details. 

Complicated Checkout 

Shoppers are seeking stress-free, easy routes to buying their goods online. Take a look at your eCommerce checkout experience to see if this is a problem for your business. A complex checkout course only serves to lengthen the order time and turn away customers. In the same way that the customer experience is essential to e-commerce contact center operations, this also applies to eCommerce businesses. 

A summary section on your checkout page is a great addition to your eCommerce website. Summaries detail exactly what the customer order comprises along with additional charges they need to know about. Clear calls to action are also important to guide buyers along the journey to purchase. Create pop-ups once items are added to consumers’ carts detailing the next steps to complete the sale.    

Ensure that your checkout forms are smooth and simple. Only ask for the absolutely necessary order information, and design them so that they don’t act as a deterrent to potential sales. Think about how forms look on mobile devices, using a minimum amount of scrolling as your benchmark.

How to avoid it: view your checkout process through your buyers’ eyes and remove any distractions to the purchasing journey. 

Limited Shipping Options

Shipping that takes an excessive amount of time and/or is costly is a turn-off for consumers. Once a customer has decided to buy something, they want it immediately, or, at the very least, as soon as possible. 

Having said that, it’s useful to have an inherent understanding of your target audience. Are they more concerned about saving money on shipping with less emphasis on time, or are they time-poor and cash-rich? Provide a mix of delivery options to cover all bases and suit your customers, which works to reduce cart abandonment.  

How to avoid it: consider free shipping options or promotions to make that sale. If free shipping is not an option for your business, why not offer eCommerce multiple shipping choices

Image created by writer 

Security Concerns  

Online shopping poses security issues for consumers. If your eCommerce website doesn’t offer trusted payment options, customers could slip through the net. 

How to avoid it: be transparent about your business’s security and safe payment processing methods to promote trust and reassurance. Place trust symbols on your website pages to demonstrate legitimacy and that your business is authentic.

Some options for trust seals include:

  • PayPal
  • Google
  • The McAfee seal
  • The Norton seal  

Unsatisfactory Returns Policies

A robust returns policy is essential for customers to feel secure in their purchasing choices. This is especially true for online businesses, as the return rate is higher than brick-and-mortar stores.  

How to avoid it: provide clear returns policy information before they reach the checkout so that they can make informed decisions.  

We’ve covered what not to do, let’s turn to how to convert those pesky abandoned carts into glorious sales. 

How Do You Reduce Cart Abandonment??

Coming under the category of business continuity plan examples is a firm plan to increase sales by examining your organization’s everyday business operations. Here are six methods that will help to reduce your cart abandonment rate. 

  1. Offer Multiple Payment Options

Where possible, give your customers as many payment options as possible. This is because customers like to pay with familiar methods, so don’t let a lack of choice for payment options deter sales. If appropriate for your business, you might like to think about adding finance options for customers to spread payments.  

Consider payment options such as:

  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Amazon Pay
  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • Square
  1. Include Pop-ups 

Exit-intent pop-ups can be strategically placed to persuade shoppers to stick around and complete their purchase. These pop-ups work by tracking mouse movements and scrolling behaviors to detect when a consumer is about to exit. Add exit-intent pop-ups to all of your product and checkout web pages with a special offer or other forms of encouragement. 

“Save for later “ pop-ups are helpful for customers that are about to exit before checking out. It’s more likely that they will return to complete the sale if they know that their order is saved.  

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Pro tip: consider implementing a sign-up opportunity as an exit-intent pop-up. You’ll gain both increased sales and new subscribers. Winner. 

  1. Add Progress Indicators

Progress indicators are a fantastic way to show consumers how long the checkout process is likely to take. As customers move along the progress chart, they experience a nice dopamine hit and satisfaction that their order is nearly processed.

Image created by writer 

  1. Improve Page Load Times

So you know how to do keyword research to optimize your web pages for SEO, but what about your page load times? It’s no good optimizing digital content to attract more website visitors if your website is unresponsive and slow to load. Check out website performance sites to test the load speed of your pages. 

Pro tip: remove or optimize huge images on your website that might be slowing it down and causing friction during the customer journey. 

  1. Implement Abandoned Cart Email Flows 

Just over 33% is the global conversion rate of automated cart abandonment emails. So, for a pretty healthy ROI, this is a great strategy to implement to encourage more sales. 

Add a simple link for consumers to pick up their order where they left it, perhaps even with a cheeky discount to drive their decision to return to your business’s website. 

  1. Offer Live Chat Support

Use cart abandonment data to identify trouble spots where customers drop off in the purchase journey. Then place live chat support options in these areas to provide answers to customers’ questions. 

Simple pop-ups offering help at the stage of checkout might be the difference between a sale and abandoning it. 

Cart Abandonment – Solved 

Shopping cart abandonment is a vital aspect of your eCommerce operations to get right. Consumers that fall at the final hurdle do so for a reason. Addressing the reasons for abandonment rates will work to reduce your business’s rates and encourage more online sales. 

Customers’ buying habits are similar in the way that the majority of them dislike lengthy and complicated order processes. By making efforts to shorten and simplify the buying journey with your business, you’ll automatically increase eCommerce sales. 

There are many things you can do to improve your cart abandonment process as this article demonstrates. Even if you just take steps to improve your website’s load speed and create enticing email marketing campaigns to encourage orders, you’ll be making huge progress in this area. 

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