6 Tips to Combat Cart Abandonment on a Magento E-Commerce Store

Lost sales are the biggest challenge for any Magento store owner, and cart abandonment is the most common reason for this. Baymard Institute reports that:

That’s a huge number!

Across the globe, there are 250,000 merchants that use the popular e-commerce platform Magento, so if you are struggling with lost sales and abandoned carts, you’re not alone.

It’s a challenge that every online store owner encounters at one point or another, but the good news is that by employing the right strategies, you can easily turn your lost sales into conversions.

In this post, we will uncover the reasons behind cart abandonment and ways you can recover lost sales. But before that, let’s first understand the term “cart abandonment.”

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Simply put, cart abandonment is a term used to describe an instance where customers add items to their online shopping cart but leave the checkout process without completing the purchase.

More cart abandonments not only mean less conversions, but unpleasant customer experiences, too.

Top 4 Cart Abandonment Triggers

Several reasons may cause a user to leave the checkout flow without completing their purchase. Let’s look at a few of the most common, yet often overlooked, reasons behind cart abandonment.

1) High Surplus Charges

Several e-commerce store owners overlook the negative impact of adding extra costs, such as shipping, tax and other fees, at checkout.

In a cart abandonment survey conducted by the Baymard Institute, 53% of the respondents agreed that they left the checkout without buying because of the extra costs and hidden fees associated with their purchase, which weren’t mentioned upfront.

Source

2) Forced Registration

More often than not, forcing your customers to register if they want to buy from you may cause them to leave the checkout flow without completing the purchase.

In fact, over 31% of U.S. shoppers admitted that they discontinued their order as they were unable to proceed further without registering. With an overwhelming number of e-commerce sites to choose from, your customers desire the flexibility and convenience of completing their purchase without creating an account – particularly if it’s their first time and they’re not sure if they will return.

3) Checkout Process Is Too Long or Complicated

An intricate checkout process can turn off a good number of your customers. When your customers have already invested their time in curating the products they want, you simply don’t want to tangle them up with an incomprehensible checkout process.

Moreover, your checkout flow shouldn’t be more than four steps. The probability of losing your customers increases with every additional checkout step, so the fewer the steps, the better.

4) Site Is Too Slow

Source

In the same survey, 16% of respondents admitted that they left the checkout page as the site was very slow. Other research on e-commerce site speed shows these numbers:

• Effect on Sale: 79% of customers who report dissatisfaction with website performance are less likely to buy from that same site again.
• Conversion: 1 second delay means a 7% reduction in conversions
• Speed Affects Revenue: If your site makes $100,000/month, a one second improvement in page speed brings $7,000 month

While these four reasons seem to account for the most number of lost sales, there are many more triggers to cart abandonment. For instance, customers may leave the checkout if they are unable to pay or don’t trust the site. And factors such as return policy, technical inconsistencies and poor customer service can also hamper your conversions:

Ways to Recover Lost E-commerce Sales

Overcoming lost sales is an enormous challenge not only for Magento merchants, but also for the entire e-commerce industry.

Optimizing your store’s checkout experience can increase the number of conversions by 35% – which means that $260 billion is recoverable through a better checkout process!

To help you combat the cart abandonment behemoth, we’ve prepared a list of strategies you can implement today.

Ways to Recover Lost E-commerce Sales

Overcoming lost sales is an enormous challenge not only for Magento merchants, but also for the entire e-commerce industry.

Optimizing your store’s checkout experience can increase the number of conversions by 35% – which means that $260 billion is recoverable through a better checkout process!

To help you combat the cart abandonment behemoth, we’ve prepared a list of strategies you can implement today.

Send Recovery Emails

Cart abandonments are not always intentional. Oftentimes they are caused due to a technical glitch or an unwanted distraction. And that’s why abandoned cart emails can be very effective.

If a customer proceeds all the way to the last step, it’s a good indication that they are surely interested in buying the product. This means that they only need a nudge to complete the purchase – and recovery emails can provide exactly that nudge.

Check out these recovery email stats:

• 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened
• 21% of people clicked on the link
• 50% of those who clicked on the link then finished the purchase

You can start sending abandoned cart emails through your Magento 2 store by using an abandoned cart email extension:

For successfully recovering lost sales, your email must be well-designed and visually appealing. You can also consider incentivizing customers by offering a discount coupon or a complimentary gift. Doing so will increase the conversion ratio a great extent.

Best abandoned cart email practices:

• Your email should contain a strong subject line, engaging copy and a powerful CTA.
• Create urgency by offering an incentive for a limited time.
• Send the email at the right time – 60 minutes is considered an ideal time frame for the first recovery email.
• Ask your customers if they need any help in completing their purchase and include the direct email or phone number where they can get that help.
• Consider going multi-channel with SMS abandonment campaigns to supplement your emails

Leverage Paid Ads

Paid ads is a great way of retaining lost sales. In fact, retargeted ads can bring 26% of shoppers back to your site:

What’s more, research shows that personalized retargeted ads can lead to ROIs of over 1,300% – and can help you reach those customers who abandoned their carts.

There are several platforms you can use to effectively retarget your customers, such as:

• Google Ads
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

With your customers spending most of their time online, these platforms will go a long way in helping you recover lost sales.

Last Word on Cart Abandonment

Certainly cart abandonment is an issue faced by several Magento store owners. As discussed, there could be several reasons responsible for higher cart abandonment. A few of the most common reasons include:

• slow website speed
• technical inconsistencies
• high surplus charges
• poorly optimized checkout

If you’re seeking to minimize cart abandonment in your store, you must consider investing resources in optimizing the overall checkout experience. The tips we discussed today will certainly help you combat the cart abandonment problem.

And remember to keep refining your approach. Test your methods through A/B testing and retain whatever works for your store. Always be open to new ways of optimizing your customer’s experience since cart abandonments are often due to poor user experience.

With that being said, now’s your time to make the most of the tactics shared here and expand your online empire!

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jay→ [email protected]