How to Convert Abandoned Carts

By now, you should know that shopping cart abandonment is a major problem for retailers. When shoppers come to your online store, add something to their carts and don’t complete the purchase, it’s a major drag on your revenue.

This is a universal problem, too, as some research suggests this costs more than $1 trillion dollars in lost revenue per year. Here are some proven ways to better convert shoppers who abandon their carts.

What are the reasons shoppers abandon carts

Before we dive into the “how,” let’s talk about why shoppers abandon carts. Some of the most common reasons cited by customers are:

High shipping costs or additional taxes. The shopper could have been ready to buy when they added to checkout but then they were hit with additional fees that made them abandon.
Lack of payment options. Your shopper may not have their credit card handy as they’re trying to finalize their purchase. Having alternative payment methods like PayPal, Apple Pay and more is a great way to stem this.
Convoluted checkout process. Sometimes, merchants make it hard for people to give them their money by including multiple long forms to fill out or even requiring signing up for a store account before customers can make a purchase.
Window shoppers. There’s going to be a certain percentage of your shoppers who were never serious about buying that item. Maybe they’re adding to cart as a wish list or just doing some aspirational quasi-shopping.

Identifying your causes of cart abandonment will help you narrow down which strategies you can use to increase your conversions. Here are the strategies you should consider to generate more sales.

Recover 3-5X More Shoppers Who Abandon Your Website with SafeOpt

Abandoned cart email campaigns are a great way to recover sales but these have a limitation: you can only reach shoppers when you have their email address. Typically, you’ll only get that if your shopper is logged into their first-party store account and abandons a cart — and we all know the majority of your shoppers don’t log in every time they shop.

So, that means you’d miss out on all the non logged-in shoppers on your site who abandon their carts. But, thankfully, you can use innovative services like SafeOpt to reach 3-5X more abandoned cart shoppers.

SafeOpt has helped more than 1,000 brands recover more than $100 million in revenue by empowering merchants to send abandoned cart emails to people that they couldn’t previously reach. Shoppers sign up directly with SafeOpt or its publishing partners to receive exclusive offers from brands through email in accordance with all the emails follow spam and privacy regulations.

With SafeOpt, a non logged-in shopper could browse your store and when they abandon their cart, you can send them a promotional email that helps them get over that purchase finish line. See how SafeOpt can help grow your sales today.

Have Your Abandoned Cart Emails Up and Running

Email marketing is very important in ecommerce and this really shows up when it comes to abandoned cart emails. At bare minimum, make sure you have an abandoned cart email sequence set up that automatically sends messages to your known shoppers who haven’t completed a purchase.

A good email sequence to start with is:

Reminder email: remind the shopper that they left something in their cart. This can be sent a few hours after they’ve abandoned their cart.
Second reminder: a second nudge to let the shopper know they had shown interest in buying something. This should be sent one or two days after the cart has been abandoned.
Promotion or discount: send a discount to try to seal the deal. This discount should be sent 3-5 days after the customer has abandoned their cart.

You can use your own abandoned cart emails in conjunction with a service like SafeOpt to reach the maximum number of people.

Offer Discounts and Promotions

One of the reasons SafeOpt works so well is that shoppers love discounts. Not only can discounts help nudge a serious-but-undecided shopper to buy, it can even spur somebody who wasn’t serious about buying into purchasing.

For merchants, a reduced price sale is better than no sale but, you don’t want to give away the store with your discounts. Do a financial analysis on your margins and what you can afford to discount in order to drive more sales.

And remember, your discounts don’t always have to be a percentage off. You could offer free shipping if there’s a certain average order volume hit. You could offer a free gift with purchases of a certain size.

Stop Abandoned Carts From Happening To Begin With

The most effective way to reduce cart abandonment is by stopping them from happening in the first place. Some ways to do this are:

Speed up your website: a slow shopping experience isn’t a happy one. Make sure your site is running fast and your shoppers can add to cart with ease.
Streamlining your checkout process: don’t force your shoppers to fill out multiple forms or jump through too many hoops. Make buying easy and quick.
Providing more payment options: As mentioned above, your shopper may not have their debit or credit card handy. Offer multiple payment options and maybe look into Buy Now Pay Later options like Affirm and Afterpay.

Say Good-Bye to Abandoned Carts

Abandoned carts are the bane of retailers. But, thankfully, you can take steps to stop them. Reaching abandoned cart shoppers with more emails thanks to SafeOpt and your own email sequences, offering discounts and making site changes to encourage shoppers to complete their purchase will help you stop people from abandoning their carts and help you start growing your business.

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