Redefining Shopping Cart Abandonment In Face Of New Challenges

Abandoned shopping cart rates are a crucial metric for retailers who are concerned about increasing online conversion. Thousands of dollars are invested by businesses to optimize their websites to ensure better customer engagement and higher customer satisfaction. Shopping cart abandonment remains the most touchy issue online retailers’ face despite taking every possible step to counter it. Each abandoned shopping cart represents missed revenue and offers an opportunity for retailers to actively persuade such customers to make up the lost sales.

There are many reasons for customers to abandon shopping carts during the shopping process without making a transaction. Some customers give more preference to higher security by looking for SSL certificates on the website, some leave as they can not properly navigate through the website, and others may leave due to poor website design.

There can be various other reasons like exorbitant shipping costs, lack of clear information regarding shipping or exchange or a return policy, comparison shopping, bad customer reviews, inadequate information in FAQs, etc.

Many consumers even use shopping carts to know the exact price of all items in cart including shipping charges; compare them with other websites, and finally abandoning the cart to actually purchase the items from the store.

Time to Rethink the Strategy

Nowadays many consumers are using smartphones, tablets, and handheld devices to shop online. During their shopping process, they often add items to the cart but turn to more conventional mediums like PC or Laptop to make a purchase.

Online retailers must reassess their notion regarding reasons behind shopping cart abandonment and rethink their strategy to turn website visitors into customers. One idea of reaching out to consumers who abandoned their shopping carts could be to effectively use email marketing to remind the customers about their abandoned carts and close the sale.

Incorporating live chat on a website can also significantly reduce the shopping cart abandonment rates as customers receive live help at crucial points instantly. Offering live chat during a crucial checkout point, on specific pages that offer product information, or based on predefined rules can be of great help to customers as they can get answers to their questions quickly and easily. Customers will naturally feel more satisfied which can turn them into loyal returning customers.

Because there are a number of reasons behind shopping cart abandonment, the metrics used to judge shopping behavior can be changed to focus on real reasons that can provide crucial insights into customer shopping behavior, preferences, pricing, etc.