How to Reclaim Lost Sales with Abandoned Cart Automation

Shopping cart abandonment is the boogie-man of the eCommerce industry. Despite us all knowing about the issue for years, the latest abandonment rates still sit at a massive hair-thinning 75%!

The issue keeps getting worse.

In fact, it was 55% in 2010, which is when most eCommerce businesses decided they needed to do something about it. Then, suddenly, that number jumped to 61% in 2012, which created abandoned cart mania — where thousands of eCommerce businesses were experimenting with various abandonment campaigns, and massive eCommerce hotspots like HubSpot were throwing answers out faster than questions were coming in.

Then, in 2016, that number was somehow at 68% despite the internet being saturated in abandoned cart “solutions.” The fact that we’re at 75% illustrates that the issue isn’t going away.

Here’s the thing, shopping cart abandonment doesn’t have to be the monster-under-the-bed. In fact, correcting shopping cart abandonment is one of the easiest, quickest ways to boost your ROI.

Today, we’re going to talk about how you can fix your abandoned cart issues — no witchcraft, no potions, and no wands necessary.

Destroy Hidden Costs

Want to know the #1 reason that customers leave goods in the shopping cart? Hidden costs!

60% of customers who straight up abandon their shopping cart did so because of fees beyond the price-point (shipping, taxes, etc.)

So, before we jump into email segmentation and automation or any of the rest of our tips, make sure that you aren’t layering hidden costs onto the customer. Sure, shipping can still be included (although including shipping in the price-point leads to better conversions,) but make sure that you don’t have any tricky charges that the customer is going to run into during the checkout process.

They’ll run away screaming, and you’ll be out of 60% — or 3/5 — of your sales.

Automate Your Emails

There’s no magic involved here. You need to send your customers targeted emails when they leave their shopping cart behind.

What kinds of emails?

The kinds that test well.

There are tons of tools out there that will help you send automated abandoned cart emails. If you’re using Shopify, we recommend Klaviyo — mostly because it integrates insanely well. Check out our blog post detailing why we use Klaviyo at our agency.

But, really, the tool doesn’t matter as much as the testing.

If you’re doing it on your own, make sure that you run A/B tests on your email campaigns. Fiddle with different titles, content, and magic fields until you find the emails that perform best for you.

Then, utilize them.

Now, if you’re working with an agency, make sure that they’re running plenty of A/B tests. We try out a ton of different titles, content, and segmentation options to find the ones that work best with your particular niche. Trust us; automated emails are not a one-size-fits-all solution — no matter what the latest-and-greatest eCommerce blog post says.

In the end, you want to be sending high-converting abandoned cart emails to customers automatically at specific points in time. We like to send an immediate one, followed by others at specific periods — usually the ones that test best with your customers.

 

 

Don’t be Cliche

If you’ve made it this far into this blog post and you’re thinking: “I’ve heard all of these a million times, but none of them are really fixing my issue.”

Well, that’s probably because you’re trying to fix them in a cliche way. Let’s elaborate.

HubSpot, Neil Patel, Moz, and the other 4 billion blogs littered with eCommerce tips-and-tricks all have one thing in common — they usually share the same content.

If you’ve tried email automation, price corrections, coupons, and all of the other tricks, but your cart abandonment rates are still panic-inducing, you may want to do things your way.

Look, each brand is different, and each eCommerce store has its own personality. It’s not enough to stick a shopping cart abandonment coupon template on your website and be done.

You really have to think about how you can stand out from the crowd.

Grand Find: a Grand Example

Before we stepped in, they had this run-of-the-mill “These are almost gone. Hurry and buy them!” email.

That kind of email worked great when eCommerce brands were first latching onto abandoned cart strategies, but, now that everyone else has the same email, customers are fully aware of what’s happening. They know that the products aren’t “almost gone” and they’re aware that everyone sends you a coupon nowadays.

So, we stepped in and leveraged the absolutely amazing brand that A Grand Find had established and used that brand to create a newer, more on-brand abandoned cart email.

The message isn’t aggressive, it’s not pressuring, and it makes the customer feel more at ease.

Why? Because that’s what A Grand Find is all about.

The main message here is not to try and mimic all of the strategies out there. Stay on-brand and create a message that echoes who you are. It works better, and it helps push those customers to become advocates.

7 Quick Burst Tips

Before we close out this blog post, let’s give you some bullet-points that will help you on your abandoned-cart busting journey. We feel that those first 3 points are the most critical, but there are plenty of other tweaks that can significantly impact your abandonment rates.

1. 28% of customers jumped ship because the checkout process was too long! Here’s what’s crazy. Clicks to purchase have gone up 12% industry-wide over last year! Shorten your buying process! Break the trend.
2. Leverage your brand during the checkout process. Put up some fun text. Let them know where they’re at in the buying process. Something as simple as “Alright! That T-Shirt is Killer! Let’s Finish Some Shipping Details and We’ll Get it Shipped Out!” lets the customer know where they’re at and what’s left in the checkout process.
3. Make your website fun to browse! Sticky websites convert way better. We’re talking more than a percent-to-percent match between time spent on a site and conversions.
4. Think about alternate sales routes. Leveraging social media, Pinterest (underrated,) and email is a great way to get in the customers face. Not only will this bump your ROI up on all channels. It will remind that cart abandoner that you exist.
5. Make sure that customers know how to contact you. Pop a chat up in their face or make your number/email prominently displayed. If they have a problem halfway through the purchase process, you want to make sure that they can get that question answered fast.
6. 37% of customers from the Baymard study left because they had to create an account. That’s over 1/3 of your customers! Don’t require an account. We know, an account gives you better marketing access down-the-line. But, you don’t need to force it. Remember, your products are marketing tools as well.
7. Coupons are tricky little devils. One one hand, they can be a great way to reel in those cart abandoners. On the other hand, 27% of customers abandon their cart to look for coupons in the first place. Don’t get a reputation as a coupon machine. Otherwise, customers are going to spend all of their time browsing RetailMeNot instead of your website.

 

 

Conclusion

Don’t let cart abandonment bully you around. Fixing your abandonment issues is one of the fastest, most cost-effective ways of bumping your bottom-line without sacrificing an insane amount of time and effort.

If you want some more Shopify campaigns that are easy-to-implement and can significantly bump your ROI quick, check this post out.

If you’re looking for an agency that’s willing to go the extra mile and create personalized hyper-branded Shopify campaigns for you, contact us. We’re a certified Shopify Partner, and we would love to chat with you.