So your shoppers keep abandoning their carts and you can’t figure out how to nudge them through the purchasing line. According to a report by VWO, most online stores face this issue with 60-80% of their customers. If a mere fraction of these customers make the purchase, it can give a considerable boost to your revenue. But you know that already. What you are a little hazy on, is how can this be achieved?
Well, many tiny techniques can build up to a much bigger revenue caused by recovery of abandonment carts. We curated some tried and tested ones, just for you.
Strategies to Reduce Cart Abandonment
1. Use gamified popups
The most shot strategy to prevent a shopper from leaving their cart abandoned is to not let them leave at all (Duh!). They may have innumerable reasons to leave their cart abandoned, but since they showed interest in it the first time over, there is a high chance that they are leaving because of the price or simply because they got distracted.
Even though conventional pop-ups worked well in the past, things have changed. Rather than using the mainstream email pop-ups, switch up your game with gamified popups to create an ‘engaging shopping experience’.
These popups target engaging a shopper with an interesting game through which they can win coupons to bag a bigger discount on their purchase. The sense of winning something and not just getting it easily releases dopamine that nudges a positive action out of shoppers – in this case, completing the purchase.
Take, for instance, Ikonick. The store uses a game of cards on their email popup with WooHoo to re-capture the fleeing shopper’s attention. Using gamification instead of the usual popups, led to the store growing their email list 10X faster.
2. Leverage on-site notifications
When a customer sees how in demand a product is, their FOMO is activated on instinct. This is just how the millennial mind works; if they see something is popular, they will be willing to pay even more than their pocket allows at that moment!
To do this, you need on-site notifications. These are live messages that show up at the bottom of the shopper’s screen on your site, telling them which product is in high-demand and may run out soon. It creates a sense of urgency, which makes them want to complete the purchase right away.
With Sales Pop, you can set up these on-site notifications easily.
3. Enable Faster Checkout
If you ask a customer to make an account while they are checking out, they will likely abandon their cart as it is a lengthy and tedious process.
However, if it connects with their Facebook (or any other social media) with just a click, not only will they be able to check out quickly, you will also get all the information you may need about them.
You should also allow guest check out as an alternative, as some customers just want a no strings attached purchase.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of shoppers are shopping on-the-go. This makes it crucial for you to optimize your checkout for mobile devices. If they choose to buy something and the checkout process seems too tedious, they will prefer to opt out than wait for a couple of more minutes.
4. Offer Help/Shopping Assistance
Since online shopping relies heavily on the images that the shoppers see online, they may leave if they are not convinced with them. Of course, having customer reviews is always a plus in these cases, but when the shopper can get real-time help through live chat, it makes the decision easier for them.
It’s pretty much similar to how you get shopping assistance at a brick and mortar store. Now you don’t need to be online all the time, you can simply even display when there’s someone around, so they can drop a message.
5. Re-engage with web push notifications
Certain shoppers will leave your site irrespective of what you do to hold their attention. It’s how shoppers prefer to go from shop to shop in a mall to explore other discounts that are available to them.
In this case, web push notifications can help drive shoppers back. Since it doesn’t require them to share email addresses, push notifications have a higher optin rate. But what’s more important is that these messages are delivered straight to the shopper’s screen – desktop or mobile.
All you have to do is to make sure that these notifications reach the customers before they lose interest in the products that they had added to their cart. PushOwl helps you do exactly that.
To do so, first, send a notification that is meant to remind the shopper of the product. The next notifications can offer them incentives like discounts and free shipping. The third one could show customer testimonials on the same product.
Ps. Don’t hesitate in making your push notifications creative!
6. Use messenger marketing
You are waiting in line to pay for your groceries. You flip out your phone to help pass the time and switch to Facebook. Then you see you have a message, so you open your Facebook messenger and spend some time texting with friends.
Basically, it takes just the idea of boredom to get the average customer to turn to their social media. So when you reach out to them via Facebook, you enter into their personal space and can engage them better.
Use Facebook Messenger marketing to reach your customers with automated campaigns. Right from welcoming new shoppers, recovering abandoned carts, recommending more products and more, you can do it all with apps like Recart.
The only thing you need to remember here is to keep your messages contextual, to-the-point and have a clear call-to-action to them. Experiment with different tones of voice to keep it close to your brand’s personality!
7. Set up drip retargeting ads
Setting up a retargeting ad is yet another successful method through which you can remind your shoppers of the products that they had left behind. But why use the conventional approach of following the shopper around with the same ad? That’s almost like being stalked.
Initially, show them the product that they had liked. Then, show the people who have seen that first ad a second one displaying those products with a special discount. Lastly, they come across ads displaying other people using and loving the products that they had liked.
Shoelace helps you set up these retargeting ads easily to create a custom brand journey for the shoppers.
8. Create an email drip
Emails are known to deliver a 400% ROI on every $1 spent. That’s why you should go beyond using emails for just sending out one cart reminder. When you’re automating your cart recovery campaign, why not create a drip here as well?
For instance, Amazon sends you an email with a small font and a huge ‘view cart’ button. This is accompanied by an image of the products you had showed interest in and links that will take you back to the website. This is a good example of the first email in drip campaign.
The second email should include offering an incentive like a discount coupon. An astounding 58% of customers admit that when a product they abandoned is available on a discount, they will make the purchase.
The third should show the shopper how happy other customers are with the product to give a final try.
When you approach the shopper in different ways, you’re able to also take note of what they respond to the fastest and ahve a chance to address different concerns they may have around the product.
9. Host a Flash Sale or a time-sensitive offer
Flash sales have often proved to be an effective method for calling back customers who abandoned their cart. You can host a flash sale every day on different products at regular intervals or host it as a gift for a customer’s birthday. This makes the customer feel special and creates a bond between you and the customer.
A flash sale itself makes the shopper feel that they can get a deal that they will find no where else. As this spreads the feeling of getting more for less among the shoppers, it also makes them buy more. All you need to do then is market your sale.
Don’t wait, recover your carts starting today!
There are thousands of online stores selling millions of products. The strategies that work while selling fish food may not work while selling cosmetics. To understand what works for you, you will have to monitor the response that each cart recovery campaign garner and optimize on the go.
Which is the one cart recovery strategy you absolutely swear by to bring back millennial shoppers?
