A fear of online retailers is e-commerce customers abandoning their shopping cart if they change their mind during the purchasing process.
It has become common for customers to visit a website, start browsing, add products to their carts, and then cancel their transaction at the last minute.
Therefore, online retailers must have plans to recapture their customers’ interest.
According to Baymard Institute, a web research company, 67.45% of shopping carts on e-commerce sites are abandoned. This means that out of every 100 shoppers, there are nearly 67 people that do not complete their transaction.
A report by online payment gateway Payfort took a closer look at the reasons behind the shopping cart abandonment.
The report stated that 44% of customers do not conclude their purchases due to high shipping costs, and 25% abandon their carts due to a change of heart about high-priced products. 24% of customers postpone their purchases with the intention of completing them later on, and 22% cancel their purchases due to high shipping costs that exceed their expectations.
Online retailers should work on finding approaches to reduce this and encourage customers to complete their purchases. One approach could be sending e-mail recovery campaigns to remind customers that they did not conclude their shopping process. The report points out that 10% of customers open these emails.
Also, sending other products via email recovery campaigns may increase the rate of completed transactions from 2% to 5%, according to the report.
The report also shows the importance of the timing of these emails, recommending that an email be sent within 60 minutes of a customer abandoning their transaction, another one within 24 hours, and a third one within 48-72 hours.
The report also advises e-commerce sites to put their products on sale, as the report indicates that products that are reduced by 5-10% bring in more customers.
