Online cart abandonment is an enduring challenge for e-commerce brands. It results in staggering annual revenue losses of $18 billion.
NB: This is an article from Persado
Although it’s commonly viewed as a missed sales opportunity, the ramifications of shopping cart abandonment extend far beyond immediate revenue loss. They include reduced return on investment (ROI) on marketing spend, loss of customer lifetime value, lower margins, and more.
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We unveil eight proven abandoned cart recovery strategies that retailers have employed to combat cart abandonment and improve abandoned cart recovery rates.
Your cart abandonment rates are high – look to these recovery strategies
Cart abandonment happens when customers add items to their online shopping carts, but fail to finalize the purchase. This distinction is crucial, as it differs from abandoned checkouts, where customers leave the process further along the checkout journey.
Customers abandon their carts for various reasons, and understanding these factors is crucial for businesses looking to enhance conversion rates. Common issues contributing to cart abandonment include unexpected costs like shipping fees or taxes, complex checkout processes, external distractions, comparison shopping on other websites, mandatory account creation, poor return policies, technical difficulties, and more.
To counter these challenges, businesses should prioritize abandoned cart recovery strategies, which yield substantial benefits.
Combat cart abandonment: 8 recovery strategies to implement
#1 Personalized language in the online cart
- While brands have invested in personalization across the digital shopping journey, the online cart, where sales are made, is left static and unchanged.
- E-commerce brands that use Dynamic Motivation in the online cart as part of their abandoned cart recovery strategy have the potential to increase online revenue by 3-5%.
- According to the 2023 1Gartner® Use-Case Prism: Generative AI for Marketing report, “Improvements in personalization can shorten sales cycles, increase conversion rates, raise customer satisfaction, reduce churn and support customer advocacy.”
#2 Cart abandonment emails
- Cart abandonment emails are a tried-and-true abandoned cart recovery strategy. When a customer leaves items in their cart without completing the purchase, send them a reminder email.
- One study found that 60% of shoppers returned to make a purchase within 24 hours of receiving a personalized follow-up email.
- Best practices for abandoned cart email templates include catchy subject lines, creating urgency with terms like “hurry” or “only two left.” Learn more on how to use Generative AI for email marketing subject lines.
- Email marketing automation tools make it easy to create and send automated abandoned cart recovery email campaigns customized for different audience segments.
