Shopping cart abandonment occurs when a customer adds items to their shopping cart, but leaves before buying the items. And this happens more than you think in South Africa. A new study by Genesys, a customer experience company, shows that many retailers ignore the opportunity to improve the close rate. Genesys found that:
A dismal 0% of retailers offered a click-to-chat box on their sites.
Only 22% of them followed up within 24 hours, all with an email.
An astonishing 78% failed to contact the customer after the cart was abandoned, even after one week.
Even when the customer had created an account, 70% failed to recognise that the customer had been on their site.
The reasons for cart abandonment might vary, but you do have the tools at your disposal to gain a greater insight into your online behaviour and actively engage with it.
Run these elements with your e-commerce site
E-commerce is a game of all or nothing. You can’t put up an e-commerce website, cross your fingers and hope for the best. That’s just not how it operates. You need to keep these elements in place:
Set up external and internal email workflows
Send recovery emails to help you tackle shopping cart abandonment. These emails must be highly conversion-centric, personal, and accomplish the mission of re-engaging shoppers with a human touch to remind them of what they’ve left behind.
These emails are linked to a specific action your customers just performed, like leaving the page without emptying the cart. They should be highly personalised and relevant to your customers’ lives. Unfortunately, most retailers do not have an email strategy in place for cart recovery, and it’s one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to ensure your customers buy what’s in their carts.
Michael Cloutman, a content manager at League, says: “The external emails sent to the user should be for remarketing purposes. They remind the customer about the products they still have in their basket. Some marketing elements that can be used to convince the user to buy could be a promotion of 10% off or free delivery.”
Maybe the online customer became distracted before checking out, even though they’re still interested. Sending a reminder can only help to improve conversion.
For internal emails, you can send messages to an appropriate employee (such as a salesperson) when someone abandons their cart. These employees can follow up with the shopper at a later stage and ask if they need assistance.
Use a chatbot
Use a chatbot to send shopping cart reminders while the shopper is online. With a chatbot, you can use the power of AI to create smarter experiences for your shoppers. Chatbots are a neutral way to connect with shoppers so they don’t feel pressured to buy.
Some shoppers are sceptical about buying anything online. In this case, use a comforting tone for your chatbot to be a reassuring presence on a website, like a non-intrusive friend that’s there for you.
Set up a proper database
This database setup can be used as a reference point for salespeople. Take it a step further by segmenting your database into categories such as first-time abandoners, repeat abandoners and existing customers who abandon. This helps your employees to know exactly how to approach a customer.
“Your marketing efforts got the user on the site to take action in adding items to a basket, but something prevented them from completing the transaction,” says Michael.
“So don't lose a customer as it’s more expensive to capture a new customer than it is to keep the ones already made. League can help close that fall-off rate and get the customers buying.”
Look, we know it’s a fair amount of work, but we can do it for you. If you don’t do anything, your cart abandonment rate will remain high. We can help you consolidate the consumer journey because our initiatives don’t stop once a customer has bought from you.
Download our e-commerce brochure to get clued up on everything that we have to offer you.
