12 Powerful Ways to Recover Abandoned Carts and Increase Sales

Every online retailer knows the frustration of cart abandonment. It's a familiar scene: a customer visits your website, spends time browsing different products and then carefully selects the items they like, adds them to their cart, and then—disappears without completing the purchase. 

Abandoned carts are a common and costly challenge in eCommerce. According to recent abandoned cart statistics, an eye-popping 68.78% of online shopping carts are abandoned.

In simpler language for every 10 customers who add products to their carts, 7 leave the online store without completing their purchase. This results in a loss of $18 billion in sales revenue annually for eCommerce stores & badly impacts overall sales.

While ecommerce cart abandonment is a major problem for businesses, there are several effective strategies to minimize this issue and improve shopping cart recovery rates. In this blog, we’ll dive deep into why shoppers abandon carts and uncover strategies to enhance abandoned cart recovery rates.

How to Decrease Your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate?

The first step in the process of decreasing the cart abandonment rate is to analyze your website performance and identify the major reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. Sometimes, it's merely a case of idle browsing, i.e. customers adding items to their carts impulsively without having any genuine purchase intent.

However, many customers abandon their carts due to friction during the online shopping experience. This type of cart abandonment is preventable. You have to figure out the reason for abandoned shopping cart, whether it’s the high shipping cost, checkout friction or security issues. One way to do so is by using Google Analytics to identify drop-off points and analyze your top 'Exit pages'.

Some of the most common ways to reduce the overall cart abandonment costs are to implement transparent store policies, provide a variety of payment methods and ensure an easy simple checkout process, which we will discuss in more detail below.

12 Effective Strategies to Improve Abandoned Cart Recovery Rates

Usually, to combat abandoned carts an online store needs to implement some of the effective ecommerce marketing tactics and tap customers via multiple channels. It can motivate customers to complete their purchases and prevent them from abandoning their carts. Here are some techniques to consider:

1. Send Text Marketing Campaigns:

Ecommerce businesses are finding smart ways to tackle cart abandonment by using automation. Channels like WhatsApp and SMS, known for their high open rates, are perfect for reaching a wider audience and boosting those conversion rates.

With some handy and easy-to-use marketing tools for abandoned cart automation flows, businesses can automate their cart recovery processes using abandoned cart notifications. Imagine friendly abandoned cart text messages popping up at just the right time, encouraging your customers to come back and finish their purchases.

But it gets even better! Businesses can get creative with personalization strategies. By using dynamic product images and custom widgets, they can make each message feel unique. Plus, experimenting with different time intervals helps find the sweet spot for maximum conversions.

Moreover, trying out different offers & incentives and creating FOMO can help bring those lost sales back to life! In short, combining WhatsApp and SMS marketing with smart automation flows is a game-changer for cart abandonment recovery!

2.  Using Exit Intent Pop-ups:

Exit pop-ups are website overlays that usually appear when a user attempts to navigate away from a particular page on the online store. Its key objective is to persuade them to stay on the website. These pop-ups are triggered by exit-intent technologies that track the movement of the user's mouse on the page.

To minimize cart abandonment, businesses can sweeten the deal with rewards or discount codes. Personalize the message based on the user’s behavior or the specific webpage they’re viewing to make it more effective.

3. Implement Retargeting ads:

Retargeted ads provide a friendly reminder to online shoppers who recently abandoned their shopping carts. These ads can nudge them to complete their purchases. Start by identifying the primary reasons for cart abandonment. Then, personalize the ad content with targeted copies and creatives based on the audience segment. 

For example, if high shipping costs is making you lose customers, consider offering free shipping to incentivize customers to return. These personalized experiences increase consumer engagement and conversion rates. 

4. Send Personalized Emails:

An abandoned cart email campaign can include a gentle reminder of all the required items that are left in the cart. It can be personalized to include dynamic product images and descriptions of the items left in the cart, to make customers return. Include clickable URLs for easy navigation back to the website and make the experience seamless for your customers. 

5. Explore Various Checkout Options:

Allow shoppers to bypass account creation, reducing checkout time and helping them in confident purchases without sharing personal information. Guest checkout ensures customers don’t have to store credit card details, enhancing security and making it easier and faster to complete the purchase. 

Alternatively, businesses can also provide one-click checkout options, where the customer can fill in the shipping details and payment information only once and save it for future purchases. 

6. Focus On improving User Experience:

Include thumbnails of products throughout the checkout process to display product images and key specifications. This reassures customers and prevents them from abandoning their carts to double-check details on product pages.

Implement strong calls to action to guide users through the checkout process. Use distinct and familiar calls to action to ensure clarity and facilitate a smooth user experience. Reinforce the opportunity for customers to review their purchases before finalizing payment.

Make navigation effortless by allowing seamless toggling between the cart and store pages. This enables users to add additional items or review product details easily. Ensure clickable URLs are within the checkout flow for quick access to product pages.

Optimize page load and speed to prevent delays that can deter customers and impact conversion rates. Monitor site availability and aim for fast load times, as even small delays can lead to decreased conversions according to research.

7. Be Transparent About Costs:

Avoid surprising customers with unexpected fees by providing upfront information about shipping, handling and taxes. Display updated pricing based on the customer’s shipping address and offer a range for shipping costs if exact figures aren’t available.

8. Offer Multiple Payment Options:

Offer multiple payment methods to cater to customers’ preferred payment methods to streamline the checkout process and make it convenient. Integrate with various payment gateways to ensure flexibility for buyers.

9. Show Total Savings:

Highlight discounts applied through promo codes or first-time buyer offers to make customers feel they’re receiving a good deal. This is one of the hidden techniques to reduce the abandoned carts in Shopify-powered stores.

10. Provide Free Shipping:

Provide free shipping to customers to reduce purchase costs and discourage customers from reconsidering purchases, especially for impulse buys. Recent research indicates that a majority of consumers expect free shipping. This makes it a valuable incentive.

11. Implement A Solid Refund And Return Policy:

Build trust by offering a reasonable return window and honoring refunds for incorrect or defective orders. Balancing leniency with profitability fosters customer satisfaction and loyalty.

12. Create Trust & Credibility With Social Proof:

Incorporate social proof to improve trust and credibility by adding social proof elements like reviews, testimonials, customer photos and other user-generated content. Highlight positive feedback for the items in the customer's cart to motivate the customers in their purchasing decisions.

For instance, you can include customer reviews and star ratings in emails or display actual customer photos in banner ads showcasing the product in use. Social proof reinforces the value and quality of your product, making your customers more inclined to proceed with their purchase.

By implementing the steps outlined in this guide, e-commerce businesses can effectively increase their abandoned cart recovery rates and recapture any type of lost sales. When you provide discounts and make the entire checkout process easier by implementing the different types of retargeting techniques and providing excellent customer support, each strategy plays a crucial role in persuading customers to return to their abandoned carts and complete their purchases.

After continuously optimizing and refining these strategies based on data and customer feedback, eCommerce businesses can maximize their chances of success and drive sustainable growth in e-commerce sales.

#1 Solution to Reduce Cart Abandonment

Are you looking to slash your abandoned cart rate and boost your cart recovery rate? Look no further. The Convertway is a powerful marketing app that empowers eCommerce merchants to leverage WhatsApp & SMS for effective marketing. It ensures smooth communication with customers and significantly improves cart recovery, customer retention and maximizes marketing ROI.

Why Choose The Convertway for Abandoned Cart Recovery?

The Convertway app seamlessly automates abandoned cart reminders, sending timely notifications through WhatsApp and SMS. This ensures customers are constantly reminded of their pending purchases, drastically reducing the abandoned cart rate.

Key Highlighted Features That Drive Results

  • Automated Flows: Set up abandoned cart automation workflows that remind customers about their abandoned carts at strategic intervals, encouraging them to complete their purchases.
  • Personalized Messages: Tailor your messages to unique, personalized experiences that resonate with each customer using smart segmentation.
  • Discount Code Integration: Automatically include discount codes in abandoned checkout URLs, incentivizing customers to finalize their orders.
  • Dynamic Product Images: Use personalized product images in text messages to make communication more engaging and improve the cart recovery rate.
  • Gamified Incentives: Increase customer retention and interaction with dynamic scratch cards and rewards, effortlessly boosting repeat orders.
  • Track & Analyze: Track and monitor important metrics like orders recovered and ROI generated using abandoned cart reports and campaign analytics.

Optimize your business's performance and reduce cart abandonment with The Convertway app. Turn abandoned shopping carts into completed purchases today!