Shopping Cart Abandonment: how to Nudge your clients and transform browsers into buyers.
I guarantee you even if we haven’t even met, that your business is leaving money on the table. And I know this, how? Because the data is telling me. According to The Baymard Institute, almost 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, so for every 100 potential customers, 70 of them will leave without completing the purchase.
It’s a simple fact: every e-commerce store has the potential for more customers to order via their website; and therefore every time a cart is abandoned it costs considerable lost sales revenue.
Just think about it: how much would your revenue increase if you were able to capture those sales instead of losing them?
Let’s calculate it with a simple example: If you’re currently making $10,000/mo in online revenue and could turn just 33.3% of those abandoned orders (⅓ of your total abandoned carts) into sales, you’d make an extra $40,000 each year.
There is good news and that is you can use simple marketing strategies to turn browsers into buyers! Using push notifications to nudge your clients can significantly increase your conversion rate!
Let’s have a look at how it’s done…
Why do people abandon their shopping carts?
Let’s start by figuring out why customers abandon their shopping carts.
One of the key factors that cause people to abandon their carts is cost. A customer who needs a product right away will leave an online store that has higher prices than its competition – especially if this becomes obvious just as they go to complete the purchase.
So when extra costs, such as shipping, taxes, and extra fees aren’t always made obvious to a customer early during the shopping experience, 49% of them simply give up.
Another reason for cart abandonment is requiring customers to create an account in order to complete their purchase. In today’s world, people don’t have time to spend on things they don’t seem as important, and an option for clients to finish their purchases as guests is essential.
Also, an overly long and complicated form is a conversion turn off, so, if there isn’t another way for clients to conclude their purchase don’t make it too long. Make your form simple, intuitive and request only the necessary information in order to speed up the purchase.
Next step:
How to Nudge customers and increase your conversion rate
Nudge marketing is becoming a powerful conversion strategy for eCommerce brands and businesses of all types.
Here, we can nudge our store browsers by subtly guiding them to finish their purchase – and this technique is massively effective.
“Nudge Theory” was introduced by Richard Thaler and basically the idea is to apply psychological insights to drive decision-making actions. In fact, Thaler prefers to call these “prompts”.
In the marketing field, nudges apply Thaler’s theory to gently push people into a particular direction when it comes to driving purchase behaviour, without taking away any standard choices. Clients remain in charge of making the final decision despite your nudges.
McDonald’s’, for example, uses what’s called the ‘decoy effect’ with menu and drink sizes, giving the customer different size options where the biggest one seems like a “bargain” compared to the small option – but if the client still wants to purchase the small one, he can do it without any problem.
Nudge marketing is effective only if you understand your customers’ behaviour at their core, which means understanding their psychographic profiles and thus, their habits, interests, values, and psychological inclinations.
In this article, I’m wanting to bring you ways to nudge clients when they abandon their shopping cart – but you can apply Nudge Theory in many formats and places in your business.
If you’re interested in going into greater depth, check this article: Nudge for Business – Do you know how to use it effectively?.
Push notifications: how to convince your customers to come back and take the product home!
Cart abandonment can be one of your biggest pain points as an online shop – but the checkout stage provides you with a chance to consolidate their customer journey and reward clients into completing their purchases.
You can offer trust symbols such as reliability (like for example, Amazon’s 1-click payment that makes it easier and stress-free for shoppers to checkout) and display clear information about shipping and taxes.
You can also customise the customer experience by providing product recommendations based on what they are buying so that it’s easier for shoppers to make decisions at checkout time – like suggesting batteries if they’re buying a product that requires those.
But what if your clients are still putting products into their shopping carts and wishlists and not purchasing?
You can help prompt them to purchase by sending push-notifications!
There are various definitions for push notifications. Some call them “actionable messages,” others refer to them as “rich messages,” and still more people use the term “personalised messages.”
If you’re wondering which one is the right description or terminology, the answer is simply: ALL OF THEM.
You can recognise Push notifications when you see those short messages that pop up on a user’s mobile or desktop, nudging them to take some action. And as the good businessperson you are, you know your customers are busy individuals who are likely to forget about the cart they have abandoned after adding a lot of items into it.
In this case, push notifications can be a perfect way to communicate and remind customers to return to their shopping carts.
Let’s take a look at how to build notifications and impress your customers:
1) Remember there’s a person behind the screen:
Today’s customers are constantly looking for personalised experiences and interactions with brands. Using personal information such as first name, last name, location to create a connection can help build customer loyalty that results in higher sales.
So, when a customer “forgets” something on the shopping cart, send them a reminder!
And if they’re a registered customer you can add his/her name to the message and make it personal.
2) Make buying from you feel like a great choice!
Get customers to feel like they’re making the best decision of their lives by purchasing from your store. Appeal to sentiments with phrases such as “you deserve this” and nudge them emotionally to click on the buy button. The idea is to make them want that item more than anything!
3) Everyone loves discounts… so offer one!
Studies have shown that when discounts are offered at just the right time and in the right context, consumers perceive them as more valuable than equivalent monetary savings.
And even if a 5%, 10% or 15% discount might not seem like much of an incentive at first glance, for price-sensitive buyers, this could seal the deal and give your business the sale.
4) People are afraid of missing out on great opportunities!
Known as FOMO – the trendy new acronym that stands for Fear Of Missing Out – is used to describe that feeling of anxiety which many people experience when they discover other people have had fun together, been successful at something, or done just about anything which they might have wanted to be involved in.
FOMO can be used to make users convert faster by making them feel like the product they’re interested in is running out fast or announcing a sale for a limited time.
5) Create a bond with your customers:
Show your customers some love and make them feel special. Give them extra attention by keeping track of their orders and quickly offer them a special deal on an item they left on their shopping cart if it’s about to run out.
6) Appreciate their taste
Sometimes people just need that little extra push to make a decision and an amazing compliment can catch their attention and change the game.
Tell them they have great taste or post the product they left on the shopping cart on your social media channel and invite them to see how great that product is!
The idea is to make them believe that their purchase is going to make heads turn or make others stand up and notice.
7) Revitalise their intent
Did you know that 8 out of 10 times, people browse through products in online stores, add them to their cart and then forget about them?
It’s very common for customers with high levels of purchase intent to leave the site without completing a sale, hoping and intending to come back and finish the process later.
To get these lost sales back into your coffers, prompt those shoppers about what they had their eye on by sending them a follow-up notification between an hour to 24 hours after they’ve left the website, reminding them of all the items in their intended order!
8) You can offer special discounts to your customers for products they have left in their carts
Who doesn’t enjoy little extra savings? Offer special discounts on their favourite products and use words like ‘just for you,’ ‘special’, ‘exclusively’ to entice them to take action.
9) Offer free shipping
Don’t let customers leave your site due to high shipping fees! Surprise them with a free delivery option.
Make it time-bound for the best conversion rate and watch those abandoned carts morph into sales!
10) Your customers deserve a little surprise!
Some stores have found success in offering a free item with each purchase. This can be a great way to entice customers into buying more or even just having them complete their current shopping.
Offer them a mystery gift that’s revealed after they’ve completed their order, or give them the opportunity to select what they’d like to be rewarded with (a 10% voucher for their next purchase, a gift or a cashback, for example) – and see what motivates them to complete their purchase.
11) Increase the value of your sales by offering related products
Cross-selling related or complementary items is one way to increase revenue.
Show customers another product they may be interested in and give them a discount so it seems to make sense for them that purchasing the additional product is a super value.
Final thoughts about Nudging Marketing Strategies:
Marketing cues that are forceful and blatant are becoming a thing of the past, while nudge tactics, done right, can motivate your customers towards making a purchase by being subtle and less pushy than those outdated marketing strategies.
The next time you want to nudge marketing tips that will help increase conversion rates, come back to this post and build your strategy, and while doing so remember to analyse the results to see what has the best impact on your business.
Very few people know the importance of implementing a human behaviour approach to client acquisition when running a business, and I’m more than glad to walk you through this path, so if there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know!