15 Ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment

When you’re a store owner, getting abandoned carts can be soul-crushing, especially when you don’t get a lot of sales. Every abandoned cart stings. Fortunately, there are strategies you can implement to help you prevent cart abandonment and drive more sales. If you’d like to increase your sales volume, you’ll want to try these 15 ways to reduce cart abandonment. Let’s get more people buying from your store. Here’s how.

15 Ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment

1. Split-test your product images

While not applicable to all niches, some, like fashion, beauty, and food, are visual. That means people buy with their eyes, not their minds. These niches are more likely to make impulse purchases when they see something beautiful, like a top or lipstick, and add it to their cart right away. When you have a product in this niche, you’ll need to split test your images.

For some people, a product picture works best, like on Amazon. However, for other niches, a lifestyle photo is best for selling the product. Years ago, my most popular ecommerce product was a mandala blanket. It was a lifestyle photo of a woman sitting on the mandala blanket that got people to impulse-buy our product like hotcakes.

Picking the right photo to run ads to or to host first on your product page does matter. You also want to align the picture you promote with the one on your website to prevent confusion and bounce rates.

Doing these things with your product photos will help reduce cart abandonment, leading to more impulse purchases.

Source: https://futurescapesuniverse.com/collection/all

2. Add demo videos to your product pages

Some products require explanation or demonstration. For example, think of all those cooking infomercials that demonstrate the power of a blender or some other kitchen tool. Seeing a photo of a blender doesn’t showcase its power or strength. However, when you start adding different items and show how long it takes to blend and how smooth the blend turns out, you’ll end up converting the sale.

The easiest way to assess whether your product will require a video is to look at similar products in your niche. You can also check YouTube to see if similar products are showcased in video format. Once you’ve determined that a video would help your product page, you can create a simple video of your product in action. You can play royalty-free music if speaking in English isn’t your first language, or you can use a voice actor or AI to read your script for you.

Source: https://jpsdigitalpages.com/#freebies

3. Offer free and fast shipping

When selling your products online, you’ll want to offer flexible shipping options. Give your customers options, like free shipping for those who want to keep costs low or fast shipping for those who need your item immediately. For example, some buyers might need a last-minute item to prepare for a specific date, so fast shipping allows them to order it on time. However, other buyers are more budget-conscious; they want free shipping and don’t want any additional financial surprises upon checkout. Slow or expensive
shipping can lead people to forgo completing their order. If you want to reduce cart abandonment, you’ll need to offer more shipping speed and cost options to better meet your customers’ needs.

4. Add your price clearly on the product page

Some brands experience high cart abandonment because they hide their pricing information. Hiding price information is a tactic many use when their prices are high, when they don’t want to compete, or in specific niches like CRMs or software. If you’re selling your ecommerce products to other businesses,
you’ll want to specify prices on your pricing or product pages to help convert sales.

Many brands are very vague about pricing details for enterprise plans, where costs can soar into the thousands each month. However, you’re more likely to experience high cart abandonment when you aren’t transparent about pricing. Forcing customers into demos from your sales team adds friction to the sales process. Some customers who are willing to pay are even rejected because they don’t match the exact persona. Having transparent pricing gives you a higher chance of making sales and of not accidentally turning away someone with a wallet out, ready to buy.

Source: https://nicolaibecker.supply/b/archviz-grass-photopack

5. Give customers more payment options

One way to reduce cart abandonment is to ensure customers can pay for your products using their preferred payment method. When you use Payhip, you can offer customers over 100 payment methods through Payhip’s 13 payment gateways. When you select PayPal and Stripe, you’ll even benefit from
instant payouts so you can get paid faster. With these payment methods, you’ll be able to sell your products internationally, giving your online store greater reach.

6. Add refund and return policies to your website

Some customers are cautious buyers. If they’re making a big-ticket purchase or want to feel secure in their buying decisions, they might read through your website policies to find your refund and return policies. If your website footer doesn’t have those easily accessible, they might question the legitimacy of your website, which causes them to abandon their cart. If your terms are too rigid or not customer-friendly, you might also experience issues with a high volume of abandoned carts. Having clear, accessible, and generous refund and return policies will help you reduce cart abandonment.
Offering up to 90 days for returns, full refunds rather than store credit, and free return shipping shows you care about your customers.

7. Show inventory levels for low-supply items

Scarcity is an effective tactic for getting people to buy your products now. If you have an inventory tracker on your online store, a pop-up notification when inventory is low can help you increase sales and reduce cart abandonment.

When selling digital products, you can actually cap inventory levels or create limited-time bundles with bonus materials to help artificially create scarcity and entice more people to buy your products. A scarcity approach can boost sales and reduce cart abandonment. Your offer will still need to be compelling, though, to help convert the sale.

8. Run retargeting ad campaigns

Retargeting ads are effective at reducing cart abandonment by recovering abandoned carts. A retargeting ad is an ad you can run specifically for people who’ve already visited your website. You can add a pixel to your online store that tracks customers and shows the exact product they’ve abandoned, then follows them across ad platforms on social media and the web.

Retargeting ads are among the most effective out there. Since people have already engaged with your website, they already have the brand recognition and awareness of your online store. The person who visited your website and added items to their cart is considered a warm lead because of their prior
engagement with your online store. Thus, they’re more likely to buy from you with a bit of persistence.

9. Only have one offer per page

One way to reduce cart abandonment is to limit each page to one offer. Having too many offers on one page can increase the unexpected costs that cause people to abandon in the first place. Plus, having too many offers on one page can overwhelm customers, adding frustration to the shopping experience.

Your product page should focus on selling only one product. Only after a customer has added an item to their cart should you show a cross-sell or upsell, as they’re ready to move on to the next offer.

10. Ensure your website looks professional

The easiest way to reduce cart abandonment is to ensure your website looks professional and trustworthy. Your website should be well-designed. If you struggle with website design, you can work with AI to create code to make changes and enhancements to make your website look more professional.

Your product pages should also have professionally designed images or professionally taken photographs to create an aesthetically pleasing representation of your products. Plus, your product pages need to be clear of typos.

Your website should also have an SSL certificate (if you’re on Payhip, you already have one). This shows that your website is secure and you can safely process payments on the platform. You should also have an About Us page, policy pages, contact forms, and more to signal trust and legitimacy.

While not related to your website, a trust signal that your website is legit is an active social media presence where you regularly post content and share updates.

Image from: https://thedutchladydesigns.nl/

11. Charge market value for your products

Some customers abandon their carts due to the product’s cost. Many shoppers will research several websites to find the best price for what they’re looking for. You don’t need to be the cheapest product on the market to appeal to customers. However, charging the actual market value for your products will make customers more likely to purchase them.

When selling digital products, you’ll need to price them based on the value you provide. If you have a short online course that doesn’t pack tons of information, you should probably charge less than a course that provides a more in-depth scope of what the topic needs. Plus, if you’ve built a recognizable personal brand on social media, you’ll be able to charge more than someone with no online clout. If people keep abandoning carts on your website, it’s possible your price isn’t what people are willing to pay for the value of what they’re getting.

12. Ask customers to review your products

If you want to reduce cart abandonment on your website, you’ll need to boost the social proof of your products. When someone buys from your website, you should always send a product review email to them around the time the package arrives to help boost the number of reviews on your website. Funny
enough, people love writing positive reviews for products they love. Asking is often enough. Most store owners never bother to ask, which is why they don’t get many reviews. The more reviews your products have, the more trustworthy your products will appear. Don’t stress too much about the occasional one-star review or mid-tier reviews. Be open to feedback so you can continue to improve your products and create what people want.

13. Only list products that are currently in stock

Nothing is more frustrating than adding a product to your cart, only to find out it’s currently out of stock. While waitlisting items can be great for generating demand and building anticipation, it often leads customers to change their minds. Thus leading to abandoned carts. Only showcasing items that are currently in stock and have sufficient inventory is a great way to help prevent abandoned carts, as people won’t experience buyer’s remorse, take time to think about whether they actually need it, or find another
product better suited to their needs.

14. Offer good deals

The best way to reduce cart abandonment is to offer shoppers a deal they can’t refuse. When selling only products, you can add bonus content, exclusive items, or other key features that help compel an instant purchase. Sometimes deals like buy-one-get-one-free or a bonus pack can be enticing enough to prompt an immediate purchase. Creating a marketing strategy to make your product offers more compelling is an effective way to help reduce cart abandonment. Truly think about what your customer actually wants from you or your product to help them see the benefit.

Source: https://alainajensen.com/

15. Send an abandoned cart email

Sending an abandoned cart email is the most common way to reduce cart abandonment and recover carts effectively. On Payhip, you can send abandoned cart emails for no extra cost. You can schedule emails in a timely manner; the sooner after cart abandonment, the more likely you are to actually convert the sale. You can offer promotional codes to give customers a discount on their purchase to complete the sale. Plus, Payhip lets you track your abandoned carts so you can create a solution to reduce cart abandonment for your store. With clear data, you’ll have a better understanding of the work you’ll need to do to get more people to buy your products.

Conclusion

All online stores experience cart abandonment. That doesn’t mean that you can’t create better products, improve your marketing, build more trust, or offer something that’s too good to pass up. How you approach your abandoned carts will vary by store. You can try a combination of all the strategies listed within this article to help you create a store with low rates of cart abandonment and earn more money per customer. If you’re thinking of selling online, Payhip has all the ecommerce features you need to help you grow your business, recover abandoned carts, and build a store affordably. To get started, sign up for Payhip for free.