Dave Kosmayer December 30, 2020 
It’s payday. You’re on your favourite site and you’ve built the perfect cart with all the stuff you want. *Bzzzzz*. Your phone rings and you’ve been distracted only for a quick moment, but that moment was long enough to have second thoughts. You decide to click exit, and before you know it, you’ve abandoned your cart.
Sounds familiar, right? We’ve all done it and chances are someone could be doing it on your site right now. Not only is cart abandonment detrimental to your sales, it’s also a sign of a lack of trust in your brand and a rejection of your unique selling point.
But no need to worry, there’s ways to fight against cart abandonment, and we’re here to show you how.
What Is Cart Abandonment?
Cart abandonment (CA) is when a customer makes a cart or even starts a check out process for an online order but quits the process before completing the purchase.
There are a ton of reasons why some people may abandon a shopping cart. They could have been adding up multiple items to see how much they would cost together with no intent of actually purchasing. It’s also possible that a customer wanted to see if shipping was included. The worst case scenario however, is that they decided they don’t trust your business and didn’t want to make the purchase.
How To Stop Cart Abandonment
Crunching The Numbers
The first thing you need to know about CA is how to measure it. Your CA rate is calculated by dividing the number of completed transactions by the total number of transactions that were initiated. What this rate tells you, as a percentage, is how many people intended on making a purchase but ended up not completing it.
The figure that you get from this is an important metric to keep track of. A high CA rate could indicate things like a poor user experience of even a broken purchase pathway. Reducing CA will lead directly to more sales and an increase of revenue, so let’s focus on some ways of optimizing the checkout flow and minimizing the risk of CA.
Building Trust
You’ve probably made so many sales through your site that it’s possible you just see transaction forms as a formality for making a purchase. After all, the customer has already been convinced they want your product and all that’s left is providing some easy payment information, right? Well that isn’t really the case from your customers point of view.
When you ask a customer to fill out a transaction form, you’re essentially asking them to give and trust you with all of their private information. You’re asking for their name, address, and all of their credit card information – rightfully so, they may be a little hesitant to hand all of that over.
You can actually use transaction forms as an opportunity to establish more trust with your customers. A trust signal like a prominent secure payment logo (Norton Secured, Verified by Visa, etc.) will go a long way. In fact, 61% of consumers have not purchased something online because the website was missing a secure payment logo.
Strategies For Tackling Abandoned Carts
Unfortunately CA is inevitable, people have second thoughts and decide they might not want to purchase something. Fortunately we have 3 tactical strategies you can use to minimize the amount of CA you encounter on your site.
Simplify checkouts
Less is more. This is especially true when it comes to online checkouts. Don’t make people create an account on your website, often they’ll just decide to shop somewhere else. Instead, offer a checkout where they can simply log in with one of their many social accounts. This makes your customers only one click away from checking out.
Abandoned Cart Emails
Some people may have decided that they don’t want to purchase your product at that exact moment, but still haven’t given up on the idea of getting it eventually. Abandoned cart emails are an amazing way to entice them into finally making that purchase. You can set them up to reach out to people who left things in their cart. Also, you remind them that their purchase can still be made.
Use Social Wishlists
Not all shopping carts are abandoned because people have second thoughts. In fact 56% of them are abandoned because shoppers want to save them for later. Give shoppers the option of adding the items in their cart to a social wishlist. Social wishlists are lists of items that you want to purchase that can be shared on social media so your friends and family know what to get you as a gift. This reduces CA and also increases your social reach.
You work so hard optimizing your site and doing everything you can to maximize sales, so don’t let cart abandonment hurt you. Remember to go through your Google Analytics to find out just how much CA is damaging your sales and then implement some of the strategies we talked about to stop CA. Also, know that when you reduce CA, you’re also increasing the trust customers have in your brand.
As always, feel free to reach out to us directly or check out any of our videos. In fact, since last minute shopping is now in full effect, check out the video below explaining how to add Gift Cards as a product on your online store.
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