What is the best ecommerce cart abandonment solution?

Integrate & automate 3 min read Nov 2019 |   Author: Sinch MessageMedia

Ecommerce cart abandonment should not be feared – ecommerce businesses should understand and embrace this behaviour as a natural part of the purchasing journey. Even better, with a simple follow-up SMS, you can use customer interest to improve cart redemption and convert the high percentages of customers already on the verge of purchasing.

Rethinking online retail cart abandonment

While shopping cart abandonment reasons vary, statistics reveal an interesting trend. Figures show that a large number of customers browse, select an item and reach the checkout only to abandon their cart, with the average abandonment rate of 70 percent.

What is important is that the majority of these shoppers intend to return and buy. Baymard Institute, an independent web usability research institute, discovered that 58.6 percent of online shoppers abandoned a cart within a three-month period because they were “just browsing” or “not ready to buy”.

Yet 75 percent of those abandoners have some intention to purchase and will return to the online store to either purchase or abandon the cart again. At that point, one in four customers will make the purchase. Even customers who abandon their cart a second time are still 2.6 times more likely to return again to complete a purchase.

Any purchase intent activity, including abandoning a cart once or twice, increases the likelihood of recovering the sale.

So rather than dreading cart abandonment, online stores should rethink the customer journey process, treat it as a critical part in the sales cycle, and act accordingly.

Cart abandonment solutions: Converting to sales

Online shoppers who abandon their shopping carts are incredibly valuable, as they have indicated an interest in your products or services and also an intention to buy.

It’s your response that determines the outcome.

The first 12 hours following an online store visit present the greatest opportunity to convert abandonment to a sale, so fast follow-up is essential to pull customers back to your store.

While cart abandonment email reminders deliver an improved redemption rate, email open rates are low (20 percent) and response rates even lower (2.69 percent).

In-app notifications are another avenue to reduce cart abandonment. However, unless your app is top of mind, notifications are often switched off, and we are generally falling out of love with apps.

SMS offers:

• 98 percent open rate
• 90 percent of messages opened within 90 seconds
• Links and images can be easily included, increasing customer engagement

The SMS reminder, with its rapid open and response rates, has the potential to deliver much higher rates of conversion. It is one of the most underestimated marketing automation tools available today.

Marketing automation for even easier conversions

Automated shopping cart abandonment reminders make conversion even easier. Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform in the world, thanks to its flexibility, rich features and simplicity.

Integrated SMS marketing automation now enables your business to send scheduled abandoned cart reminders easily within the critical 12-hour window. Solutions such as MessageMedia’s marketing automation app allow you to customise your automated message time and content and, once saved, your automated message will trigger every time a shopper abandons their cart.

Customers want abandoned cart reminders

Research shows that customers want a more personalised shopping experience, if it facilitates and enhances their relationship and transactions with a business. Of the top five preferred reasons for personal contact from a business – as well as obvious reasons such as discounts and special promotions – is a reminder of items left in a shopping cart, and an enticement to click the ‘add to cart’ button more often.

Find out more about SMS marketing automation or download the app.