Turn Abandoned Carts into Revenue: Proven eCommerce Strategies

Someone said, “Why are you so serious? It’s just an abandoned cart.”

Okay, let’s imagine the scenario to understand why it matters.

A customer chooses a cart with quality products and reasonable prices. 

The shopper is about to place an order but finds the delivery charge higher. So, the shopper leaves the cart.

Wouldn’t that be a bad signal for your store?

Wait, the story doesn’t end here.

Now, the customer might lose interest in your brand even after liking the products.

That is why eCommerce brands take abandoned carts so seriously to regain lost sales.

What is cart abandonment

An abandoned cart contains items chosen but not purchased. When a customer completes every step of purchasing a cart except placing an order, it becomes an abandoned cart. More often, cart abandonment happens when a shopper either doesn’t intend to purchase or changes the decision to purchase midway through their buying journey.

On average, in 2024, 70% of global digital carts were abandoned, which shows how important it is to recognize this issue. This indicates how necessary it is to take strategic steps to reduce the cart abandonment rate.

An abandoned cart results in lost sales, which can be accomplished later if saved.

What is abandoned cart recovery

Abandoned cart recovery is a process of identifying the reasons why customers abandon their carts, finding solutions, and reconnecting the shoppers with the store. It contains the steps required to ensure the shoppers purchase the products left alone earlier.

Abandoned cart recovery includes tasks such as:

• Finding out the reasons before leaving a cart
• Reminding customers of abandoned carts
• Helping them re-decide to purchase
• Simplifying the purchase process

Reasons behind cart abandonment

eCommerce stores are now one click away and one bad experience with a brand can be the reason for customer dissatisfaction and forgetting that brand. If a customer leaves you now, there are plenty of similar or better options for the shopper to search.

There are a variety of reasons that turn a convinced shopper into a lost customer. 

Customers leave carts for various reasons, such as a dissatisfactory shopping experience, higher pricing, or delayed delivery.

Complicated checkout process

Whether it’s the complication of user interface or lack of engagement, the complex checkout process bothers a user so much that seems irresistible. This results in nothing but a quick exit. The user will not like to visit the site for the second time.

For example, some sites require a sign-up to view the full product description, which is unnecessary. Why should a visitor submit a personal email only because they wandered a site? It makes no sense, but many eCommerce sites still use this feature.

Customers usually don’t like to sign up on any eCommerce site without any activity.

On the other hand, if a customer finds a fine-tuned website and meticulous user experience with a smooth transition from page to page, it always keeps the customer a step ahead to proceed.

Uncertain or delayed delivery time

Which moment is perfect for a user to know how long it takes to receive the package? It needs to be before the decision-making.

The information about delivery time is a part of the shopping details. A user doesn’t confirm a purchase before knowing the shipping details.

Hiding the delivery time might be tricky but never effective. 

If a Christmas gift requires 3 days to get delivered, it’s of no use to add this to the cart 2 days before the festival.

Irrelevant product recommendation

If a user looks for a laptop stand and then gets suggested to buy a keyboard cleaner – that’s quite relevant. On the contrary, the suggestion of buying another laptop is not worth it because the user already has one.

Lack of promo codes and discounts

It’s a pleasant surprise to receive a promo code or discount for an already-added cart. Sometimes, a promo code or discount helps a first-time visitor proceed to buy without hesitation.

Fear of hidden costs

Hidden costs bother a customer immensely, nobody is so dumb as to ignore it. If all types of charges are not disclosed in your shopping cart but are charged later, customers will leave your product hanging. This hide-and-seek game with the customers demotivates.

Unclear returning policy

Not giving a clear statement about how the return policy works, keeps the users away from a final purchase. Nobody wants to spend money without clarity.

What if the purchased product doesn’t fulfill the need, or has any damage? 

A clear statement about the return policy will encourage them to click on ‘order now’ rather than wait and think for later.

For example, Fluent Forms has provided users with a 14-day unconditional money-back guarantee.

Inadequate payment options

If your eCommerce store doesn’t cover all payment options, a group of users with particular payment methods can’t complete the checkout process.

Transaction security concern

This problem matters the most to the new shoppers who are generally not used to shopping from your website. An SSL certification full of encryption can help you earn users’ trust.

Why reducing cart abandonment is necessary

Cart abandonment recovery is necessary to increase sales and revenue, enhance customer retention, and build brand loyalty. It also upholds brand trust and brand value.

Increase sales

Increasing sales and revenue is the main reason behind targeting abandoned cart recovery. 

Abandoners are the buyers who have almost bought from your shop and decided not to purchase at the last minute. Once they return to the store, they are again closer to the purchase.

If you can reconnect them to your shop with the determination to buy, you need not convince them otherwise for the final action.

It’s the simplest way to sell to return customers. Now they are more willing to buy. That is how abandoned cart recovery increases sales.

Improve stock management

Buyers who have abandoned their carts halfway might purchase the same cart later. But the inventory can’t wait for them so long. Ultimately, this will lead to much chaotic situation for the e-commerce store’s inventory management.

When you reach out to the customers who left your cart and help them make the buying decision for them, you can easily manage the stock by calculating the recovery rate.

Broaden customer retention and loyalty

Recovering abandoned carts also retains the old customers who are more likely to purchase from you. Maybe they didn’t make it the last time they checked out for a reason. This is why it comes to the top priority list of customer retention strategies.

Your eCommerce store has already attracted them, engaged with them, and almost made the conversion. Now it’s time to retain them again. Once you have succeeded in retaining those customers, you are a step ahead of finding the right way to solve abandoned cart recovery.

Ensure customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value is the estimation of the total value of revenue a business can expect to earn from a customer. To increase customer lifetime value, you need to make sure the customers have repetitive purchases.

Recovering abandoned carts immensely helps in pursuing customer lifetime value. It enables the possibilities of future transactions supposed to be made by your target customers.

Retargeting the cart abandoners can be a great scope to make shoppers buy repeatedly. That’s how your business can enhance customer lifetime value through abandoned cart recovery.

Effective ways you can follow to reduce and recover cart abandonment

When you know why this happens, you are a step ahead of stopping it. You can easily find out the reasons why your customers abandon carts by applying these actions:

Utilize exit-intent pop-ups

Whether it’s free shipping, promo code, or personalized discount, an exit-intent popup helps a customer rethink before leaving a cart. Exit pop-up is a simple form you can easily create without coding or using a simple template. Anyways, you need to add enough ingredients inside the popup.

Image: Optin

Bring clarity to product information

It’s especially the information-seeker buyers who go through the ins and outs before buying a product. A well-optimized and engaging product description helps shoppers get a clear concept.

Forget about an eCommerce shop. What do you ask a salesperson when you buy a shirt from a physical shop? What the dimension is, whether it wrinkles, the durability of the buttons, how smooth the cotton is, color variations, etc. And, the salesperson cordially replies to every question you ask.

Why?

Because providing attention to detail is another form of providing attention to customers.

The product description of your brand is the virtual salesperson.

There are a few ways you can stand out in product descriptions:

• Explicate the variations
• Elaborate on the usability
• Add the precautions
• Highlight the best features
• Update the changes
• Introduce visual presentations

Image: Adov

Excel in lead generation forms

It’s always more reasonable to prevent losing sales than to retain the lost ones. That keeps your customers rather than stop raising interest and losing at the end, and also being aware specifically about whether the brand can fulfill their necessities or not.

Here is an instance of how you can add actionable lead generation forms to your site.

Provide promo code where applicable

Sometimes shoppers wait for a promo code when they abandon a strongly desired cart. A promo code at the right moment to grow the interest of your customers to place an order.

What is the right time to show a promo code? 

Let the customers get a promo code when they are closer to purchase.

You can easily add coupons to your site using Fluent Forms.

Work on building brand trust and loyalty

Customers are more likely to trust your brand. When a brand doesn’t discontinue a faulty product, doesn’t take steps according to a complaint, or hides any information about a product, it’s needless to say that the brand has lost the trust of the customers.

One bad feeling can ruin hundreds of reasons why your customers trust you. 

Listen to your customers and care about the problems they are facing regarding shopping.

• Build a caring support system
• Pay attention to the crucial reviews and take actions
• Discontinue the faulty products
• Keep the promises you made to the customers

Introduce secure and adequate payment options

As no online shopper sees you or typically doesn’t talk to you, they require a secure payment option. 

Plus, it’s not every time a user uses the same payment option. That’s why having a bunch of popular payment methods is preferable. 

Whether it’s a direct banking channel, a card, or mobile banking, eCommerce shoppers might use every one of them depending on the pricing range, and balance in their accounts, or preference.

Knowing the user requirements, Fluent Forms offers the user to provide their users with multiple payment options.

Fluent Forms provides users with multiple payment options so that their customers can easily continue with the preferred one.

Conduct and analyze customer surveys

Customer satisfaction is a long way, where every stop matters. Failing to satisfy a customer with a simple query, service, or feature can result in the loss of a long-term relationship.

To know your customers through conducting user-centric surveys, you need useful survey questions that help them tell about their likings, dislikes, and complaints.

Here is a short tutorial on how you can create survey forms easily using Fluent Forms.

Offer free delivery when possible

Up to 50% of online shoppers wait as much as 1 week for a free delivery. It shows how much a free delivery offer can convince a shopper.

Chances are high that it will work better in terms of an abandoned cart. If the total cost is the reason for leaving a cart, the buyer can feel relieved at least one whole part of the cost has been reduced.

Analyze samples of abandoned cart

It would be excellent if you could analyze every one of the abandoned carts with particular concentration, again it’s not hard to summarize them in the era of AIs for simplifying every task.

• Collect and organize data
• Send personalized email
• Hear from the audience
• Let customers join live chat

Apply a seamless pricing strategy

A seamless pricing strategy with deep analytics and repeated testing can benefit in growing revenue constantly. 

When the other selling propositions are valuable, pricing can help shoppers decide instantly to purchase. Consistency in reasonable pricing also helps enhance brand value.

• Compare pricing with competitors
• Be reasonable compared to offline shops
• Maintain a steady price range

Retarget the cart abandoners

Customers who have abandoned carts recently are now at the top of the funnel as sales leads. 

Fine-tuned eCommerce personalization strategies can be vital ways to retarget the cart abandoners.

Once you know why a user left a cart, you can implement a specific formula to make the customer return.

For example, if a customer leaves the cart for the lack of variation in colors, you can send a personalized email to that customer once the new colors of the product arrive.

Send actionable emails to abandoners

If you can create magic with email marketing, you can stand out amid the crowd of competitors. Users don’t always open emails of multiple brands of the same category. 

Here an actionable email can directly make your customers return.

There are a few steps that can make the abandon recovery email successful:

1. Find out the pain point
2. Create a solution to the specific problem
3. Highlight the solution
4. Add more value-driven features with the solution

Add save-your-cart feature

It’s especially the casual buyers who used to wander in shops they admire and want to save their carts in case they buy in the future. Features like ‘add to favorite’, or ‘wish list’ are excellent scopes for a cordial shopping experience, reminding the customers what they’ve liked earlier, once they re-enter.

When users have a saved cart rather than an abandoned cart, you get a good reason to send them reminders.

Hear from the shoppers

It’s time to end all confusion and intuitions about what the customers think. Some easy-to-engage survey questions can make the users express what they think about your brand or products. It’s an extraordinary way to gather customers’ complaints silently. They can easily complain, carry away their anger, and elaborate on the pain points. 

Not knowing your customers can keep you a thousand miles away from understanding the customer journey.

Wrap up

The success of cart abandonment depends more on why that happened and what needs to be done to make sure that it hardly repeats. 

Detecting the customer pain points and applying the retention strategy along with a seamless user experience are the basic needs for cart abandonment reduction and recovery. 

Knowing customer behavior and preparing your business for a smooth customer journey is what can give special advantages.