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7 Steps to Recover After Shopping Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is unavoidable in ecommerce, however it doesn’t have to result in the end of a customer’s journey. A successful cart-recovery system can be automated, working to turn abandoned opportunities into revenue.

Once a consumer has placed items in a basket, they are interested. Whether they chose the item because they liked it, planned to return later, or even wanted to see the price of postage, there is potential for a sale. For this reason, effective nudges can remind them and result in a purchase.

1. Collect details early

To turn any abandoned shopping cart into a sale, you need contact details. Wherever possible, collect a name, email address and contact number early in the customer’s journey. Make the detail input form simple to increase the likelihood of participation, using pop-up bars or sections on the site to encourage subscriptions or sign-ups.

Once you have collected the consumer’s details, you are able to contact them with ease in the case of shopping cart abandonment.

2. Automate your process

Make sure your customer support team are automatically notified when a shopper’s cart is abandoned. Have this logged in your system and set automated alerts and messages to go out within chosen time-frames, enabling them to be contacted shortly after leaving the site.

3. Follow-up

Remind the shopper that they have abandoned their shopping cart within 30 minutes, and in a friendly way. The reason for the timely follow-up is that the consumer will still be considering the purchase and it is the perfect time to overcome any objections. Send an eye-catching email with imagery of the products the customer showed interest in. Use helpful messaging to entice the purchase, for example, “It’s not too late” or “Treat yourself.” Be sure to link to the consumer’s shopping cart for easy purchases to be made.

4. Log progress

Throughout this process, it is vital to log whether the customer has completed the purchase or not. While automated processes can work to get a sale over the line, they can also irritate shoppers and damage reputation if the purchase has already been made.

5. The personal touch

Send a more personalised message a little while later if no purchase has been made, encouraging interaction. An example would be “We noticed you did not complete your purchase of the Tag Heuer watch, so we wanted to make sure you were not having any issues checking out. For assistance, please contact us on…”

6. The phone call

If email communication has not encouraged a purchase, a phone call can prove vital in recovering high-price purchases. Verbal communication shows the level of service customers receive while making shoppers feel valued. In addition, a phone call makes it easier to overcome any objections the consumer may have. This technique is particularly valuable when contacting those who had a high-value shopping cart.

7. Collect feedback

If steps one to six have failed, it’s not too late to benefit. Send an email requesting feedback and learn from their response. You can understand the cause of the shopping cart abandonment and use this feedback to improve in the future.

8. Personalised offers

For high-price items, it can be worth using any feedback provided by the customer to send a custom offer. Examples of this include discounts, additional extras or even product recommendations.

These eight steps will work to engage customers, increasing the likelihood of a sale after shopping cart abandonment. After all, the end of a shopper’s session doesn’t have to mean the end of a sale.

Scurri