5 Great Tips to Lower Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates

Don't leave money on the table. Engage with your customers to lower your shopping cart abandonment rate and combine approaches to make your recapture even more secure.

1. Use trusted logos

Logos which guarantee a purchase, internet security, payment security, privacy, and information safety will automatically make your online business seem more legitimate.

Logos like Verisign Secured, Norton Secured, McAfee Secure, and Verified by Visa are just some of the verified codes which tell your shoppers, consciously or subconsciously, that your site is safe, their purchase is verified and secure, and that your business is NOT being run out of some small hole.

These signs of security are important and if your business has them, you should be using them on all of your checkout, cart, purchase, and payment pages on your site.

2. Shipping should be fast, free, and easily ignored

Nowadays, there is an extremely high and fluid expectation regarding buying anything online. After a few flawless online buying experiences, which we have all had by this time, our expectations for a fluid and beautiful purchase increase.

We want the shipping to be zero, the shipping speed to be fast, and we want to not have to think about it, so we want to SEE the $0.00 on Shipping costs right there in our shopping cart so that we know, for sure, that extra fees and costs will NOT be added to the mix.

That is the experience that customers everywhere are expecting and hoping to have. To deliver less than this is to almost guarantee a higher shopping cart abandonment rate.

Figure out what you need to charge to cover fast shipping, handling, and put this into your original item price.

Remember to add the $0.00 Shipping to the checkout page so that they are reassured that there will be no further price. Remember to really sell this and emphasize it; this will make your customers feel as if they are getting an extra bonus, even when they are getting what they had originally expected.

3. Use abandoned cart emails and remarketing ads

The use of cart abandonment emails and re-targeting ads is widely known to increase the pickup of abandoned carts.

Abandoned cart emails should have pictures of the items they put in their cart, along with pictures of items they viewed. This will increasingly whet their appetites to come back for more. The colors, the pictures, and the awesome "Wanna Have a Second Look?" phrasing will pique their interest without sounding too bossy or whiny. Clear, simple communication is the key here. "We noticed that you liked some of our gifts and treats. Would you care to take a second look? In the meantime, check out some of the other items you viewed below." And have further pictures lower on in the email with items they were considering but did not add to their cart.

Re-targeting ads should be in every type of banner on web pages they visit after leaving your site; top banner ads, side banner ads, their email pages, and so on. These ads remind them that you are, indeed, legitimate and that they did show an interest in some of your products, it will even highlight they were interested enough to put the products in a shopping cart.

This kind of personalized care which follows them around the internet without being too pushy is a great way to pick potential customers back up and bring them back to your store.

4. Make it easy, simple and fast to check out before they change their minds

The secret to a good online purchase is that it's simple, easy, fast, and completely painless. This means that there should never be any registration required. There should never be any sign up required, even to get a discount code.

Zazzle.com does it best with the coupon code right on the page of purchase. All you have to do is enter it at the checkout; you don't have to sign up for anything. You can just use the coupon code, checkout, and you're done.

Sometimes, the goal of your business is to get emails, sign up memberships, or create a discount club. In this case, have a pop-up that greets them every time they sign on to the site. In addition to this, make sure the pop-up is easy to exit, not just with an exit "X" in the corner, but also just by clicking off to the side of the screen.

You want your customers to feel "un-harassed." This means creating a flawless experience for them from the moment they log on to your site until they receive the confirmation email of their purchase afterward. The whole thing should feel effortless.

Twice a month, hire a company or outside firm to check on your beginning-to-end buying process. Hire someone to go through the entire checkout experience. Report all glitches, malfunctions, or stresses encountered along the way, even the most minor ones and work on how to fix them.

5. Luxury photos will literally make your customers hungry and thirsty

Pay extra for excellent pictures; make them look ultra-juicy and luscious. Get the bright lighting, the warm lighting, the deep and bright colors, the clear focus, and the practical feel of the thing with perfect pictures. Pay extra for advertising, pay extra for the perfect, advertorial photographs. Do whatever it takes, because well-displayed photographs make all the difference in the world to your success rate.

Pictures and videos are the bread and butter of your online shopping experience and not everyone is going to click on the video link. So, make sure the photos sing like Pavarotti.

When you do your re-targeting, these feasts for the eyes will re-attract your clientele. Customers won't want to abandon a cart filled with so many delightful things; they will want to hold onto what they have.

In conclusion, people abandon their shopping carts all the time. You can't take that personally. The thing to do next is to use every tool and technique to pick them back up again. Get good at re-targeting, start looking more official and trustworthy, and keep tracking consumer activity. Numbers don't lie and you can see how they improve, one technique at a time, as you go through the process. Happy Marketing!