3 Ways to Catch Cart Abandoners, BEFORE They Leave Your Site

In 2021, e-commerce brands lost $18 Billion in sales revenue because of cart abandonment¹ – an abandonment rate of just under 70% across all industries. Mobile users have an even higher abandonment rate (85.65%, according to Sleeknote.com). With numbers this high, one can only question if anything can be done to avoid watching items snooze in an online shopper’s cart, unpurchased.

Fortunately, all hope is not lost. Granify’s experts have done tons of research, and know that while offsite tools such as triggered emails and retargeting ads exist, one of the best ways to appeal to wayward shoppers is to optimize your site’s checkout flow, catching would-be abandoners before they leave your site. With these three easily implementable steps. you’ll not only improve the user experience, but also slash your cart abandonment rate by up to 35%². 

1. Decrease Page Load Times

The first item on our list might seem like the most obvious, but did you know that 57 Percent of shoppers will abandon their cart if they have to wait three seconds for a page to load³? Optimizing page load times–especially for mobile devices–is critical. As an added bonus, increasing page speed also helps increase your SEO scores, ensuring you show up higher on search result pages.

Luckily there are a couple of free tools that can help you identify the reasons your pages might be taking extra time to load: 

• Google Pagespeed Insights: This free development tool from Google is easy for users of any technical background to use. Simply enter your site’s URL, and it will show you what areas your site can improve in – from  First Contentful Paint (​​the first point in the page load timeline where the user can see anything on the screen), to Cumulative Layout Shift (how often users experience unexpected layout shifts as they view a page), and more.  
• GTMetrix: A tool that lets you easily test the performance of your web pages, GTMetrix is very similar to Google Pagespeed Insights – just add a URL and you’re off to the races! It also provides a handy load visualization that lets you replay your page load in slow-mo to see where the delays are, and what they look like to the end user.

2. Make It As Easy as Possible for Shoppers to Buy Your Product 

Studies show that the average checkout flow has 24 form elements⁴. With every additional form field an online shopper has to fill out, the risk of cart abandonment increases, and the likelihood they’ll ever complete a purchase diminishes exponentially.  Some reasons to revisit your checkout flow include: 

• Checkout requirements – 34% of people have said they’ve abandoned a cart when an account is required, wishing to use a guest checkout instead.
• Redundant shopper info – Having to re-enter credit card or shipping information causes over half of shoppers to drop out of the checkout flow.
• Defective discount codes – 46% of shoppers have abandoned their carts because a discount code didn’t work. 
• Hidden costs – Being upfront about any additional costs such as taxes, shipping or fees, will prevent  sticker shock that often causes shoppers to close their windows immediately. 

An optimized checkout page or flow can have as few as 7 Form Fields and 12 Form Elements–the containers for different types of inputs like text fields, checkboxes, or submit buttons– and looks to prompt shoppers to re-use information entered in one field (such as shipping address) for future fields (such as billing address). It’s always worth taking a spin through your existing checkout process to find ways that you can make it more seamless for prospective shoppers.

3. Use Cart Reminder Messaging

While the other two tips remove purchase barriers, this one is all about creating opportunities to entice the shopper. Whether that’s letting them know they qualify for free shipping, or flagging items in their cart that are in high demand so they don’t miss out, creating the right message is often what makes a shopper complete a purchase.

Conversion messages can take the form of subtle, in-page callouts, prominent slide-in pop ups or even full-screen modals, and work best when they identify the value driver of the potential shopper.  This could be added savings, an urgency to buy, or even being the most fashionable one in their friend group.

Alternatively, on-site messages that identify “exit-intent” (a shopper getting ready to leave the site) are also a great last-minute way to appeal to those value drivers and remind shoppers about the items waiting in their cart.

Takeaway

While implementing any of the improvements mentioned will help you decrease pesky cart abandonment rate, they work best when used together. Only through a seamless site AND cart experience, and by appealing to the values and digital body language of your shoppers, will you be able to drive down your cart abandonment rate, in turn increasing your conversion rate and adding dollars to your bottom line. 

Should off-site tools such as triggered emails and retargeting ads still be used? Absolutely! But they shouldn’t be your first priority when there’s so much you can do on your site to enhance your shopper experience, which will ultimately decrease the need for those tools in the first place.

Granify uses machine learning to understand and act on a shopper’s digital body language in real time, using on-site smart messages to delight and in turn, convert shoppers. Reach out to learn more about how Granify can work for you.