Shopify Tips: Reducing Cart Abandonment for Ecommerce Brands

Shopify Tips: Reducing Cart Abandonment for Ecommerce Brands

If you own an ecommerce website or are thinking of launching your website, we hate to break it to you, but you could be losing money if your cart isn’t designed for conversions! 

A lot of money!

Roughly $18 billion to be exact. 

While case studies on ecommerce bigshots like Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos might have you believing that ecommerce is a golden goose, it’s not necessarily the truth. 


But hold on a second! 


In a world where e-retail sales accounted for 14.1 percent of all retail sales worldwide in 2019 and are expected to generate 22% by 2023, something isn't adding up, right? How can sales be skyrocketing for some brands while others continue to lose money?


The answer lies in being ahead of the curve while designing- The Shopping Cart! 


Why is a Shopping Cart so important for an ecommerce brand’s success?


We’ve all cooked pancakes, before? Now imagine for a second that you’re going to make a fresh batch of pancakes. To make the perfect pancakes you need a slightly thick batter. A thick batter ensures that your pancakes turn into fluffy wonders and leave you with a superb culinary experience. Anything less than thick and your pancakes will turn out to be crisp little dosas. 

But what makes you decide to keep the batter thick and not runny? 

The taste of the pancakes?

The fluffiness of the pancakes?

The expectation of a pancake and not a dosa?

Or, the overall experience of perfection?


We’re going to bet on the overall experience! The same goes for an ecommerce experience. The perfect experience leaves the customer with a great aftertaste and makes them want to come back for more! If you give them dosas while promising pancakes, well, to put it simply, they’re not going to be happy! 

A shopping cart is your brand’s pancake! It forms the link between impulsive buying and the actual purchase! It’s the single greatest element that can make or break a website and is also where most brands lose a lot of money! 

In the tech world, this is simply known as cart abandonment. Customers add products to the cart and right before making the payment, backtrack, and leave! It’s a fairly common phenomenon too! In fact, the global average rate of cart abandonment is 75.6%.


Looks like dosas just don't cut it! Time to up the game!


Our Two Cents on Cart Abandonment:


As a tech company, focused on providing ecommerce solutions to brands, we’ve seen multiple reasons for cart abandonment over the years but we’ve narrowed it down to 2 critical factors:

  • The user’s overall experience while checking out
  • The user’s views on the safety measures implemented on the website
    • For instance - Secure payment gateways, Multiple payment options, Returns Policy, etc. 

To look at it from a micro perspective, let’s morph into customers for a bit, shall we?

When you browse on an ecommerce website and add products to your cart, do the following things bother you as a buyer?

  • No availability of a guest checkout? 
  • Over complicated navigation?
  • Product not available for delivery at the final checkout step? 
  • Surprise costs (taxes & shipping) in the checkout process?
  • Availability of secure as well as multiple payment options?

Well, these are the exact reasons for customers to abandon their carts and for brands to end up losing money! Brands fail to take into account multiple factors that influence a customer’s purchase decision! An easy, simplistic yet efficient shopping cart is a golden ticket to a higher conversion rate.


Don't believe us? Well, we’ve got stats backing us too! 


It is estimated that in 2018 alone, online businesses lost up to $756 billion because of poor e-commerce personalization. Additionally, an overwhelming 84% of people voted that they would not make a purchase online if they are dealing with an unsecured website.


Believe us now?


So, what can you do as a brand to reduce your cart abandonment problem? Lets’ look at a few options:

  • 35% of customers will abandon a site if it isn’t secure.

    •  Updating your site and making sure it has a security badge can improve your chances of customers trusting you

  • 35% of online transactions are dropped because of a required registration prompt. 

    • If you keep prompting users, it will only make them feel forced. Consider making the sign-up form completely optional or introducing a guest check-out option.  

  • Updating customers beforehand on the delivery availability of products. 
    • Disappointing customers by letting them add the product to the cart only to notify them at the checkout page that the delivery is not possible to their location is a complete no-no.
  • 61% of customers preferred to buy from online stores that offer free shipping. 

    • Adding it on your website can act as a much-needed push for impulse buyers. 

  • 27% of customers leave because the checkout process is too complicated. 

    •  If a customer has to jump through hoops to get what they need, they’re likely to give up and head over to avenues

  • 26% of customers abandon their carts due to the checkout forms being too long. 

    • Having to answer too many questions feels too intrusive to the users and limiting these can help stop them from bouncing. Limiting these to 23.48 Form Elements and 14.88 Form Fields effectively reduces abandonment rates. 

  • 55% of customers bounce from a site because of the hidden extra costs! 
    • So, be upfront about the charges as, without it, your brand comes across as dishonest
  • Offering multiple payment gateways such as Paypal, Razorpay, Visa, Wallets, cash on delivery, etc can improve your chances of converting to sales. 

Now that we’ve covered what you can do, let's look at a few examples of websites that have created a great shopping cart experience for their customers:


Epigamia

At a glance we can see:

  • The cart is clean, attractive, informative without unnecessary additions. 
  • The AJAX Cart, a technology commonly used by Shopify themes, lets customers update their carts without navigating off their current page
  • A slider mentions the exact amount needed to avail free shipping 
  • The design ensures that products can only be added upon available delivery. If not, the website will notify the customer beforehand.
  • Right above the checkout button, it mentions the addition of taxes to ensure customers are not in for a rude shock when they proceed to checkout

Yeswelder

At a glance we can see:

  • The cart is quite intuitive as even the empty cart acts as a navigator for the desired product categories
  • The AJAX Cart technology, similar to Epigamia, allows customers to add to their cart without navigating off the page 
  • Once a customer adds a product to their cart, it prompts them with what others bought. This does wonders from an upselling perspective. It also acts as a subconscious trigger for customers to buy more off of the website
  • The choice of secure checkout rather than just checkout along with clearly visible payment options assures and helps build customers’ trust in your brand

Sportsqvest

At a glance we can see:

  • The addition of the special instructions for seller adds to its personalization appeal
  • Multiple payment options in the footer informs the customers of the available options even before they head to checkout

 

Conclusion.

When a customer adds a product to the cart, he/she goes from being a casual window shopper to a potential sale, as they display a high level of intent to purchase, Everything a brand does from that point onwards, should be about creating the perfect experience to ensure that sale. 

One way to do this is by creating a shopping cart that maintains complete transparency in its processes. Simple, effective, and easy to understand carts go a long way in building a customer’s trust in your brand!

Equally important, is to tap into the customer’s subconscious. With changing ecommerce trends, impulsive buying is on the rise. If your brand can manage to tap into their subconscious, assure them that purchase with you is in their best interests, then you’ve got a winner! 

Most of the tips and tricks we’ve mentioned earlier are pretty simple to carry out. 

The question however is, are you willing to go the extra mile for your customer?