It’s difficult enough to get traffic your e-commerce website. To prevent visitors from leaving your site, you must run sponsored adverts, make sure your SEO approach is foolproof, and give them a frictionless experience.
The last thing you want is to lose potential consumers to shopping cart abandonments after investing time, energy, and money in client acquisition.
Visitors who add things to their online shopping carts but later leave your website without making a purchase are said to have abandoned their carts. Cart abandonment costs ecommerce companies $18 billion in lost sales revenue per year.
Even if it’s not always avoidable—sometimes the doorbell rings or the customer is “just browsing”—it can usually be fixed.
How? Abandoned cart emails. Customers are prompted to buy the products in their shopping basket by these automated emails. Additionally, they enable companies to cross-sell, upsell, and provide purchasing incentives. Due to their personalised content and alluring incentives, these emails have the potential to enhance conversion rates.
Abandoned cart emails are crucial for recouping lost purchases because they have a 41.18% open rate, which is significantly higher than the usual marketing email’s 21% rate.
Here is a guide to creating successful cart abandonment emails that can increase sales and customer retention for your online store.
Learn more: Create an email for abandoned shopping carts
Typical Reasons for Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment may occasionally be caused by a bad user experience, such as hidden costs at the checkout, technological difficulties, or a requirement to create an account. The buyer becomes frustrated by all of these elements and questions their purchase.
Learn more: What are Abandoned cart Emails?
Checkout pages that are difficult
The user is prevented from finishing a transaction by a perplexing checkout screen. Single-page checkout is being used by more e-commerce companies to guarantee that customers can enter their payment information, examine, and confirm their purchase all on the same page.
Another barrier is required account creation; customers don’t want to spend time filling out forms and coming up with new passwords. To make the process more efficient, allow guest checkout.
Finally, extended checkout procedures may raise privacy issues. Customers may leave their shopping carts empty if they have doubts about your website’s security.
Low rates anywhere
If a customer discovers a slightly better bargain on a competitor’s website, they can change their minds. A lower price, a lax return policy, or a website that is simple to use will be enough to entice your clients away.
To avoid losing sales due to easily fixable errors, make sure your pricing plan and website experience are equivalent to, if not better than, those of your competitors.
High-priced shipping
One of the main reasons why shopping carts are abandoned is additional expenses. Customers will not make another purchase if delivery costs are higher than expected. If you are unable to offer free shipping, give buyers an idea of the shipping costs on the product landing page. This will prevent them from feeling duped at the checkout when additional costs are added without their knowledge.
Technical issues with a website
Customers are discouraged from making a purchase on websites when there are issues with the loading of pages, broken links, and responsiveness. Customers may experience issues while entering their payment information or find your checkout page to be unclear. To guarantee that customers, regardless of the device they use, have a seamless checkout experience, test your e-commerce website frequently.
The client is not ready
Fortunately, not all cart abandonments are the responsibility of the retailer. Maybe the consumer changed their mind (especially if it’s a significant purchase) or was just looking around without any plans to buy.
According to one study, 58.6% of online consumers in the United States abandoned a cart in the previous three months because “I was just browsing/not ready to buy.”
When the customer is ready, sending a cart abandonment email will keep your business front of mind.
Best Practises for Cart Abandonment Emails
Consider your abandoned basket email campaign a vital instrument for increasing revenue and customer loyalty. Conversions depend heavily on personalization and responsiveness. Best practises to adhere to are listed below:
Emails about abandoned carts should be sent quickly
To increase your chances of recouping the sale, send abandoned cart emails within 24 hours of the buyer leaving the website. List the products the customer has in their shopping cart along with suggestions for additional products. Tell the customer about any special deals or offers, like a discount code for first-time customers.
Keep the email design easy and clear
Your email’s layout should highlight urgency and motivate readers to take action. Use a straightforward layout that is both appealing to the eye and consistent with your brand and the email’s goal. A clear call-to-action (CTA) should be included in the email, which should also be customised to the customer’s interests.
The following are the essential components of a personalised email:
- List the things that were left in the customer’s shopping basket (including pictures and links to the product pages).
- Give a CTA to finish the transaction.
- Include extra product suggestions (such as “You may also like”).
- Include unique deals, like a coupon for first-time buyers.
Make the email’s topic and body more distinctive
Personalised subject lines increase the likelihood that an email will be opened by 26%. Consider the items the buyer left in their cart when writing an effective subject line and be sure to be personalised.
Use sentences like “Don’t forget your new shorts” or “Complete your summer fashion look,” for example.
Mention any discounts or incentives you’re providing, like free shipping, in the subject line (for example, “Complete your purchase with 20% off; shipping is now free”).
Product photos should be attractive
Product photos of the highest calibre entice clients to make purchases. Use photos that show the product truthfully while highlighting its features. To create a sense of urgency and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), think about labelling the image with “Hurry! Low stock!”
Clearly state the CTA.
An attention-grabbing headline urging the reader to act should appear on an abandoned cart email.
Use a direct and obvious call to action, such as “Complete your purchase” or “Get your order now.” Finish with a deadline and a sense of urgency, such as “Order by midnight and get 10% off.”
Provide some kind of reward
Customers who were first hesitant to make a purchase are helped by incentives to change their minds. Customers who receive discounts and other incentives believe they are saving money and receiving a unique offer.
- Free Delivery: Free delivery has been shown to be an effective incentive because it lowers the overall cost of the transaction, especially if shipping costs are a turnoff. Additionally, it makes customers more devoted to an online retailer because it shows that it is prepared to go above and beyond for its clients.
- Giveaways: Customers like receiving a free gift with purchase, especially if it’s an exclusive item they can’t obtain in the store. Buy one, get one free offers or a discount on a future purchase are two more useful gifts.
- Exclusive Offers: Exclusive Offers For consumers on a budget, incentives may be the determining factor. Give special discounts or limited-time offers to new or returning clients who are purchasing from you.
Utilise social proof
- Feature recommendations and reviews from customers.
- Display user-generated material. Include content from social media posts made by your customers regarding your product in your email.
- Include a “Customers who purchased this item also ordered…” section with product recommendations.
- The overall star rating and total number of sales for your store should be prominently displayed.
Upselling and cross-selling
Test alternative email templates
Provide specialised customer support
Check your outcomes.
How to automate emails for abandoned carts
By automating abandoned cart recovery, emails are sent immediately and are personalised. You’ll require two different kinds of software for this.
- A company that creates, sends, and tracks emails.
- A system for tracking cart abandonments in online stores.
Create triggers on your e-commerce platform so that an email is sent out automatically each time a customer leaves their cart unattended. Webhooks, which let you follow occurrences on your e-commerce website and notify your email service provider, can be used for this.
The next step is to build an abandoned cart email sequence to send a series of emails if the customer doesn’t convert right away.
The goal of each email should be slightly different. For instance, the first abandoned cart email should function more as a “checking in” to remind the consumer of the things in their cart and inquire about any difficulties they may have encountered during checkout.
Due to low stock, cart expiration, or time-limited offers, the second email ought to make you feel pressed for time. Offer incentives in the third follow-up email to help the buyer get over any reservations they might have.
Learn more: Email marketing may be a route to conversion
Find the right programme
Ecommerce systems are a key resource for recovering abandoned carts.
Customers who add an item to their cart but leave before checking out receive an email invitation from BigCommerce’s built-in Abandoned Cart Saver service. The emails are programmable and can be used in conjunction with discounts to persuade your customers to finish their purchases. Five emails can be scheduled and set up.
Make an email template for an abandoned cart
The following are essential elements to include in a successful abandoned cart email template:
- Strong topic line: Use expressions like “Don’t miss out!” or “Don’t forget, your cart is waiting.” to convey a sense of urgency.
- Personalization: List the discarded products (together with product pictures) and warn customers that the items are only available in a limited number.
- A CTA that is clear: The CTA should be noticeable, explicit, and simple to understand. Customers should be directed to the checkout page or a product details page using the CTA button.
- Visuals: Customers can better visualise the products in their shopping cart and make more informed decisions thanks to product photos and videos.
- Offer technical support: Ask the customer if they had any problems finishing their order, and then offer different payment methods, live chat help, or other solutions.
Triggers, then publish
Conclusion
To increase sales and enhance revenue, ecommerce companies must have an abandoned cart email plan. Businesses can gather information on the causes of cart abandonment and enhance the consumer experience by sending cart abandonment emails.
They also facilitate the development of customer connections by giving retailers the opportunity to interact personally with customers and to provide discounts and other incentives.
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