Got the Shopping Cart Blues?

by: Sally Lowery

Director of Lead Acquisition
 All online retailers experience shopping cart abandonment. According to MarketingSherpa, shopping
cart abandonment rates average around 52% for e-commerce sites. That’s over half of your shoppers
that disengage throughout the checkout process. What pain is caused during the checkout process that
causes abandonment? It can be anything from the number of steps in your checkout process to your re-
turn/exchange policies. In order to combat shopping cart abandonment, it’s important to analyze your
shopping experience from product to purchase as well as review what marketing tactics you deploy to
engage the respondent post abandonment.

In this whitepaper, we will review the following: “Which factors keep you from
• Leading Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment doing more online shopping?”
• Ways to Combat Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Marketing Initiatives Post Abandonment Site/cart too complicated: 14%
Return/exchange policy: 41%
Leading Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment
According to a Paypal/ComScore report, 43% of consumers didn’t pay for Fraud/Identity theft: 49%
items in their shopping carts because shipping charges were too high. Sharing personal info: 53%
This highlights just one of the many pains that consumers feel around the
- MarketingSherpa,
shopping cart. Ecommerce Benchmark Guide

• High shipping prices or long delivery times. The downside

of online marketing: shipping charges and non-instant grati-
fication. People want to receive their purchases quickly and for the same amount or pos-
sibly a few dollars more than they would pay
at a bricks and mortar store. Not all are con-
vinced that convenience should be charged
a premium.
• Comparison shopping and browsing. 27%
of shoppers didn’t pay for items because they
wanted to comparison shop at other Web sites
before making a purchase*. Online marketing
has turned us all into comparison shoppers.
What was once “big purchase” behavior is now
a behavior seen in purchases as small as pur-
chasing an inexpensive book online. Consum-
ers are looking for the best product with the
best cost and the fastest/cheapest delivery.
• Changed Mind. You are much less likely to
abandon your shopping cart in the grocery Gap does an excellent job of adding product accessibility to their shop-
store, but online you can come and go as you ping cart. They visually display the items that you have added to your cart
as well as make it very easy to access those product pages again through
please without feeling any sense of guilt, so a hyperlink.
consumers feel free to change their mind.
• Total cost of items is too high. 36% of pur-
chasers didn’t pay for items because they felt the total cost of the purchase was more expen-
sive than anticipated*. State taxes, shipping and any other resulting costs from the purchase
can sometimes be unexpected and cause the shopper to abandon.
• Checkout process is too long. Not everyone is excited about the idea of sign-
ing in and tracking every purchase they’ve ever made. Some people just want to
Ask the Author
shop quickly and efficiently; otherwise they are going to abandon.
• Checkout requires too much personal information. Retailers have a tendency Comments
to ask for a lot up front and consumers are reluctant to give it. While an address
is essential to receiving your online purchase, if you were in-store, you wouldn’t
have to complete several non-necessary fields to make the purchase.
• Site requires registration before purchase. 14% of shoppers didn’t pay for items
because they forgot their usernames and passwords for their store accounts created with the
merchants*. * Survey conducted by PayPal and comScore, 2008.
Got the Shopping Cart Blues?
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 • Site is unstable or unreliable. In a world where
identity theft is top of mind, if a site appears un-
stable or unreliable, don’t expect a purchase. If
load times are often slow or if pages don’t give
the product information expected, many visi-
tors will get impatient and move on to the next
site.
• Checkout process is confusing. 16% of con-
sumers didn’t pay for items because they could
not contact customer support to answer ques-
tions*. Fields that aren’t obvious to the shopper
can create a significant amount of abandon-
ment, such as requiring a keycode or promo
code to complete the purchase. If it isn’t clear
Bed, Bath & Beyond reinforces that it isn’t necessary to have an account to
what the next step should be, most consumers place an order but that an account can be easily created post-purchase.
will abandon their cart and move on to a site
that’s easier to navigate to.

Ways to Combat Shopping Cart Abandonment

It’s essential that anyone that has a shopping cart compo-
nent to their website do an audit of where they are losing
customers within the shopping process and optimize that
experience. There are different thoughts on what causes
problem areas in the checkout process; only you can ana-
lyze your website performance and execute, but here are a
few areas that other retailers have reviews:

• How many steps are in your checkout process? Bed, Bath & Beyond has a status bar that tells you where you are in the
If customers are processing through several process as well as next steps. It gives customers a good idea of how much
screens to complete a purchase, chances are time is needed to complete the purchase.
they may abandon. Consider ways that you can
consolidate your checkout process so that there aren’t multiple steps causing
the consumer to rethink their purchase. Areas that could easily be excluded are:
o Required login. Instead consider offering a non-login session. Ask the Author
o Multiple screen checkout. Instead consider having as much of the
Comments
checkout process in one to two screens.
o Keycode/promocode fields. Instead consider embedding the
codes on the backend.
• Do you include an indicator on each checkout page? Consumers
have a tendency to want to make the purchase quickly, so if your More than 20% of shoppers
checkout process requires several screens, consider adding a didn’t complete purchases be-
progress indicator. cause their preferred payment
• Is there a link that allows the customer to review the product added? option was not offered on the
Make the products added to cart easy to re-review. Allowing a merchant’s Web site.
customer to maneuver quickly to the product page to answer
any last minute questions will allow them to feel confident about - Paypal Survey conducted by ComScore
their purchase.
• Is stock availability indicated on the product page? Nothing can
hurt you more than being elusive about product availability until checkout. This causes frus-
tration on the customer’s part and will surely lead to abandonment. If you have the capabil-
ity within your ecommerce engine, let visitors know stock availability on the product page.
• Are there pictures inside the basket? A quick snapshot of their cart items will keep them inter-
ested and engaged in their purchase.
• Are you providing shipping costs early in the process? I have personally abandoned a shop-
* Survey conducted by PayPal and comScore, 2008.
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 ping cart when the shipping costs weren’t added until the final review of the
total purchase, only to find the shipping costs were $12.95 on a purchase that
was less than $25. While shopping online is convenient, the cost of shipping can Ask the Author
often leave a bitter taste in the customer’s mouth. Consider being transparent Comments
about shipping costs throughout the site visit.
• Are you making it obvious what the “next steps” are? Do customers know what
to do after they’ve added items to the cart? Do they know how to access their cart easily?
Remember that just because you think the cart is easy to navigate, doesn’t mean it always
is. Make it obvious as to what a customer has to do to complete the purchase.
• Is it easy to change (add/delete quantities) the shopping cart? Don’t make it
a three step process to remove an item. You don’t want to lose an entire
purchase because they changed their mind on one product. Make it easy to
check and delete on any given product.
• Are you promoting the return/exchange policy predominantly throughout the
experience? In a poll done by ComScore, 41% of customers abandoned their
shopping cart because of the return/exchange policy. Make certain that
whatever your policy may be, that it’s easy to access. Creating trust with the
customer is essential in guaranteeing that purchase as well as engaging
them for future purchases.
• Are you including security icons? No one wants their identity stolen and with it
always being top of mind for most consumers, it’s important to reiterate your Amazon does a great job of
offering several checkout
site’s legitimacy. options including an incentive
• Are you including privacy language next to fields that request personal data? No of free shipping.
one wants their information sold to other parties, so be up front about why
you are collecting their data and how it will be used.

Marketing Initiative Post Abandonment

So you’ve optimized your shopping cart and website func-
tionality, but still are experiencing high abandonment
rates. What as a marketer can you do? Luckily, there’s an
arsenal of tools that can be used to combat shopping cart
abandonment. We are going to focus on three tactics for
the purpose of this whitepaper:
• Email Marketing
• Surveys
• Chat Functionality

Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool and when used correct-
ly can successfully combat shopping cart abandonment. The online Apple store allows you to view your cart throughout your
shopping experience.
Many online retailers have seen an increase in shopping
cart completion when using a targeted email campaign
that entices the customer to complete the purchase by offering an incentive. To effectively do this, you
must first make certain that you have permission to email the customer, and then you must have a com-
ponent of your analytics that associates a user with the abandoned cart. An easy way to facilitate this is
through a registration process or through integration with your email service provider and your analyt-
ics solution. Once you have these pieces in place, you can begin testing various campaigns to see which
may lift your abandonment. Consider testing an email campaign immediately after the abandonment
and then 2-3 days later. Here are a few strategies to consider for the email campaigns:

• Discount/Promotion. Everyone loves a discount, right? So why not consider offering a per-
centage discount or free shipping when they complete their cart purchase. This provides an
incentive for the customer to complete the transaction. An important strategy to consider
is to “keep it fresh”. You don’t want to condition your customers to know that they receive a

Got the Shopping Cart Blues?

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 discount every time they abandon their shopping cart.
Change the promotional offer with each behavior or
base it on products purchased.
• Cart Removal. Send an email campaign alerting your
customers that their cart will be emptied if not pur-
chased within seven days. Send this reminder one day
after the cart is abandoned and then follow up with an
additional message within seven days. Make the mes-
sage positive and don’t be pushy.
• Why Didn’t You Buy/What Did We Do Wrong. Send-
ing an email campaign post-abandonment that en-
courages the customer to provide feedback is also an
effective tactic in determining what in your process
discouraged the shopper from purchasing. Whether it
was shipping costs or lack of privacy policies, don’t be
scared to send a campaign and solicit feedback. It may
encourage the customer to come back and engage PersonalizationMall.com offers an incentive post shopping cart
with you again. abandonment through email. A user must be logged in and
opted-in to their email marketing to receive this promotion.

Keep in mind best practices for email campaigns when designing

and don’t make them come across as a hard sales pitch. Other ideas may include suggesting similar
products, including additional action options such as editing the cart, requesting an additional remind-
er, or adjusting email preferences.

Surveys/Feedback Analytics
Companies use a variety of survey and feedback analytic tools to collect information from customers
who don’t complete the checkout process. In asking a series of questions on their customer’s experi-
ences and reasons for abandoning their transaction, retailers can improve their ecommerce strategy. If
you want your customers to respond though, you will need to keep it short and sweet. Feedback but-
tons, pop-ups, and email campaigns can all be successful tactics to gaining customer insight. Survey
questions to consider include:
• Why did you decide to leave the website? When asking this question, be certain to include
options for them to choose from as well as leave an open-ended field.
• What is your biggest concern with shopping online? Include the top reasons
that most customers abandon carts today and see how your site compares. Ask the Author
• Do you have a suggestion for making the shopping process easier? Leave
this question open-ended so that the customer can describe their experience Comments
in detail.
• Were you comparison shopping today? May be an
easy “yes” or “no” response, but one that gives a lot of
insight into why they abandoned.
• How frequently do you shop online? This will
allow you to gauge their comfort level with
online shopping.

All of these questions can give you deeper insight into why your
customers are abandoning and coupled with an effective survey
tool, you can also gain valuable insight into products viewed,
pages visited, and demographic information – all without cus-
tomer knowledge.

Using survey and feedback analytics tools can give your direct PersonalizationMall.com offers an incentive post shopping cart
insight into why customers are leaving prior to purchase as well abandonment through email. A user must be logged in and
as how you can effectively improve the shopping cart process and opted-in to their email marketing to receive this promotion.

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 encourage cart completion.

Chat functionality
An additional tactic used by retailers is offering chat functionality. This tool on a website enables cus-
tomers to ask questions in real time while browsing the site. The pitfall is that if response time is slow,
customers may become even less engaged and abandon even earlier. Respond quickly as well as offer a
help section within the chat functionality so that customers may search on frequently asked questions.
Including topics such as shipping costs, privacy policies, and customer support will allow for a success-
ful experience.

All of these elements can contribute to your overall campaign and reduce the amount of cart abandon-
ment. The key to being successful is being accessible. Make the site easy to navigate and reinforce your
commitment to the customer and you will win every time.

Ask the Author

Comments

About Bronto Software

Bronto Software is a leading email marketing software company, providing successful email solutions
to more than 800 online retailers and marketers across the world including Trek Bikes, Roland, Blooms
Today, and iFilm. By offering an effective, efficient, web-based software application, Bronto gives online
marketers the power to build relationships directly with their target audiences and customers. Through
its accessible client service team, Bronto guides clients towards a strategy of successful email marketing.
The combination of a powerful solution and expert support let clients send the right message to the
right person at the right time resulting in positive ROI and business growth.

* Survey conducted by PayPal and comScore, 2008.

Got the Shopping Cart Blues?
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