How to Earn More Sales By Reducing Cart Abandonment - featured image

How to Earn More Sales By Reducing Cart Abandonment

This article explains in detail several techniques that you can implement to reduce WooCommerce cart abandonment and grow your store.

Did you know that there is a shocking difference between the number of people visiting the cart and making a purchase? The average cart abandonment rate is estimated to be nearly 70%.

Shoppers adding items to the cart but never completing the purchase is coined as cart abandonment. It may seem like a highly unlikely scenario in a brick-and-mortar store but is a common situation on online retail websites.

WooCommerce cart abandonment is one of the major causes of large-scale sales loss in stores. Recovering the abandoned cart is, therefore, vital for boosting sales.

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Reduce WooCommerce Cart Abandonment, Earn Sales

The abandonment of shopping carts is one of the most common problems online stores face. So why does this happen? Why do shoppers leave their carts in the middle of their purchase?

Well, there could be several reasons. Here we will discuss them one by one and explore how we can increase sales.

1. Hidden Costs

When a customer likes a product from your website and adds it to their cart, they have, of course, estimated the total cost along with the shipping price in their head. However, if they discover additional costs like tax and fees during the checkout process, it discourages them from going forward with the purchase. The result is them leave you for better options.

The Solution

Be transparent about the additional costs. You can include features like the visibility of shipping, tax, and fee calculations related to the items in the cart or on the product page. It will make them aware of the amount to pay, and there will be no unwanted surprises.

Also, cutting out the extra charges might help you earn more sales, especially if they are unwanted or not what most e-commerce stores charge.

Another very effective way to increase sales here is by enabling free shipping. “Free” is a pleasant word for consumers. You can offer free shipping for orders above a certain amount which will make customers add more items to the cart to take advantage of it.

2. Unaccessible Return Policy

Customers often leave the cart to go back and find a return policy on your website. If they don’t find one or have trouble finding one, they would, of course, leave and go to a different site they can trust.

Making such customers come back is never too easy. On top, if you charge additional fees or give a short time frame to return the item, the purchase becomes even more complicated.

The Solution

It is better to give a quick mention of the return policy in the final steps to prevent customers from abandoning the cart to go search for it. A good and reasonable return policy will boost customer confidence.

The return policy should be easily accessible, on the product page itself. It must lay down all the terms and conditions so that the customers are well aware of what they are getting into before the purchase.

A clear return policy detailing all the steps customers have to follow, and an easy return process is enough to win their hearts and, thus, improve sales.

3. Inefficient Customer Service

One of the main advantages of offline shopping is that there will be a salesperson who can tell you more about the product, and you can even do a trial run. But in online shopping, such options are unavailable.

The Solution

Providing live chat support during the usual shopping hours is a good way to win the trust of customers. They may have many questions about the products. Provide prompt and clear responses to them, which would enable the customers to make their purchasing decisions. More sales for you!

Additionally, you could offer your customer the opportunity to schedule an appointment for a phone call, video chat, or screen-sharing session to answer questions or do a live demonstration, customized just for that customer.

Customers will be impressed with your dedication to service and will be more likely to buy. You can even employ chatbots to walk customers through every step of the purchase process. This would help you gain more conversions.

4. Lack Of Product Information

Customers do a lot of research on the product before they decide to buy it. If your website does not include enough details about the product they are interested in, they will end up buying from a site that has all the specifications.

The Solution

Depending on the product, it is important to provide a detailed description, which includes item specifications, benefits, safety terms, instructions to use, ratings, and reviews. It makes your website look more professional and authentic, and customers will trust your products more.

Customers need a lot of convincing details to make up their minds. Visual content, such as high-quality images, videos, and interactive material, plays a significant role here. Remember that they are most likely comparing the products in your store with others. Give them what they want and earn those sales!

4. Non-Responsive Website Interface

Many prefer mobile phones over desktops today. Most of the decision-making and purchasing is done on mobile websites. If your website, especially your cart, is not mobile optimized, the chances of customers abandoning your site are more.

The Solution

When you are designing the website for your e-commerce store, make sure it has a responsive web design. Responsive web design is where the site fits the screen size of any device the user is browsing it on. The experience of such a website should not be affected by the change in screen size.

A better user experience will improve the chances of conversions.

6. Lengthy Checkout Process

A lengthy checkout process with long forms is what irritates most customers. Such a checkout process can turn away even the customers with the highest purchase intent. It would be wise to optimize the checkout process, which will make customers complete their orders.

The Solution

Build a seamless, simple, and effortless, and, if possible, a one-page checkout form, removing all unnecessary fields. Also, a progress bar can be added to inform the customers about how much they have completed.

The faster the checkout, the higher the conversion.

7. Absence Of WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Emails

Customers might add items to the cart and drift away to some other website, completely forgetting about the cart on your website.

Sometimes the customers leave the cart because they are not ready to buy at that time.

The Solution

Well-timed reminder emails with offers and discounts on the added items (if possible) might tempt them to go back and complete the purchase. Another method that works is creating urgency.

Sending personalized emails to the customers, convincing them that the items in the cart could become unavailable soon, or the ongoing offer/discount will expire quickly might pull them back to the store.

The below plugins help in sending out abandoned cart emails (or messages) for your store.

8. Inadequate Payment Gateways

Many customers leave their cart when they don’t find their preferred payment method on the website. Not everyone will prefer the same payment method. Losing customers because of inadequate payment methods will be a disappointment considering how close you were to get those sales.

The Solution

Websites should opt for multiple payment methods and give shoppers good alternatives.

There are many payment systems available, such as Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal, etc.

Here are two payment gateway plugins by WebToffee (for WooCommerce):

9. Thumbnail Images And Number Of Items In The Cart

Sometimes on shopping sprees or hopping between other stores, shoppers forget what they put in their cart.

In an actual store, you can see how many items there in your cart are and what you are buying or missing out on. However, in an online store, that is not the case.

The Solution

Add thumbnail images and the number of items in the cart during checkout. By including pictures and numbers, you are potentially avoiding the hesitation and distraction a customer might experience when they don’t remember exactly what or how much they added to the cart.

A visible cart is also beneficial when the customers save the items for later. When they come back, they could simply go to the cart and complete the purchase.

10. Difficult Navigation Between Cart And Store

No doubt, the users will prefer the ease of movement within the website. The shoppers will like a real-life store experience in online shops, where they can easily go back to the aisles to add more items to the cart.

No one likes to browse through page after page just to buy a product. It makes customers lose interest, and they would instead go to other stores that may require fewer clicks to checkout. Strictly avoid making your web design complicated to navigate through.

The Solution

A simple navigation structure will solve this issue. Make the customers’ journey to checkout easy.

11. Lack Of Coupons And Discount Offers

Customers often feel reluctant to buy products because of high prices. They are constantly looking for stores that offer better deals. If you fail to meet the expectations, you are losing out on sales.

The Solution

Coupons and discounts are one of the best ways to attract customers and gain their trust. Customers are more likely to purchase from your if you offer them price deductions or freebies. It is therefore important that you incorporate discount strategies with your WooCommerce store.

You can do so seamlessly with a simple and effective coupon plugin for WooCommerce – Smart Coupons for WooCommerce. The plugin offers several discount options with which you can create multiple coupons such as cart abandonment coupons. Coupons can even be used to offer free shipping and or when the tidal price of the cart exceeds a particular amount. This could highly boost the sales rate.

Customers are less likely to abandon a cart when they get such special deals.

Moreover, make it easy for customers to find and apply the coupons. Coupons like URL auto-apply coupons will help you achieve this.

12. Higher Loading Time

Slower websites result in higher loading time which ultimately results in more cart abandonment.

The Solution

There are a number of ways to increase the loading speed. Some of the easily applicable techniques among them include reducing the use of network trackers, social media plugins, etc., and optimizing your website’s images to make a perfect balance between speed and quality.

Faster loading of pages will enable a smooth and less complicated buying experience.

13. No Guest Checkout Option

You want to buy a product from an e-commerce store that you visited for the first time. You are almost at the finish line of the purchase. However, you learn that to complete the purchase, you need to create an account. That requires you to verify your credentials; otherwise, you will not be able to buy them. A bit annoying, right?

If your customers face the same problem, they will leave the cart as it slows down the whole process.

The Solution

Enable guest checkout and just ask them for an email address. You can request them to create an account after they have placed the order. If their experience with the store is good, they will most likely end up signing up and prefer your site for future purchases.

14. Lack of Secure Payment

The Internet is just as much like a bane as it is a boon. With increasing cases of fraudulent transactions and digital thefts, people are concerned about spending money online.

The Solution

Get security badges and SSL certificates for your online store. They are trust seals to convince the customers to trust the site with their payment credentials. This way you can ease their fear and earn their trust.

The three most trusted secure seals for websites are Norton, McAfee, and TRUSTe.

The more secure they feel, the more confident they will be to spend their money.

15. Absence Of Email Reminders

Email reminders about the cart items are an excellent tool to draw a user’s attention back to the cart that they have created.

The Solution

Customers abandon your cart for several reasons, some of them which can be critical reasons like high costs or bad experiences, and others might be less severe reasons such as distractions or forgetting the cart.

You can effectively persuade the second category of people to take action on your site with simple tactics like email reminders about the cart. Also, reminders on depleting stock or discount sales can help you catch customers’ attention.

Wrapping Up

These were some of the techniques to earn more sales by reducing WooCommerce cart abandonment. Hope these tips will make your customers stay on your site and complete the purchase.

Let us know in the comment section below if and how you deal with WooCommerce cart abandonment in your store. Also, let us know if you think there are other ways to reduce WooCommerce cart abandonment and give a boost to sales.

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