Shopping cart abandonment prevention

Shopping cart abandonment is a headache for many ecommerce businesses. Studies show that in the UK 76% of carts were abandoned in 2019 (just below the global average). This represents an incredible opportunity for online retailers. Preventing just a fraction of cart abandonments could see a significant lift in sales. 

In this article I’m going to explore the compelling reasons to run strong shopping cart recovery campaigns, after-all it's preferable to prevent consumers from abandoning their carts in the first place.

What is shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment is when a consumer places an item(s) in their cart but clicks away from their order before completing checkout. Any live cart that doesn't complete the checkout process is said to be abandoned.

The KPI used to measure cart abandonment is the shopping cart abandonment rate. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of completed purchases by the total number of shopping carts created, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.

Shopping cart abandonment rate is a crucial KPI, as high abandonment rate implies higher friction in consumer journeys. Some major causes of cart abandonment are weak signposting, price shock, increased cognitive load and a lack of trust in a webstore. 

What can ecommerce businesses do to encourage cart conversion rates and help prevent consumers from abandoning their carts? 

Strong call-to-action and clear signposting

Call-to-action (CTA) buttons can be found on every page of your webstore. They tell consumers what to do and where to click to navigate through their buying journeys. Well designed, well placed and well worded CTAs help engage consumers, guiding them to the action that you want them to take, whether that's: 'Add to Cart', 'Continue Shopping' or 'Buy Now' etc.

Impactful CTAs should always use the imperative mood, simply and clearly guiding consumers on what to do next. How they are worded makes a difference. For example, take the two CTA phrases: 'Are You Ready to Buy?' and 'Buy Now!'. They both want consumers to take the same action, but each CTA has a different effect on the consumer.

The first phrase is a closed-ended question. It has two possible answers: yes or no. It's not telling consumers what action to take. Phrase two on the other hand tells consumers exactly what action to take and does so with implied urgency (!). Because of this, the latter is a more effective CTA phrase.

Your CTA should attract consumer attention, so that it pops from the page, naturally drawing the eye. The shape of the button is important too. What will work best for your webstore depends on its design and style. The most popular shapes for ecommerce CTA buttons are rectangular, but there is no hard and fast rule. Colour is really important in making CTAs pop, contrasting with the surrounding page colours to really stand out. 

Where a CTA button is positioned on a page has a significant influence on its success. For example, a CTA that is 'above the fold' is more likely to be clicked than a CTA that consumers have to scroll down to find. 

Think of CTA buttons as plotting a way through the consumer journey: steppingstones and signposts that prevent consumers straying from the conversion path. This is why effective CTA in your checkout process improves UX and reduces friction, meaning that consumers will be less likely to disengage and abandon their cart.    

There are no concrete rules to be followed when designing CTA buttons. The key to creating successful CTA is experimentation, as every webstore is different in design and purpose, offering different user experiences. The way to find out what CTA works best for your webstore is to A/B test—more on that later. 

Price shock!

While there's a great deal of emphasis put on frictionless user experiences and conversion rate optimisation (and quite rightly), the power of price must not be underestimated—if consumers can buy your products or services cheaper elsewhere, there's a good chance that they will. 

A significant reason for shopping cart abandonment is when a consumer gets to the checkout and the total cost of their purchases is higher than they were expecting. This is often caused by shipping costs not being disclosed upfront, before the consumer gets to the checkout. This is known as price shock.

Combat price shock by being transparent with your delivery costs to ensure that consumers are aware of those costs before they click add-to-cart. Show the shipping cost with the price of the product and offer free delivery for orders over a specific amount. Remind consumers how far their order is away from qualifying for free shipping—this will help incentivise them to add that extra item.

Studies show that 93% of online buyers are encouraged to buy more products if a free shipping option is available, and 58% of consumers will add items to their cart to qualify for free shipping.

Eliminating price shock will help improve conversion rates and reduce shopping cart abandonment.  

Reduce friction between store and cart

Consumer shopping journeys are rarely linear. The traditional conversion funnel doesn't accurately describe most consumer journeys. They don't all begin at the wide 'awareness' end of the funnel and flow in an orderly fashion down the funnel to the narrow tip of 'action'. Online shoppers click backwards and forwards, they change their minds and get distracted.

If a consumer arrives at the checkout and realises that they have forgotten an item, or want to change their mind about an item, it's crucial that they can click back to your store and then back to their live cart without friction. The easier consumers can toggle between cart and store the more likely they will be to complete the checkout process.

Good ecommerce design should provide intuitive UX. If your webstore forces consumers to use the back-button, you may lose business to shopping cart abandonment. The more effort it takes for consumers to navigate, the less likely they will be to convert. This is particularly true for shopping carts.

One-page checkout?

The fewer steps there are in your checkout process, the less likely consumers will be to abandon their cart. Having checkout on one page can help keep consumers engaged and less likely to click away. And a single checkout page reduces the need for multiple pages to load, making the checkout process faster. 

However, the amount of information required for checkout on a single page can make the page look cluttered and a little daunting for some consumers. There are ways to address this, for example:

The accordion checkout page breaks consumer information into a series of hidden steps. As information is entered, the consumer is guided to the next step, which drops down when it's clicked. The accordion method chunks the checkout process, so the consumer is less likely to experience increased cognitive load.     

Another one-page checkout method that can help reduce cognitive load is known as the false single-page checkout. This shows the whole checkout form on a single page, but has each section separated rather than a single long form (or multiple pages). The consumer is only allowed to continue when each section is complete, drawing them through the process.

My favourite option is a guest checkout, where consumers simply enter their email address, door number, postcode and payment method, making the process significantly quicker and lower friction. Having the customer's email address will enable you to market to them directly with offers and promotions post purchase, building their customer profile and helping convert the guest customer into a retained customer.

For existing customers, the fastest and most efficient checkout method is one-click. Because you already have their billing, payment and delivery information on file, there's no need to take it again, unless a customer wants to use a different address or payment method. 

Remember, the key to reducing shopping cart abandonment is to reduce friction. The easier and shorter you can make the checkout process, the better engaged consumers will be.   

Trust

A major cause of shopping cart abandonment is a lack of consumer trust for a webstore. If consumers get to your checkout and aren't confident that their payment information or data are secure, they will be very likely to abandon the transaction.

A way to help instil a sense of trust in consumers at checkout is to use trust signals at relevant points in the process, such as the padlock symbol and recognisable security application logos to show that you take consumer data security and privacy seriously. Use recognised credit card security logos too—Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode.

Studies show that over 61% of consumers didn't purchase something online because trust logos were missing. And 75% of consumers chose not to make a purchase because of unfamiliar trust logos.

Social proof in ecommerce is where consumers use the experiences and opinions of their peers and other consumers to make choices about where they shop and what products they buy. This is often in the form of social media, forums or review websites such as Trust Pilot and Google Reviews.

The power of social proof to encourage consumer trust is evident. Studies show that 92% of online consumers look at a product review before making a purchase. And customer product reviews are up to 12 times more likely to be trusted than retailer product descriptions and sales copy.

A key reason that social proof is so effective in persuading consumers to purchase (or not, if you have negative reviews) is the fact that it can't be bought. The only way that businesses and brands can get positive reviews is to offer consumers outstanding shopping experiences, which will be reflected in feedback and conversations that your customers have about their experiences on social media and on review sites.

Positive social proof and familiar trust signals in user journeys improves UX and the trustworthiness of your webstore and brand, helping to reduce shopping cart abandonment. 

A/B testing

Webstores with the lowest rates of shopping cart abandonment are the best at ecommerce conversion rate optimisation. That means investigating each UI element of your checkout process to help identify where UX can be improved. Diligent A\B testing will identify elements that are converting well and those that aren't.

The results will enable you to make informed decisions about what UI elements to modify to better streamline cart and checkout UX. Something as simple as changing the colour of a button or how part of a form is worded can have a positive impact on conversion rates.

It's important to understand that changes to your cart and checkout should only ever be made using data and evidence taken from analytics and A/B testing. If you have a hunch about what might improve cart UX, test it. Test the number of steps in the checkout process; test CTA button appearance and placement; test trust builders, such as security logo placement, the list goes on. Once you have completed the tests, analyse the results to see which showed improved conversion rate and continue to use and test that version.

It's vital to compile as much data as possible when A/B testing. The more traffic you can analyse, the more accurate the data will be, for better informed decision making. The longer A/B testing is run, the more useful it will be.

However, it's important to note that the lower number of user journeys on your website, the longer A/B testing should be carried out for more reliable results. For example, very high-volume pages might run test over a day or two, whereas very low volume pages would need to run testing over months to acquire similar data. For example, with average daily visitors of 5000, the time required to run a meaningful test would be around 18 days. Although, this time ultimately depends on other factors such as the number of variations, conversion rate (%) and minimum detectable effect.

Final thought

With the right strategy in place, ensuring that your cart and checkout process are optimised for conversion will go a long way to keeping consumers engaged. Strong calls-to-action and clear signposting will help guide consumers through their journeys in your webstore.

Eliminating price shock will ensure consumers pay what they are expecting to pay. And reducing friction between cart and store enables consumers to easily change their order without tripping up on the back-button.

Simple checkout that doesn't look or feel complicated for consumers will improve engagement. Reassuring consumers that your webstore is trustworthy, that you take the security of their data and financial information seriously, and to use positive social proof will encourage them to purchase.

And continued, evidence-based A/B testing to improve shopping cart UX will maximise conversion rates, for lifted sales and continued business growth.