19 Tips of how to Improve e-commerce shopping cart

Do you want to improve your e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate? If yes, then keep reading this blog post till the end.

Since its inception, the e-commerce industry has been growing at a pacing rate. In the year 2019, the global e-commerce market size was around USD 9.09 trillion and is expected to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.7% from 2020 to 2027.

So, as you can see, this means that the e-commerce industry will surely flourish soon. However, the harsh reality is most e-commerce companies struggle with increasing their sales and conversions. This is because of the high shopping cart abandonment rate. 

Based on some research and studies, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 74.52%. So, if you are looking forward to improving your shopping cart abandon rate then you’ve come to the right place. Here, you’ll come across 19 surefire ways to improve your e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate.

So, without further ado, let’s begin.

What is an e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate?

E-commerce shopping cart abandonment refers to a situation when visitors land on your online store and add a product to their shopping cart. However, in the end, they decide to leave the website without purchasing the product.

This entire process is called an e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate.

As an online store or e-commerce business owner, your aim should be to improve the e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate.

Only in this way will you increase your sales and conversions. As a result, this will eventually give you more sales and profits.

19 Ways To Improve e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate

1. Use high-quality images

The first in this list of 19 ways to improve your e-commerce shopping car abandon rate is product images. Today, people want to see what they’re paying for. In other words, they want to know how the product looks in real life.

That’s why you need to include high-quality product images regardless of whatever you sell online. Otherwise, without including product images, you won’t be able to improve your shopping cart abandonment rate.

So, try to include multiple product images from different angles so that visitors can get the actual pictures of your product.

2. Improve your sales copy

When it comes to improving your shopping cart abandon rate, product description and sales copies do matter.

The role of your product description and sales copy is simple: To give the maximum information about your product and entice the users to purchase it. On the other hand, when you write a product description always keep in mind that clarity beats persuasion. That’s why you need to create sweet, simple, and clear product copies.

Also, you need to make sure that you have included all the relevant details about the product in the description.

For example;

If you sell t-shirts online, you need to include the following things in your product description;

• Name of the brand of the t-shirt.
• Color of the product.
• Fabric type.
• Exchange and return policy about the product.
• Whether free shipping is available or not.
• Product trail options and so on.

3. Show customer testimonials

Before moving ahead, let us go through some eye-opening statics about customer testimonials.

1. According to one research, using customer testimonials and reviews can help businesses improve their revenue by 62%.
2. Another research says that 92% of the customers read reviews and testimonials before purchasing any product.
3. 88% of customers trust the review and testimonials as a personal recommendation.

These stats prove that you can improve your sales and shopping cart abandon rate by incorporating customer reviews and testimonials on your online store.

E-commerce giants like Amazon do the same, which helps them in increasing their sales and revenue. This is because customers trust one another naturally rather than your marketing message.

So, encourage your existing customers to leave a positive review or a testimonial on your site.

4. Create urgency

We are 100% sure that creating a sense of urgency isn’t on your top to-do list. There is nothing that kills e-commerce conversions and sales faster than not creating a sense of urgency.

Image a situation where you want to buy a brand-new car, and you visit a car dealership showroom near you. You like one car, but the price is out of your range. Because of this, you decide to simply move out of the showroom. However, out of nowhere, you get a text message from the car shop. In it, they tell you about a heavy discount available only for 24 hours on the same model which you liked. As a result, now you feel that heat and pressure to buy a car at any cost.

That’s the power of creating urgency.

It’s one of the best marketing tactics that many e-commerce companies and brands use it to entice users to make a purchase. This tactic increases the site visitors’ motivation to buy your product.

5. Use product videos

Product videos work like charm. So, if you are serious about increasing your sales and want to improve your e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate you should start using product videos on your online store.

Product videos will help you in improving the reliability between your brand and customers.

This cannot be done with text and images. Besides, product videos can give the actual representation of your product, its benefits, usage, and how it can make the lives of customers easier.

So, make sure that you include a small product video on your online store.

6. Offer free shipping 

9 out of 10 customers say that free shipping is the top-rated incentive that induces them to shop more online. Besides, 93% of buyers will shop more if the free shipping option is available.

On the other hand, 53% of customers add more products to the cart if they qualify for free shipping.

As you can see, free shipping is one of the best techniques you can use to lower your e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate.

So, make sure that you provide a free shipping option to your customers.

7. Sales and discounts

• Buy one, get one free
• Flat 50% OFF on all products
• Shop for $100 and get a gift card worth $500 FREE

We all might have come across such kinds of offers and discounts across e-commerce stores.

Such offers and discounts induce us to shop more even if our budget is low.

In the same way, you should also include some offer and discounts section on your e-commerce store.

The previous year, 93% of shoppers in the USA used coupon codes for shopping throughout the year.

8. Create an easy checkout process

The checkout process is the most important part of your entire e-commerce website. According to research done by business insiders, $4 trillion worth of merchandise was abandoned. Out of it, 63% could have been easily recovered.

That stats itself is a bit scary but what’s even more eye-opening is the fact that the checkout process was the real reason behind it. That’s why you should try reducing the gaps between your checkout process. This way, users can buy your products within a few clicks.

Just as you make your site easy to navigate for users, it’s also important for you to make the checkout process easy for users to buy your product. So, get rid of all the unnecessary processes that could act as a barrier for visitors while purchasing the product.

9. Give them multiple payment options

Today, most consumers all across the globe have enough payment options to purchase products or services.

With the introduction of mobile payment options like Google Pay, Amazon Pay and PayPal, consumers have got multiple options for making a payment online.

So, by offering more payment options, including new services like PayPal, Payoneer, and other mobile payment options, you are making it easier for customers to buy from you.

This will encourage customers to shop more from your store, and it will eventually improve your shopping cart abandon rate.

10. Use SEO

Boom!

Now here comes the father of all the techniques i.e., SEO or search engine optimization. SEO is the process of improving your website’s ranking on Google. Better ranking on Google will give you more traffic and more traffic = more sales and conversion.

Isn’t it simple?

So, start doing SEO for all your top-performing product pages. Target more long-tail keywords and include them in your title, meta tags, product description, image alt tags, and most importantly in your URL and heading tags.

Also, keep creating backlinks for all your product pages.

11. Speed up your site

The next thing which you need to focus on is increasing the speed of your website. Amazon did research and found that a 1-second delay in website speed would cost them a loss of $6 billion.

Yes, the number is a bit scary, but that’s how it goes.

So, if you don’t want to make huge losses, then focus on improving your website speed. 

A good website speed will not only improve your sales and conversion but will also help you in ranking on Google. In the year 2010, Google made website speed a ranking factor for desktop searches. 

In 2018, it made website speed a ranking factor for mobile searches as well. So, if you want to get a better ranking along with good conversions, speed up your website.

12. Give free stuff

Whether you agree or not, people, especially the ones who do online shopping, love free stuff. When you offer free stuff, your prospective customers get attracted more towards your brand, and they eventually end up buying more from you.

So, look into your product category and think of what you can offer for free.

For example, if you are into the software business, you could offer a free trial of your software.

But when it comes to product-based business, things get quite nasty. Still, you can try offering buy 2, get 1 free, free trial option, free shipping, discount-related incentives, and so on.

13. Use opt-in popups

If you are looking for an instant increase in your sales and conversion, you should start using opt-in popups on your online store.

Such pop-ups work like charm and will encourage website visitors to sign up for your newsletter.

By using such popups, you’ll not only increase your email list but also improve your sales and shopping cart abandon rate in the short term.

14. Use money-back guarantee options

Online consumers have always the fear of losing money if they end up buying the wrong product or if the product doesn’t meet their expectations. So, most of the time they don’t end up buying products online.

That’s why hesitations and fear are the two greatest enemies for e-commerce business owners.

However, this situation can be dealt with by offering a 30-days money-back guarantee claim to your customers.

This allows your clients to rest easy knowing that they can get their money back if they don’t like the product.

15. Be clear about your upfront cost

While shopping online, consumers always have a fear of additional and hidden costs, fees, and surcharges.

If they discover such costs at the checkout section then it may create a feeling of mistrust in them, and they might not buy your product.

That’s why you need to be clear about your upfront cost to improve your shopping cart abandonment rate.

Don’t try to sneak any cost at the checkout process.

Your customers need to know the actual cost of the product.

16. Use remarketing campaigns

Hands down, one of the best ways to improve your e-commerce sales is by using remarketing ads.

Such type of ads is an excellent way of connecting with the people who interacted with your online store but left without buying anything. 

You can run such types of ads on Google partner websites and follow your audience to remind them of making a purchase.

Remarking ads have a high conversion rate as compared to other ads on Google.

17. Run Google Ads and use ad extensions

If you are running Google Ads for your products, then you must consider using ad extensions.

Ad-extension will make your ad bigger, better, and more appealing.

Besides, since it won’t cost you an extra penny, we suggest using ad extensions if you are running a paid ad campaign on Google or Bing.

These extensions would allow you to grab the user’s attention and induce them to click on your ad.

This will improve your CTR as well as sales.

18. Create trust in your transaction

To improve your shopping cart abandon rate, you must win the customer’s trust.

Today, in the digital era, customers do hesitate to make online payments due to security and privacy issues.

Hence, you need to showcase to your customers that your website is a 100% safe place where they can make any kind of payment.

For this, you must include all the necessary trust signals.

For example, your SSL certificate and security logos on your site.

19. Incorporate product image in the purchase phase

To assure the customers in regard to what are they purchasing, you must include a product image in the purchase phase.

In a physical store, this isn’t a problem since they can physically see the product in front of them.

However, this isn’t the case with e-commerce.

So, by including the product images in the payment process, you can give assurance to the customers about their purchase

Conclusion:

The shopping cart abandonment rate is a common phenomenon among most e-commerce companies.

However, by leveraging these 19 techniques, you can surely improve your e-commerce shopping cart abandon rate and skyrocket your sales and conversions.