10 Ways To Reduce Shopify Cart Abandonment

Tired of people adding items to their cart and not purchasing them? In this article, we will discuss tried-and-tested ways to reduce Shopify cart abandonment.
Saqlain Mushtaq
Saqlain Mushtaq

Content Writer

Reading time: 8 minutes

Cart abandonment has significantly increased in the span of a few years and e-commerce businesses just can’t escape it. 

The rising numbers are partly due to the shift in how people purchase online. The number of options customers consider before making a purchase has increased dramatically, and most online shoppers (about 75.8%) abandon purchases after adding items to their cart.

Even though only 20% of online shoppers will go through with their purchases, this shouldn’t discourage you from making changes to your e-commerce store to reduce cart abandonment. 

With that said, let’s dive deeper into how you can lower your Shopify cart abandonment rate to increase sales.

Contents

How to check your Shopify abandoned cart rate

Before you even start recovering abandoned carts, you first need to know what your numbers are. 

There are two ways you can check your cart abandonment rate on Shopify: Using Google Analytics and from within Shopify itself. 

From the Shopify dashboard

In your Shopify dashboard, click on the ‘Analytics’ tab on the left panel and select ‘Dashboards’ to see your Shopify store’s cart abandonment rate. 

The Online Store Conversion Rate widget is the one to look for, as it should break down your sales funnel into three stages: added to cart, reached the checkout, and sessions converted.

Through Google Analytics

Using Google Analytics, you can examine how customers use your website, where they exit your sales funnel, and whether your cart abandonment rate is higher than average for comparable websites. 

This is a more advanced and insightful method to track your abandoned carts as compared to simply using the Shopify dashboard. 

Simply open the ‘Behaviour’ report from the side panel, select the sub-report ‘Site Content’, and then click ‘All Pages’ to discover how many people are leaving your website from the basket page. 

It will display a table with the number of ‘page views’, ‘bounce rate’, and ‘percentage exit’ for each URL on your site.

However, this will only show you how many individuals left your website from the basket page. You should develop a custom funnel to see how many visitors visited your basket page but didn’t buy.

Setting Up a Custom Funnel in Google Analytics

Setting up a custom funnel is simple after you’ve defined your aim. Open the ‘Goal Settings’ for your main objective in the Admin area of Analytics. You may next give your goal a monetary value or construct a custom funnel.

You can access specific Shopify Cart Abandonment analytics in the “Goals” area of your view once this custom funnel has been set up.

💡 Check out this comprehensive guide on how to add and set up Google Analytics on Shopify!

10 ways to reduce Shopify cart abandonment

Now that you’re aware of your Shopify cart abandonment rate, it’s time to act on it. We share 10 ways you can reduce cart abandonment by making simple tweaks to your website.

Remove hidden costs

A typical reason for cart abandonment is the presence of hidden fees at the end of the checkout process. Taxes and shipping charges account for the two most common causes of unanticipated expenses.

It’s a frequent occurrence for online buyers to fill their cart with items only to find that when they go to the checkout window, the price has more than doubled. Most customers at this point abandon their carts and go looking for a better deal, thus leaving you with another abandoned cart to reflect upon.

Offering free delivery and publicizing it, such as displaying a notification stating shipping is free, can help you avoid unexpected charges. It not only incentivizes your users to add items to their cart knowing they won’t be charged a surprise cost, but it also increases your trust and, as a result, sales volume.

In the end, you’ll see a rise in revenues as more clients finish their purchases.

Simplify your checkout process

Long before your shopper reaches the cart, the checkout process begins. 

E-commerce sites should have straightforward navigation that directs online shoppers to product pages that are simple yet comprehensive to avoid shopping cart abandonment. In fact, numerous case studies suggest that by optimizing their checkout procedures, e-commerce organizations may raise conversion rates by as much as 30%.

Here are some best practices to keep your checkout page simple while still encouraging shoppers to complete their purchase:

Reduce checkout distraction

Shopping in a brick-and-mortar store is a completely different ballgame compared to online shopping. In a physical shop, there are only two possibilities: You find the thing you were looking for and purchase it, or you don’t find it and, consequently, don’t buy.  

Online shopping, on the other hand, is not as simple. 

As the internet appears to be a realm of limitless possibilities, committing to a single thing and not hunting for a better deal is practically improbable. With so many potential distractions (both in reality and the digital world), you should almost anticipate the checkout process to be disrupted. So, make it easy for users to save to their cart and return at a later time to complete their purchase. 

It should be as simple as clicking a single button to save their shopping cart. 

Optimize checkout page speed

Aside from simplifying the checkout process and reducing distraction, your checkout process should be quick to complete. 

Customers may lose trust in your checkout if your site is sluggish, or they may simply become frustrated and leave. After a sudden malfunction or poor page load time, shoppers are less likely to input their payment information for fear of being double-charged for the purchase or having their payment failed.

Use clear product images and detailed specifications

Give your customers a ‘real-world’ impression of what the product will look like when they receive it by including at least one clear product image. If it’s applicable, include a brief video demonstrating how to use your product.

When describing your product, focus on the features that will be the most important to customers. For example, if you’re selling cookware, your focus should be on the materials and construction, over the types of colors used. 

Including details and pictures of your product will give customers confidence in your products. Many people who are confident in a product have no reservations about purchasing it.

Make use of consumer psychology

A customer’s attraction to a particular item can be induced through a number of simple emotional and psychological tricks. You can successfully lower your Shopify cart abandonment rate by optimizing your sales process to facilitate this relationship.

  • People feel the loss of something more than the gain of another. Leverage this by creating limited deals, one-off offers, and special promo codes. This way, customers feel that they will be missing out on that amazing offer and are convinced to buy it.
  • A bias towards people falling in the same category of age, gender, and social position as you, AKA Implicit Egotism, is another effective psychological trick. You can use product suggestions tailored to your customers’ user experience like ‘Buyers of this item also purchased’.

Give rewards to customers who register for an account

One of the main reasons for cart abandonment is that shoppers are required to create an account before checking out. 

Reasons why customers abandon their carts.
Reasons why customers abandon their carts.

While you should allow the option for an unregistered user to shop on your website, offer rewards if they create an account (such as a 10% discount on their next purchase). Assure them that while they can check out as a guest, creating an account is a quick and painless process that will save them time and money on their next purchase.

If the person registers, you’ll get their email address, further allowing you to build a relationship with your customer, and hence reducing shopping cart abandonment. 

Customers who shop frequently will be able to customize their customer experience by viewing prior purchase history, tracking order status, receiving personalized suggestions based on previous purchases, and preserving preferred payment methods for future transactions.

Communicate with customers who abandon carts

The Abandoned Checkout feature on Shopify allows you to see transaction activities, cart recovery details, and other shopping cart information. 

With such information at your fingertips, you can utilize pop-ups or send emails as a preventative precaution when a customer tries to abandon the cart. 

You could even send customers abandoned cart reminder messages on WhatsApp or Messenger to further prompt them to complete their purchase. Sending them direct abandoned cart messages is more personal and can increase sales — after all, 82% of people open every text message they receive.

Offer multiple payment options

It’s a smart option to accept as many payment options as possible, such as credit cards, installments, and eWallets.

The unavailability of sufficient payment methods is another reason why shoppers abandon their carts. 

Therefore, strive to have as many options as possible. Use widely accepted payment gateways like Paypal, which make it easy for international shoppers to pay without having a Mastercard or VISA credit card. 

You should consider the following payment options:

  • Credit card, Debit card
  • PayPal, Stripe
  • Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay
  • Installment payments
  • Electronic bank transfers
  • Mobile payments

Provide free or reduced shipping costs

In 2018, 63% of online buyers abandoned their carts due to excessive delivery prices.

Offering free or reduced shipping rates on certain items, free shipping once a customer spends a particular amount, or even free delivery discount coupons can all help to reduce shopping cart abandonment. 

However, if you don’t provide free or reduced shipping costs, be transparent about it. Lying about offering such incentives and not delivering them will frustrate your customers even more, which will lead to bad customer relationships.

Top 5 Shopify apps to reduce abandoned carts

1. NovoChat

NovoChat is a chat marketing platform built for e-commerce businesses. With its deep integration to Shopify, NovoChat gathers customer data so you can send more timely and personalized abandoned cart recovery messages automatically. 

Its advanced metrics show data such as read and reply rates, as well as the revenue received from such messages. This allows you to further optimize your content to deliver the most actionable chat messages to your customers. 

It also has other features such as message broadcast, WhatsApp automation, and a shared inbox

🔗 Install on Shopify

2. PushOwl Web Push Notifications

PushOwl is a highly-rated app on Shopify to help curb abandoned carts. With PushOwl, you can automate abandoned cart recovery messages, ‘back in stock’ notifications, and product review notifications. 

Its advanced reporting shows you the click rate and customer interaction analytics to see which notification campaigns are the most effective in recovering abandoned carts. 

🔗 Install on Shopify

3. Privy

Privy has a suite of conversion, email marketing, and SMS tools to help you reduce abandoned carts.

You can create customizable displays, run A/B tests, and set up campaign triggers. The app also provides text marketing, so you can send text messages such as abandoned cart reminders and welcome messages.

🔗 Install on Shopify

4. Consistent Cart

Consistent Cart is an all-in-one multi-channel marketing solution. Consistent Cart has a collection of ready-made cart recovery emails that you can use to quickly send to your customers. 

Other than sending abandoned cart emails, you can also use Consistent Cart to craft and deliver perfectly timed SMS messages. 

🔗 Install on Shopify

5. Recart

Recart is a cart abandonment app designed to help you recover lost sales through SMS, Messenger, and email. 

Collect SMS, Messenger, or email subscribers using its fully customizable, two-tap popups. Select from their automated Messenger campaigns to urge customers to purchase from you or remind them about their carts. 

🔗 Install on Shopify

💡 Looking for more abandoned cart apps on Shopify? Check out our full list here!

Conclusion

Cart abandonment may be the most significant barrier to your company’s ability to generate high revenues, and it must be tackled systematically. If handled correctly, abandoned carts can be a great source of information.

Customers typically utilize the shopping cart tool to organize their options when purchasing online. As a result, your store’s most tempting and impulse-driven products are likely to be found in abandoned carts. 

Therefore, as a retailer, you can make more money by upselling the products that have been added to the cart before or after the purchase most often.

Find out how NovoChat can help you reduce cart abandonment rates through chat marketing. Start your 7-day free trial today!

Try NovoChat for free! 🚀

An e-commerce chat marketing platform to grow your sales. 

© Novochat

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