Are you experiencing a high cart abandon rate? Then this article is for you.
Most newbie e-commerce store owners have a hard time wrapping their head around why so many people add products to the cart and then never complete the checkout.
But there’s a simple explanation for this.
Your sales process can be thought of as a funnel.
And this funnel consists of multiple steps a user must take.
During each step of the sales funnel more people drop off. So why is it called a funnel? Because if you map out the visitors for each step in a horizontal diagram, you’ll end up with something that resembles an upside down pyramid structure, or in other words, a funnel.
Let’s say you run a Facebook ad.
And let’s assume your ad is delivered to 100,000 people.
With a 1% click-through rate you’ll get 1,000 visitors to your product page.
That means, you just lost 99,000 people who saw your ad but didn’t click to learn more. In other words, 99% of people just dropped out of the first stage of your sales funnel.
Read More: 25 Best Sales Funnel Templates
From the 1,000 people who visit your store maybe 200 will add the product to the cart.
You just lost another 800 people.
Finally, from the 200 people who added the product to the cart maybe 40 end up buying.
Understanding sales funnels is the first step to understanding why customers abandon online shopping carts. It’s completely normal that most visitors will abandon their cart.
What’s the Typical Cart Abandon Rate for E-Commerce Stores?
The average is between 60-80%.
Anything in this range can be considered normal.
There’s multiple factors that impact your cart abandon rate. For example, your traffic source matters. The cart abandon rate for warm traffic is much lower than for cold traffic.
Also the type of promotion will impact your cart abandon rate.
A free plus shipping offer will have a much higher cart abandon rate than a regular offer.
Why?
Because when customers see a product that’s free, they’ll get excited and add the product to the cart. But once they see the shipping costs they might get second thoughts.
None of this should worry you.
Just make sure your cart abandon rate is within the normal range.
Expect an 80-90% cart abandon rate for free plus shipping offers and a 60-80% cart abandon rate for regular offers. For warm traffic you can expect a 40-60% cart abandon rate.
Why Do Customers Abandon Online Shopping Carts in the First Place?
There are several reasons.
But you have to understand that there’s little you can do to lower your cart abandon rate.
Clicking on an “Add to Cart” button requires a lower level of commitment than entering their credit card information. So it’s normal that lots of people will abandon the cart.
Uncontrollable reasons why people abandon online shopping carts:
- They don’t have enough money
- They aren’t serious about buying in the first place
- They get second thoughts or can’t justify the purchase
- They get interrupted or distracted by an external source
There’s little you can do about this.
Someone might be in the midst of buying a product on your site and get interrupted by a phone call from a friend. Or the person might have to run to catch a bus or attend a meeting.
But in most cases there’s a simpler explanation.
People just get second thoughts.
A visitor might be interested in buying a product, but once she has to fill in her credit card information it’s a whole different story. Second thoughts kick in. Maybe the person thinks about if she really needs to product and decides she doesn’t. Or she simply can’t justify the expense.
There’s absolutely nothing you can do about this.
So what can you control?
Controllable reasons why people abandon online shopping carts:
- They don’t trust your site because of obvious red flags
- They get interrupted or distracted by something on your site
- They are put off by high shipping rates or other unpleasant surprises
- They can’t checkout with their preferred payment method
This is all stuff you can and should control.
8 Proven Ways to Lower Your Cart Abandon Rate And Get More Sales
Make sure your site look trustworthy.
It’s important you remove red flags from the checkout process.
For example, I used to sell products to customers in Germany. Shopify automatically added a small line of text to the checkout page saying that customers have to agree to send their personal information to the United States. This caused distrust and resulted in high cart abandon rates.
I know because people were commenting under my Facebook ad.
They were saying things like:
“Why do I need to send my information to the USA?”
“This site is a scam and sells information to the United States”
Once I removed the line of text, the abandon rates dropped and more people completed the checkout. This was a red flag that I had control over and eventually fixed.
But there are many other things you can do.
A great way to lower your cart abandon rate is to remove distractions.
When I spied on my online visitors with Hotjar I discovered that many people got distracted from the related products section on my store. They also abandoned the cart by clicking on the menu. Usually, when that happened, visitors got lost browsing the online store.
This can be solved by creating an e-commerce website with Clickfunnels.
But there’s more things you can do.
Here are 8 proven ways to lower your cart abandon rate:
- Remove red flags from the checkout process
- Remove distractions that interrupt the checkout process
- Lower your shipping rates or offer free shipping
- Offer more payment methods including PayPal and credit card
- Add an additional incentive such as a discount or bonus
- Add urgency and scarcity to the checkout process
- Use warm traffic sources that are likely to convert
- Follow up with people who abandon the cart
If you’re experiencing abnormally high cart abandon rates, try some of these methods and see what happens. You should be able to lower your cart abandon rate by at least 5-10%.
However, remember that a 60-80% cart abandon rate is totally normal.
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