Cart abandonment consistently remains one of the most significant challenges faced by ecommerce stores. Despite the advancements in technology and user experience, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout. This creates a major gap between the traffic your store generates and actual sales. Recovering abandoned carts and optimising the checkout process are crucial for increasing your ecommerce conversion rates.
Fortunately, managing and reducing cart abandonment is possible by implementing targeted strategies that engage customers and optimise the purchasing journey. Below, we share five actionable tips that can help your ecommerce store manage cart abandonment.
1. Implement AI-powered personalised email reminders for cart recovery
One of the most common ways to recover abandoned carts is by sending follow-up emails. However, generic cart abandonment emails just don’t cut it anymore.
Personalised, AI-driven email reminders can engage potential customers by analysing browsing behaviour, product preferences and past purchases to craft highly relevant and timely email reminders. These emails can offer tailored discounts, suggest similar products, or highlight benefits specific to the customer’s abandoned items.
2. Use exit-intent popups with time-sensitive discounts to recover abandoned carts
Exit-intent popups have become an essential tool in managing cart abandonment. By detecting when a shopper is about to leave your site, these popups can trigger a special offer or a reminder to complete their purchase.
By using urgency (like a time-limited discount or free shipping offer) and offering immediate value, you increase the likelihood that a visitor will convert before leaving. Customers are more likely to act on a deal if they feel like they are getting something extra for a limited time.
You can use AI-powered tools to test the effectiveness of different offers in real-time, allowing you to optimise popup designs and discount types based on customer behaviour.
3. Leverage a seamless mobile experience
Mobile ecommerce accounts for an ever-growing percentage of online sales, so it’s imperative to ensure your store is optimised for mobile to reduce cart abandonment. If your website doesn’t offer a fast, user-friendly mobile experience, you risk losing a significant number of potential sales.
Online shoppers are more likely to abandon carts if they have trouble navigating the site, slow load times, or complex checkout processes on mobile devices. You should therefore streamline your checkout process and ensure it’s as easy to complete on a mobile device as it is on a desktop.
You can do this by using mobile-first design principles, minimising the number of form fields and integrating a quick and secure online payment gateway like Payfast by Network, which offers a variety of popular payment methods such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, SnapScan and Zapper, to streamline mobile purchases.
4. Offer flexible payment options
Providing customers with flexible payment methods can reduce cart abandonment rates. By offering payment options like Mobicred, store cards and TymeBank’s buy now, pay later payment solution MoreTyme, customers can spread the cost of their purchases over time without incurring high-interest rates.
Flexible payment options cater to a broad range of customers, including those who may not have the funds to pay for their entire purchase upfront. This can boost conversion rates by giving customers the flexibility to make a purchase even if they are hesitant about immediate payment.
If you offer such payment methods, it’s recommended to clearly display the availability of the options on product pages and during checkout to remind customers of their flexible payment choices.
5. Enhance trust and transparency with clear shipping & return policies
Consumers are more tech-savvy than ever and are, therefore, more privy to hidden costs and unclear policies. A major reason for cart abandonment is uncertainty about shipping costs, delivery time and the return policy. To combat this, ecommerce stores must display transparent and easily accessible shipping and return policies upfront.
If customers feel uncertain about extra charges or how easy it will be to return a product, they are less likely to proceed with their purchase. Clear, transparent policies help build trust and reduce hesitation during checkout.
It’s good practice to include a progress bar or shipping estimate at checkout, so customers can see when their order will arrive. You can also highlight free shipping offers and hassle-free returns to encourage customers to finalise their purchase.
Cart abandonment is a persistent issue for ecommerce businesses, but with the right strategies in place, you can turn potential losses into successful conversions. For other tips on growing your online business, check out our free to use resources.
