7 Essential Tips on How to Recover Shopify Abandoned Carts

Uncovering Shopify Abandoned Carts

Ecommerce is all about leading your customer through the journey from discovering your site to the sweet “cha-ching” sound the Shopify App makes when you make a sale. But did you know that 69.75% of carts are abandoned? according to research from the Banyard Institute, and Tthat number jumps to 85.65 when the buyer is on a mobile device.

Shopify (SHOP.TO) is the leading platform for entrepreneurs to create, manage, and sell products online. It is one of the easiest and fastest ways to jumpstart an idea into a fully functioning eCommerce business.

Improve your abandoned cart recovery

What is Abandoned Cart Recovery?

An abandoned cart is when a visitor puts something in their online cart, and then, for whatever reason, does not go through and complete that purchase. 

This article will dig into why customers are abandoning their carts, and give you actionable steps on how to prevent shopping cart abandonment. When you systematically design your checkout page experience with cart conversion in mind, you will improve customer engagement and rely less on cart abandonment email templates to convert new customers.

As an e-Commerce business owner, your Shopify abandoned cart metrics are some of your most important to track. When you lower your cart bounces and reduce the number of abandoned checkouts, your business wins big at the ecom game. 

So before sending out a discount code to save the next sale, try these 7 strategies to proactively reduce abandoned shopping carts.

Keep in mind that every successful abandoned cart recovery gives your online store higher profitability.

7 Easy Tips to Reduce Abandoned Carts on Shopify

Let’s look at the top 7 ways to instantly reduce Shopify cart abandonment and improve your ecommerce store’s profits:

  1. Simplify the checkout process
  2. Offer your customers incentives to create an account
  3. Provide shoppers with a variety of payment options
  4. Enable a guest checkout option
  5. Provide progress indicators during the checkout process
  6. Be transparent about all fees and total costs
  7. Send automated recovery texts

1. Simplify the checkout process

As an e-commerce owner, the buzzword you need to use when designing your cart experience is “simple.” Whatever you do, make your checkout process as streamlined and painless as possible. Eliminate any unnecessary drag in your checkout process.

There is a Japanese phrase, “kaizen” that roughly translates to constant innovation. You want to re-think your checkout process and make sure every part of it is intentional, necessary and simple. Think: zen checkout.

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The goal is to create a frictionless journey for your customer. This starts the moment the customer initially desires your product to adding the item to their cart, and finally pulling out their credit card and finishing their order. Any distraction or uncertainty along the way could lead to cart abandonment.

A good rule of thumb is not to ask for information you don’t absolutely need.

According to Sleeknote, the average checkout flow has 23.48 form elements and 14.88 form fields. If you can reduce this number and make the process easier on your customer, you’ll reduce cart abandonment.

Have you ever been through a buggy, long process on a checkout? Have you ever wanted to buy something but given up because of a checkout process that requires too many steps? It’s every customer's worst nightmare. A carefully constructed checkout process is key because your customer’s desire for the product is highest at the moment when they add it to their shopping cart. Design your cart experience so it flows as effortlessly as possible.

eCommerce metrics to reduce cart abandons

2. Offer your customers incentives to create an account

We all deal with hundreds of accounts and passwords. It can get overwhelming. So, how do you turn creating an account into a benefit instead of a headache?

Offer your customers an incentive to create an account. Give them a clear call-to-action to help them take action now.

This could be a coupon, a PDF, or something else depending on your products. You could even send them a random positive message via SMS. Get creative and people jump through hoops for a cool bonus or something that makes them feel special.

People may forget what you said, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.

Once they have created their account, you have their email and can send them abandoned cart  recovery emails.

3. Provide shoppers with a variety of payment options

A mistake that some Shopify store owners make is not offering enough payment options.

Make it as easy to pay for your product as possible. Some shoppers prefer certain checkout methods, so be sure to offer as much variety as you can. There are also options like Afterpay that allow customers to buy now, but pay for your merch later. Of course, you as the Shopify store owner still gets paid right away, but it's a way to help make that sale happen today rather than risking your customer getting distracted.

So even if it means more accounting for your business, give your customers a choice of payment options to generate more revenue.

4. Enable a guest checkout option

Do you really need all customers to register?

The best Shopify stores offer a guest checkout option.

Obviously, you want to collect customer data. The more data you get about your customers is great for scaling up your ecommerce business with paid ads. However, some customers prefer NOT to register when making a purchase. This can be for a variety of reasons, but many customers just don’t like companies knowing information about them.

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For those customers, a guest checkout option can still help you secure those sales.

With Shopify, you can enable an optional guest checkout mode that allows you to make your checkout process quicker and easier.

A guest checkout option is more streamlined, and don’t worry, you’ll still have most customers who will choose to create an account. The important thing is not to lose sales over the customers that prefer a guest checkout experience.

Getting phone numbers from customers is ideal, since it allows you to follow up via SMS marketing. And while you can't force a potential customer to give you their phone number, many will willingly do so. So, have it as an option, just don’t make it it mandatory.

Bonus tip: Make sure to set up a retargeting campaign to target customers who use the guest checkout and don't create an account. This is a great way to follow-up and segment customers who don’t leave their emails and phone numbers.

5. Provide progress indicators during the checkout process

There is a well-known psychological principle that Robert Cialdini explained in his book, Influence, called the Principle of Commitment. Once somebody has started something, there is a natural pull to complete what you started. It naturally feels good to complete things.

A great way to help provide content and clarity when checking out is to use progress indicators during your checkout process.

This added functionality helps show a clear path to your user.

The arrows also subtly show the next step, gently nudging the customer to complete the purchase.

Implementing progress arrows may influence your shopping cart conversion rates to tick up. Now you know why, and how to get more cart conversions by adding this to your checkout flow.

6. Be transparent about all fees and total costs

The #1 reason for a high Shopify cart abandonment rate is unexpected fees and charges. Nothing is as likely to derail your new customer as sliding in some unexpected fees. So be sure to make it clear all about your fees. And if you offer free shipping, make certain it is clear what qualifies for free shipping.

In fact, extra fees and unexpected costs account for half of all cart abandons according to Baymard Research.

With the cost of shipping at all-time highs, extra costs will tip the scale in Shopify cart abandonment rates. It’s just a good strategy for retailers to be transparent about the costs of shipping and handling.

Customers would rather know the true cost of the product. If you hide fees, it feels like a bait-and-switch and you won’t only lose the sale, but it also changes their perception of your brand in a negative way.

7. Send automated recovery texts and SMS reminders

Ecommerce is always evolving. The most effective way of encouraging your customer to complete the checkout process is with SMS messages. Text messages have a 98% open rate compared to email marketing. SMS marketing is inexpensive but highly effective.

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The key concept is to re-engage potential customers who are at their peak freshness as a buyer, have already initiated a checkout process, but for some reason have abandoned their cart. 

Consider sending out a social proof SMS sequence in addition to typical cart reminders. SMS can work great in conjunction with an abandoned checkout email sequence.

But it’s important to understand HOW to build relationships with customers using SMS messages.

Texts can be automated, but the real gains are seen with 2-way personalized SMS messages. 2-ways SMS messages move beyond using the basic <NAME> personalization. With the right system, you can take the time to create specific, targeted, organic messages that lead to higher conversions and overall reduced cart abandonment. This is the magic sauce of reducing cart abandonment.

If you are not using 2-way SMS messaging, adding SMS to your checkout process is the suggestion that can lead to the highest improvement in shopping cart abandonment instantly.

To see how to use SMS to improve your cart abandonment problems, click here.

Recover Abandoned Carts with Emotive’s Automated Text and SMS Messaging

As an ecommerce brand, one of the best ways to improve the overall profitability of your Shopify store is to focus on what you can do to significantly reduce shopping cart abandonment. Fixing that leak is often just as important as getting more customers to your store and building awareness for your brand.

If your bucket is leaking, stop that leak first.

To recap, shopping cart abandonment is real, and it can cost your ecommerce brand hundreds of lost sales per day. But there are some specifics you can do to improve checkout recovery with Shopify or any other eCommerce checkout.

Some simple steps to reduce shopping cart abandonment that you can implement now are:

  • Simplify the checkout process
  • Create incentives to encourage customers to create an account
  • Offer a wide variety of payment options
  • Make sure to enable guest checkout
  • Use progress arrows to lead your customer to a completed order
  • Be transparent about fees and shipping charges
  • Use SMS to recover and convert more customers

How much is cart abandonment costing your bottom line? It can be hard to calculate because these sales are not getting completed, but there is a handy ROI calculator that gives you some hard numbers on the money you are losing to abandoned carts.

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