5 Best Practices for eCommerce Abandoned Cart Nurturing

Of all the buyer behaviors that can indicate a consumer’s position in the buying cycle, few are as obvious or compelling as an abandoned cart. According to a 2010 Marketing Experiments study, over half (56.2%) of all shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes the checkout process. An optimized e-mail campaign that re-engages consumers after they’ve abandoned a cart has been shown to more than double eCommerce conversions.

Here are 5 ways to improve your eCommerce conversion rate by using optimized Abandoned Cart Nurturing:

1. Do the Two-Step:  Any conversions are directly affected by the complexity – or “resistance” – in the conversion event. The more information that you ask for and the greater complexity the checkout process, the less visitors will actually convert on any form. This holds equally true for eCommerce. Although we do need to collect critical information such as billing and shipping information in order to complete an order, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the first step in the checkout process. Make the first page ask just for “First name” and “E-mail Address” and use that information to initiate an abandoned cart nurturing campaign if they don’t convert on the second page.
   
   
2. Make Your Message Immediate: The longer that you wait to re-engage with a prospect, the less likely they are to recall the informational and emotional justifications that they had for beginning the checkout process to begin with. You should re-engage with a customer that has abandoned a cart within no more than 24 hours.
   
   
3. Express Concern: The primary reason behind a customer abandoning a cart is not always the price – nor should it be framed as such in the initial e-mail. In your first e-mail after the customer has abandoned the cart, express concern that a technical or functional error prevented them from completing their order. In many cases, this might actually be the reason the customer abandoned. Many times users simply forget that they started the cart, and need a reminder. You can also use this as an opportunity to emphasize additional competitive advantages, such as your amazing customer service.
   
   
4. Offer Incentives: In your second e-mail, include an incentive offer. The same Marketing Experiments study showed that including an incentive to complete the purchase can increase your eCommerce conversion rate by up to 263%.
   
   
5. Get Them to Take Another Action: If they’ve abandoned the cart and not reconverted within your first few e-mails, try to reconvert them on an informational offer that engages them with a lead nurturing campaign. Although an abandoned cart may be a very strong indicator of intent, it’s possible that they’re looking for more information about your company or the product before they complete their purchase.

There are a number of reasons that a customer can abandon a cart, such as lack or trust in the store, uncertainty in price advantage, feature confusion, shipping concerns, and more. Your automated abandoned cart nurturing campaign should address as many of them as possible.

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Comments

Posted by Sam Mallikarjunan on Wed, Aug 03, 2011 @ 10:10 AM