Time to NUDGE and RECOVER your abandoned carts!
U.S. retailers spend approximately $23.50 billion on digital ads per year to drive traffic to their eCommerce websites. Here's some food for thought with the holiday season right around the corner.
Global ad spending by retailers is forecasted to increase by USD 58 billion in 2022, but the average eCommerce conversion rate is 3.65%.
Clearly, despite investments to attract relevant traffic, the majority of visitors still leave empty-handed.
While there are strategies that would certainly reduce shopping cart abandonment rates, it is impossible to make it zero. This makes it imperative for retailers to keep some checks in place to recover these abandoned carts and nudge shoppers to complete their purchases.
Here’s how retailers can nudge shoppers to complete a purchase
1. Get a competitive edge with AI
Browsing through multiple options before making a purchase is a lot easier and quicker to do online than from store to store and results in a lot of abandoned carts. How can retailers compete with short attention spans and many brands offering similar products? — An end to end personalized shopping experience!
When there are multiple sites offering similar products, retailers can gain the competitive edge by how and what they show shoppers.
Every shopper and their journey is unique and being able to capture that to tailor a personalized store just for them is key. This can be challenging with scale — this is where AI can help!
Instead of just personalizing the products that are displayed to the shopper based on their preferences, with AI, retailers can go one step ahead by making whole outfit recommendations for different occasions based on their preferences and display the products across the site on models that look most similar to the shopper.
Retailers can also provide interactive elements on the site like virtual dressing room where shoppers can mix and match clothing, visualise better and make an informed shopping decision.
Not only does this approach keep shoppers on the site longer, but retailers also have an opportunity to strengthen trust by the kind of information they provide and the personal touch which can take the shopper that extra mile to hit the ‘complete purchase’ button.
2. Make saving carts effortless for shoppers
We’ve already established that shoppers like to browse, compare and purchase.
When shopping in physical stores, once the shopper moves to the next store, the chances of them coming back, finding or recollecting the products they wanted to purchase is a tedious process. Hence with brick and mortar, you either buy something or you don’t. Online shopping isn’t as straightforward.
Consumers want to take advantage of being able to access multiple online stores from the comfort of their homes and returning to an ongoing order when they please, sometimes repeatedly. There are so many potential distractions online that it is almost certain to expect a distraction during the checkout process.
Hence saving carts should be a one click job.
When shoppers come back to the retailer’s site, they have to be ready with the cart that the shopper created before leaving the site.
This makes it effortless for users to go back to carts in progress and finish the purchase, increasing the conversion rate for the retailer.
3. Include thumbnail images and indicators to reduce digital shopping cart abandonment
Sometimes users can be on a serious shopping spree and might forget what they’ve added to the cart, sometimes on multiple sites.
If so, including thumbnail images of the products across the purchase phase can be reassuring to the customer of what they’re purchasing.
In a physical store, you can see the products from start to end but that might not necessarily be the case with eCommerce.
Thumbnails can help users remember what they’re looking to buy and eliminate the possibility of distraction.
Customers may experience hesitation if they can’t immediately remember what they wanted to buy.
Another way to keep users hooked to making a purchase is to add a progress indicator on the check out page. It helps them understand where they are in the checkout process, and how much further they have to go.
Shoppers might be even more motivated to complete their purchase if they can see how close they are to finishing the check out process.
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To succeed in today’s experience-driven world, online retailers must continue to prioritize personalized purchase experiences. Finding the right combination of strategies for your brand is key.