According to research by Baymard Institute, a large-scale e-commerce research company specializing in user experience (UX), nearly 70% of online shopping carts were abandoned in 2022. While only around 59% of those baskets were abandoned due to shoppers simply not being ready to buy, as they were just window shopping.
Many smaller websites have many more lost opportunities than these. For sites suffering from habitually abandoned shopping baskets prior to checkout, 48% of shoppers blamed the additional costs such as shipping and taxes; 24% of sites wanted the shopper to create an account before finalizing their purchase; and, 17% of shoppers said the checkout process was too long or complicated.
It also matters what platform your shoppers are browsing on, i.e. desktop, mobile, or tablet. Shopify also found nearly 70% of desktop e-commerce shoppers abandon their carts, and a whopping 86% of mobile shoppers and 81% of tablet shoppers abandon their online shopping baskets. Their most frequently listed reasons for cart abandonment were extra fees at checkout, required to create an account prior to checkout, and the website not establishing trust.
Overcoming these obstacles and getting shoppers to commit to finalizing their purchasing in their online shopping baskets is important. We will give you 5 tactics for increasing shopping basket purchases.
Build Trust, Credibility, and Respect
No matter the type of sales you are doing, you will have far more success once you build trust, credibility, and respect. This famous Dale Carnegie tactic has worked for businesses around the world, and the most successful websites incorporate these techniques. Your e-commerce store should not just be about clicking and buying items, it should also have readily available information about the products, reviews and recommendations from your website and your customers, while also making sure customers can easily contact you. By going a step further, you can get third-party verifications on your website and on other websites referencing yours. This will ensure you have built trust, credibility, and respect while improving your closing percentages.
Avoid Price Shock
By including the taxes and shipping fees in the price, you increase your chances of closing the deal by up to 65%, according to National Retail Federation. Much of that has to do with the perception of free shipping, as most online shoppers will purchase from websites that offer free shipping. So, if you are able to offer free shipping, do it. If not, try freeship threshold notifications that encourages your shoppers to purchase a certain amount of products that gets them free shipping. Including the taxes by using the person’s location for state sales taxes will also help the process.
Simplify The Process
When customers are at the shopping cart ready to checkout, do not make them leave the screen to create a profile, log-in, or edit the cart. By having them stay at the checkout, you increase your chances of them making the purchase by nearly 24%. If they must leave the page to edit or create a profile, it makes the process more complicated than it needs to be while prompting them to feel purchasing anxiety or buyer’s remorse. When a customer feels anxious, they are more than likely to abandon their cart midway through the process. Create a consistent shopping cart experience with as few steps as possible, and be sure the back-end places the order in a timely fashion while notifying the customer of their purchase to their email and/or text as a receipt.
Remind and Retarget
When potential customers click on ‘order,’ they are not necessarily there to make the official purchase. More often than not, they are checking the overall price and comparing it with other websites like a modern version of window shopping. A solid strategy for overcoming objections and getting them to commit to the purchase is by utilizing the strategy known as “retargeting.” In this method, the customer is reminded through paid advertisements on their browser and social media. Retargeting has demonstrated to be around 92% better than search engine optimization tactics, email reminders alone, and social media ads alone. To further boost odds of finalizing there purchase, provide a small advantageous discount code if they act within a quicker period to help remind them of the products and site while enticing them to buy.
Wholesale, Bulk, and Bundle Pricing
If you are able to get your customers a discount for wholesale purchases, you will likely get more purchases overall. It does not have to be the actual wholesale price, but when they are given, say a 30% discount for purchasing over a dollar amount, they will feel they are getting a better deal than if not offered that discount. Or it could be that they’d want more of the product that is being sold at the same price as another website, or a free add-on that encourages them to buy from you as opposed to the competitors- this is a great bulk buying technique to increase sales. It is also common that particular products go together, for example a particular charging cable with a device, or a case for a phone. By bundling products together, and sold in one place, with a possible discount, you increase your sales while enhancing the customer or user experience.
Take advantage of these tactics to close more deals, sale more products, and truly help your customers by increasing shopping basket purchases.
