Abandoned cart recovery can be a gold mine for e-commerce marketers, but it’s not something that is commonly thought of.
In 2024, the e-commerce shopping cart abandonment rate for U.S. adults will hover around 70%. according to To Baymard Institute. It’s a big opportunity.
Baymard suggests focusing on design, saying, “If you only focus on the checkout usability problems that are documented to be solvable, the average large e-commerce site will “Better checkout design can increase conversion rates by 35%.”
For the entire US and EU e-commerce industry, that 35% increase equates to approximately $260 billion in additional revenue.
Beyond design
The problem is that usability and design haven’t solved abandonment so far. E-commerce cart abandonment rates have been roughly flat since 2018, but have been on the rise since 2006.
The e-commerce administrator was unable to resolve the issue. Shopping cart abandonment problemor the rate isn’t impacting sales as much as we think.
What if shopping cart abandonment is normal in e-commerce, and the real opportunity is to treat cart abandoners like warm leads rather than lost opportunities?
This doesn’t mean that online sellers should ignore design and conversion optimization. Rather, it represents an opportunity to market to shoppers who haven’t completed the checkout process.
cart recovery email
Abandoned cart email sequences are probably the most common and effective way to recover sales. Ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce include these emails as a default feature.
However, familiarity can be an issue. It may be too easy to turn on this feature without optimizing it. A better approach is to create automated emails that identify shoppers as early as possible and convert based on their behavior.
Here are the steps:
- Get shopper email addresses as quickly as possible,
- Know when to send your first cart recovery email message.
- Know how many messages your series should include,
- Optimize and personalize the content of your messages.
Sellers must: Testing and optimization Follow each step to suit your audience and settings. For example, some marketers send the first recovery email 90 minutes after abandonment, while others prefer 30 minutes or less.
retargeting ads
Another recovery strategy is to retarget cart abandoners with ads. Retargeting ads should complement your abandonment email series. Once your series starts, you’ll need to add shoppers to your retargeting campaign. This requires automation to start and then disable retargeting campaigns.
Campaigns should run in programmatic email on Google and Meta and through services like LiveIntent. The goal is to remind shoppers of abandoned items.
As always, testing and iteration are the keys to remarketing success.
text message
Next to email, the most powerful e-commerce communication tools are: text messaging. Text messages are now the preferred transactional communication channel for many shoppers.
The typical online buyer prefers text-based order and shipping notifications. Marketers can leverage that affinity to remind shoppers about abandoned items through text. Make messages as transactional as possible and avoid repeating messages.
better recovery
Since 2006, e-commerce cart abandonment rates have risen from about 59% to 70%, reaching nearly 72% in 2012 with the rise of smartphones, and then leveling off.
But cart abandonment is an opportunity. Merchants can improve their recovery efforts by adjusting emails, retargeting ads, and text messages without neglecting the design.
