Fix Ecom Cart-Abandonment Issues Before Retargeting Your Customers

Most visitors who end up on your ecommerce store are there because they’re attracted to the product or service you sell: your product offers them benefits like a solution to a problem, better ways to complete a daily activity, savings of time, and so on.

But maybe they encounter a problem while shopping that creates friction, decision paralysis, or interaction with a bug. These are issues that could lead to cart abandonment.

Before you rush to retarget the users who have abandoned a cart—possibly bombarding them with ads that trail them everywhere they go on the internet—you need to find out what caused them to abandon the purchase in the first place. That way, you can fix these problems and also address them in your retargeting ads.

What Causes Cart Abandonment?

There are multiple reasons why a user might abandon a cart. Here are some of the major factors.

1. Product Price

Your product price may be higher than your competitor’s price. In such a case, users would love to know why it’s so expensive: What additional value does your product provide for that higher price? Is the quality much better than that of your competitor?

If there’s no difference between what you and your competitors are offering, users may prefer to buy this product from your competitor for a lower price.

Solution: Offer a price-matching system. Ecom store owners need to offer a price-match function that users can request if or when they find a similar item at a competitor’s store. This ensures that you keep your customers on your store.

2. Shipping Price and Time

Shipping price may discourage users from completing the checkout process and could drop off. Some users find the cost of shipping an item so expensive—or the time it takes to ship and deliver so inconvenient—that they abandon their cart and decide to buy elsewhere.

Solution: Offer multiple shipping price options and clarify the shipping times. Ecom store owners need to offer users choices:

• If they want the item delivered quickly, they can choose priority shipping. It costs a little more than other shipping methods, but the higher price makes sense to customers because the speed of delivery adds value.
• If they want to spend less money, users can opt for free or standard shipping. Both cost less, but delivery of the order takes longer. By spelling it out, you ensure that users’ have reasonable expectations. 

3. Clarity

Insufficient information can push users to leave the store. When they land on a product page, they expect to find all the relevant information there. That information is what gets them motivated to take the next step. If it’s lacking, users are likely to leave your ecom store and buy from one of your competitors.

Solution: Provide very detailed product descriptions. Include product specifications and usage information. Also, be sure to provide shipping and return policy information. Make sure you’re not making content harder to understand. Provide very clear and detailed product information that users can easily read, understand, and visualize.

4. Trust

Trust (or the lack of it) is a critical factor that either makes users buy from your ecommerce store or abandon the buying process.

Users can lose trust when they read claims about what your product can do but find no proven examples that might clear their doubts. They may consider the reviews you provide to be questionable and possibly staged. As a result, users won’t buy from you.

Solution: Use trust symbols and provide accurate information. Also, use reviews from real people. A user-generated content section helps users because they can see real pictures of the product in use. This can increase your store’s conversion rate. 

Note: For more about user-generated content, see this article.

Videos are also very good. And if you can provide customer review videos, even better. They can increase your customers’ trust in you.

5. Discount Code Doesn’t Work

Sending a discount code to a user or giving out discount codes to users who have signed up for a newsletter is a good idea. But if the discount code doesn’t work, the customer ends up frustrated. After trying to apply the code a few times they may drop off your store.

Solution: Make sure that the discount codes issued to users are applicable. Make sure users know that, if they have any difficulties, they can contact customer support for help.

What Causes Cart Abandonment on Your Store?

To find out why your users abandoned their carts, you can conduct surveys or polls. This is an ideal way to ask your shoppers questions about one or more of the following:

• What do they think kept them from buying from you?
• What questions do they have about your store’s usability?
• What was their shopping experience like?
• Do they have product quality or usability issues?

From the feedback you collect, you’ll be able to pinpoint some of the issues that are causing users to abandon the cart, and you’ll be able to further investigate and fix those problems.

Creating Retargeting Campaigns

Aware of the issues that may have caused users to abandon the cart, you now need to create retargeting ads that give users more clarity about the product or service you’re selling. You want to motivate them to return to your store and complete the purchase they were close to making before they abandoned the cart.

Your retargeting ad can let users know the following:

• They can trust your ecom store.
• They’re getting a good deal in the market.
• The checkout process won’t be time consuming.
• Their order will be delivered quickly.
• They’ll receive a product warranty.

Conclusion

It’s important for store owners to get to the root cause of cart abandonment before rushing to retarget users. Having a good plan in place (like conducting surveys and polls) helps owners better understand their customers and the problem areas on the ecom store. Then owners can build trust with users and motivate them to come back to the store to complete their order.