Potential clients visit your website or online store daily.

They check out your products and add them to the cart.

The problem?

Most of them don't complete the purchase.

Leaving you with a 70%+ abandonment cart rate.

But don't worry, this is the norm in e-commerce.

More than 88% of people abandon their carts for various reasons.

Which is a huge loss in terms of revenue for online stores.

We have analyzed 4000+ online stores and developed the best solutions to decrease abandoned carts.

In this blog, we will go over the best cart abandonment solutions and learn why online shoppers abandon their carts so often.

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Shopping cart (or basket) abandonment is when online browsers add any number of items to their cart but decide to leave the site without completing the purchase.

From a metric point of view, having a high cart abandonment rate is bad.

But that doesn't necessarily mean our audience hates our products or finds our prices unaffordable.

What do we mean by that?

Customers don't consider it "cart abandonment" when they leave the website without finalizing the purchase.

To them, putting items in the cart serves multiple purposes.

For example, some online shoppers use carts to save a list of their preferred items.

While others use your cart as a calculator to see the total purchase cost, including taxes, shipping, and fees.

Why Do Online Shoppers Abandon Their Carts?

There are several reasons behind abandoned carts.

Most of which are avoidable and solvable.

Based on 4000+ e-store data, we found out that the main reasons behind cart abandonment are as follows:

• 53% due to product/price/shipping being either too high or unclear
• 20% due to insufficient customer support (slow responses, chatbots, or closed phone line)
• 16% due to unpleasant customer experience (pop-ups, poor quality images, or low trust)
• 14% due to support language barrier
• 7% due to technical bugs

How to Calculate Your Cart Abandonment Rate

The best and easiest way to calculate your cart abandonment rate is by using this formula:

Abandonment Rate = Total Number of Completed Transactions / Total Number of Initiated Transactions or Created Shopping Carts.

For example, if you have 50 completed purchases and 200 created shopping carts, this is what the formula looks like:

1 - (50 / 200 ) x 100 = 75%

Impact of Shopping Cart Abandonment in E-commerce

If you're wondering whether cart abandonment impacts eCommerce sales or not, the simple answer is:

Yes, it does.

And massively, for that matter.

Even reducing the abandonment cart rate by 1% can mean over €10,000 in extra monthly sales revenue!

In fact, a recent study by Statista shows that abandoned carts cost online retailers $4.6 trillion in lost sales each year.

Having said that, you can't avoid abandoned carts completely.

No matter how good your product or reputation is, every online store has a percentage of abandoned carts.

But, with the right strategy, you can decrease that number drastically.

Which will, in turn, increase your sales by 15-30%.

What does that mean in the real world?

Let's say you have:

• An abandonment cart rate of 70%
• Around 1,000 monthly purchases
• An average cart size of €100

You're losing around €380,000 each month.

This also means that using cart abandonment solutions and reducing the rate from 70% to 68 % will increase your sales by around €8,000/month.

Simply put, it's your opportunity to widen the horizon of your business.

Or in different terms, multilingual customer service is the customer support that an online store provides in more than one language.

The goal of multilingual support is to:

• Break the language barriers.
• Gain more trust.
• Attract more customers.
• Keep costs stable.
• Provide fast support in the customers' preferred language with existing resources.

Cost-Efficient Cart Abandonment Solutions

Various studies based on 10+ years of researching e-commerce, CX, and cart abandonment, show how you can recover a significant portion of your abandoned cart sales by adopting the right solutions.

Here are some of the most cost-efficient cart abandonment solutions:

• Customer Service solely at the Point of Purchase

  Put yourself in your customers' shoes for a minute.

  You are about to buy some products and have questions or doubts you seek an answer to.

  Problem is you don't see a customer-friendly live support to help you with that.

  If that is the case, you will likely leave your cart abandoned.

  The solution?

  Offer live customer service via tools built to reduce cart abandonment and keep customers longer on your website.

  An example would be Askly, an online live chat service that hundreds of successful online stores choose daily that can help you decrease cart abandonment rates by as much as 24%.



• Exit-Intent Detection

  Online shoppers are easily distracted.

  Which is bad for sales because a distracted customer means an abandoned cart and a lost sale.

  You can use exit-intent detection to keep customers' attention at your online store and prevent cart abandonment.

  Exit-intent overlays are pop-ups that appear to customers who have products in their carts but don't complete the purchase.

  What do these pop-ups display?

  For example, you can offer 5-15% discounts if they complete their purchase today.

  Pop-ups make your customers experience FOMO.

  Plus, exit-intent detection is cheaper than investing in retargeting or digital marketing.

  Just make sure not to overdo the exit-intent pop-ups, as they can annoy your customers and make your website look shady.

• Recovery emails

  If you've ever abandoned an online cart, you might have received an email a few hours later reminding you of the items you left behind.

  Those are recovery emails.

  Recovery emails are a reminder for your customers and are one of the most effective marketing tools to reduce abandoned cart rates.

  One important aspect to point out is that your recovery emails need to bring value or personalization to be effective.

  For example, you can use your recovery email to remind your customers of the items they didn't purchase and offer a discount code valid for 24-48 hours, showing social proof or case studies about your product/service.

  Keep in mind that you can only use this method if you have access to the customer's email.



• SMS marketing

  Similarly to emails, SMS is also a popular marketing tool to reduce abandoned carts through a friendly reminder message.

  SMSs are even more effective than emails because people check their phone messages much more frequently than emails.

  What's the catch?

  You need your customers' phone numbers, which is much harder to get compared to emails.

  One of the ways to get phone numbers is via live chat, and solutions like Askly provide this option.

• Retargeting ads

  Have you ever noticed how you get ads for the same product you were browsing a few hours or days prior?

  That's not a coincidence.

  In fact, those are retargeted ads.

  Studies show that retargeting your customers with ads of a product they were checking out has a 76% higher chance of them clicking on that ad.

  Why is that?

  Because you remind them of something they already wanted and forgot about for various reasons.

  Just make sure you retarget your customers with ads 24-72 hours after their first interaction with your store.

  Otherwise, you'll come off as too pushy.

• Social proof

  One of the biggest reasons your customers might abandon their carts is a lack of trust.

  For example, if a customer wants to buy a laptop and has the choice between a Macbook and a no-name company, they will probably buy the Macbook.

  Even if it's not the cheapest or best option on paper.

  Why is that?

  Because Apple is a leader in the industry and a trustworthy company.

  To decrease your abandoned cart rate, your goal is for your customers to perceive you as trustworthy.

  There are multiple ways to achieve that, such as displaying verified reviews on your website, having trust badges all over your store, and having secure payments.

• Easy checkout process

  You might think that having a detailed multi-step checkout process makes you look more professional.

  But that's not true.

  In fact, they instantly turn off most online shoppers.

  Modern consumers seek simplicity, fewer clicks, and auto-filled forms.

  So, make sure your checkout process is as easy and transparent as possible to avoid abandoned carts.



• Payment options

  There are a lot of different cards and online payment options, and the more you offer, the more customers you'll satisfy.

  Make sure you have at least the most popular payment options on your online store in addition to the debit/credit card, such as:

  • PayPal

  • Google Pay

  • Apple Pay

  • Wise

  • Stripe

  • Payoneer

  • Bank Transfer

  • Revolut

• Guest checkout

  Forcing your customers to create an account is a big red flag for online shoppers and one of the major reasons for abandonment as well.

  Some customers, who seek speed and privacy, don't want to get bothered by the whole process.

  Also, they don't want to share their personal information so easily and prefer keeping their privacy.

  Whatever the reason may be, studies show that 28% of customers abandon their carts because the online store requires them to create an account.

  Bottom line is, allow for a guest checkout on your online store.

• Offer free shipping

  Who doesn't hate high shipping costs?

  In fact, 60% of consumers will abandon their carts if the shipping fee is too high.

  The solution?

  Incorporate your shipping fees into your product's price.

  You might think that a higher price will scare customers off, but the opposite is true.

  Most customers prefer to pay $20 + free shipping rather than $10 + $10 shipping.

• Be transparent with your pricing

  This cart abandonment solution is crucial but often overlooked.

  Not showing your pricing fully is a shady practice that will not only frustrate your customers.

  But will also get your online store a bad reputation.

  To avoid that, make sure you display prices, fees, and taxes clearly on both the product page and checkout.

• Secure checkout process

  A study shows that 59% of online shoppers want a guarantee that their personal data is completely secure.

  If your online store screams "unsafe," you will get a lot of abandoned carts at checkout.

  The best cart abandonment solution to this?

  Setup your website security properly with things like:

  • SSL certificates

  • Secure "HTTPS" URL

  • Secure payment methods

• Show the total savings at checkout

  If you offer discounts to your customers, make sure you show how much they're saving from the original price.

  This makes customers feel like they're getting a great deal and increases their FOMO because they might not get it in the future.

  Enticing customers this way massively reduces abandoned cart rates.

• Have a solid refund and return policy

  Buying online can be a big risk, especially with some items.

  For example, if you're buying clothes online, there's a high chance the size won't fit you.

  Or that the item isn't as good as in the promotional pictures.

  Customers are very aware of this, and if you don't offer a reasonable refund and return policy, you will lose a lot of customers.

  Typically, the industry standard return window is 30 days.

• Optimize the mobile version

  Most online shoppers nowadays browse and purchase from their mobile phones.

  So, you need to optimize your online store for mobile.

  Because if you don't and your online store looks and feels wonky on mobile, you'll get a lot of abandoned carts.

• Make sure your coupons work

  Most online stores offer coupons or discounts, however, a big portion of them don't work.

  If your customers get a coupon but when they use it at checkout, it doesn't work, you're guaranteed an abandoned cart.

  Why is that?

  It's because they feel deceived.

  To avoid that, always ensure your coupons work as intended.

• Peer pressure

  The best person to convince an online shopper to buy from you is another online shopper.

  Word of mouth and peer pressure are powerful anti-abandoned cart strategies because they signal your customers that other online shoppers, just like them, purchased your product and were happy with it.

  For example, a simple message like "1000 people bought this product this month" can go a long way to build your trust and reassure your customers.

Reduce Cart Abandonment with Askly

Cart abandonment solutions is a serious matter if you own an online store and the solutions in this article will help you lower it.

But, to make sure you lower your cart abandonment rate even more, you also need the right solutions.

At Askly, we provide an easy-to-implement live chat for your online store with built-in triggers and localization to make sure none of your customers leaves your website with unanswered questions or doubts.

If you want to lower your abandonment cart rate by as much as 24%, try out Askly for 14 days for free.

Without any obligations.

Try It For 14 Days