The orphaned cart; items that were “added to cart” and left by a customer who either changed their mind, decided to sleep on it, or found it cheaper elsewhere. Anyone who runs an eCom business is familiar with the phenomenon, but it has been a growing concern in the past year.
Online shopping has seen the most significant surge in popularity doing the global pandemic than in the combined years before. With its growing popularity, the orphaned cart has become more prevalent. In a recent study by eCom researcher SaleCycle, they discovered that the cart abandonment rate is growing faster than the conversion rate. The US has a cart abandonment rate of 82.29 per cent while we down under aren’t fairing much better as the Asia-Pacific region has an 80.48 per cent of cart abandonment.
What are customers leaving their purchases? Similarly to why sales might be lost in a brick-and-mortar store, it comes down the emotions. Many customers either impulsively added the item to their cart only to think about it later, worried about how the purchase would affect their finances or put it off to another day.
The other major hurdle affecting people’s online purchase rates is shipping. Another victim of the global pandemic was supply changes and the stress on postage worldwide. The same study, looking at most Australians and Kiwis, saw that 69 per cent would abandon items in a cart for as little as $5 for shipping.
What’s the solution? For 95 per cent of the people surveyed, they said that they would return to those purchases if they were offered free shipping. Retailers were using retargeting emails to catch those that had orphaned carts and sent them an email within 24 hours to offer them a small discount to complete the purchase. Of those that received the email, 42.1 per cent of customers returned to complete the purchase.
Having a plan using retargeting ads and automation in your email marketing software of choice will ensure that you can recover a fair whack of your orphaned carts and turn a negative into a conversion.
If you would like some expert help with setting up your retargeting methods, the Clique team is ready to help. Contact Bec today for a risk-free consultation.
