Are you experiencing a higher Shopify abandonment cart issue? Customers are visiting your online store, browsing products, adding them to their cart and simply leaving your store without checking out?

This is a predominant issue that most Shopify store owners experience on a daily basis. Imagine witnessing a copious number of your products being added by a customer only to be left sitting like a lost soul?

Brutal, huh?!

Shopping cart abandonment is one of the most crucial problems of online business. Though it’s not impossible to win over your lost customer, you need to tread with utmost precision, not being overtly sales-y or banally desperate in your approach.

That being said, let us take a look at what Shopify Abandonment cart problems and the reasons behind this gap in the process.  

What is Shopify Abandonment Cart or Cart Abandonment in General?

Cart abandonment occurs when a customer starts the checkout process in an online eCommerce store but drops out before completing the entire purchase. 

Any item entered into a shopping cart but did not make it through to the payment transaction is considered to be ‘abandoned.’ Shopping cart abandonment is an essential aspect of the online shopping process that eCommerce store owners need to pay attention to. 

The cart abandonment rate is also another data system that needs to be kept in check. It is calculated by dividing the total number of transactions that were completed by the total number of transactions that were initiated. This gives us the percentage of site users who intended to buy but did not complete the purchase. 

The shopping cart abandonment rate is significant because if it is high, that means that there is a crack in the sales funnel, or your site’s user interface is not good. By reducing shopping cart abandonment, you can increase sales and revenue and optimize the checkout process and focus on other issues. 

So, 

Why would a customer, who has gone through your products and taken time to select what they want, added it to their cart, and then not purchased it? 

Let’s check out some Cart Abandonment Reasons:

Before we go into the reasons, let us check out some statistics related to cart abandonment: 

• A study found that 75.8% of online shoppers abandoned their purchases after adding the items to their cart 
• Out of this 34% abandoned checkout because they were forced to create an account 
• 23% abandoned their cart due to shipping issues 
• 18% abandoned because they just wanted to compare prices 

So, why are people abandoning their carts? 

1. Lack of Trust: Most online shoppers aren’t comfortable with providing credit card details online. Especially when the site is new, and they have never shopped on it before. 
2. Shipping Costs are High: Customers generally abandon their shopping carts when they get shocked after seeing how much their order costs after shipping charges are added. 
3. Complex Checkout Process: Customers do not want to go through a very complex checkout process. If the process is time-consuming, in most cases, customers will leave in the middle of the buying funnel. 
4. Browsing Through: Most users add items to their cart but have low buying intent. They may just want to check on prices and compare them to other sites. 
5. Lacking Payment Options: Customers have a strong preference for how and where they would like to pay. So, when they don’t get the right option, they may move on to another site that does provide the gateway they want. 
6. Technical Issues: All technology can have technical glitches and issues. Ignoring these issues means that your customers suffer, and in turn, your business suffers. So, make sure to do regular reviews. 

Now that you know the reasons behind abandoned carts, you need to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment from happening. So, let’s look at

How to Reduce The Rate Of Shopify Abandonment Cart?

There are many reasons for shopping cart abandonment, making it a difficult problem to tackle. Just like conversion rate optimization, there are many ways you can reduce the Shopify abandonment cart. 

1. Increasing Site Speed: 

Page speed is one of the most crucial page optimization efforts that a Shopify store owner can use. If a page takes more than 3 seconds to load, the customer will leave the site. AliExpress shared their example, where a reduction in load time by 36% yielded a 10.5% increase in orders and a 27% increase in conversion rates. On the other hand, Ancestry.com saw a 7% increase in conversions when load time was increased by 64% and page weight by 46%. 

So, how can you improve site speed?

You can: 

1. Optimize images 
2. Offload and cache different files like PDFs and MP3s 
3. Cache content as much as possible 
4. Use Content Delivery Network 
5. If using WordPress, then optimize your database

2. Short & Simple Checkout Process:

According to the Baymard Institute, the average large-sized eCommerce website can increase its conversion rate by 35.26% with a better checkout design. 

A few ways you can make a simple checkout process is: 

1. Offer a one-step checkout process – like Amazon or look for ways to reduce the steps involved in the checkout process
2. Offer guest checkouts – 35% of online transactions remain incomplete because the website asks users to create an account. 
3. Simplify the checkout process – It is best to remove extra distractions on the checkout page to keep customers focused on the transaction. You can do this by taking a step back and considering the checkout process. Do a self-audit or a usability check and see if you find any fields you can eliminate or are confused about. Make sure you test new changes to see how it impacts conversions before fully committing to it. 

3. Alternative Payment Methods:

When you become a Shopify store owner, you are opening your store to the entire world. Knowing this, you need to understand that only one payment method will not be enough for people from different countries. 

Try incorporating multiple payment methods that cater to the primary market you want to cover. Stripe and PayPal are the most common payment receiving methods, while some new payment methods like Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay are coming to the forefront. 

4. Offer Free Shipping: 

According to a study done by Statista, most customers abandon their cart due to expensive shipping. 

Offering free shipping can be a great way to get customers to stay loyal to you. While it may not be the only way to get customers to abandon their carts, it is a positive step towards achieving the sales numbers you want. 

But you need to remember that shipping can eat into more than 5% or more of your total cost. So, for a small to medium-sized business, it may be challenging to offer completely free shipping. 

Here are a few ways you can offer you can use for shipping: 

1. Offer free shipping for high-value products 
2. Offer premium members free shipping, like Amazon Prime Membership 
3. Offer free shipping for standard delivery, but express shipping charge additional fees 
4. Use low-cost carriers and offer free shipping if customers select those carriers 

5. Gain Trust with Great Website Security and Reviews:

According to a study, 35% of potential customers will leave your site if you do not have a security badge. Another study done by the Baymard survey found that the most trusted badges are Norton (35.6%), McAfee (22.9%), TRUSTe (13.2%), and BBB Accredited (13.2%). 

These badges mean that the companies vouch for your security measures, and your customers’ personal details are safe with them. 

Besides including security badges, you can also incorporate website security features, like password encryptions and SSL certificates, so your customers know that you care about their security. 

Once the fear of personal information security passes, you can now help your customers move further along the buying funnel by adding peer reviews. This will show that your store is legitimate and trustworthy. 84% of potential customers trust online reviews of eCommerce sites. So, get creative and place your best customer reviews on your checkout page to lower the doubts of potential customers. 

6. A Mobile-Friendly Shopping Experience:

More than 50% of web traffic is due to mobile users. 76% of smartphone users who search for a business, visit it the same day. And 28% of those result in purchases. Among the three most common devices used – desktop, tablet, and mobile phones, mobiles account for 85.65% of abandoned cart rates. 

One primary strategy you can use to optimize your website for mobile is using Google AMP. This offers a way to users to view your site by providing a toned-down version of it. There are several plugins you can use to activate this functionality, like WP AMP, but you should test it extensively before using it. 

7. Remove Hidden Costs and Abandoned Cart:

When Shopify store owners set up a store, it is essential to check about shipping charges and taxes. One of the main reasons for customers abandoning their cart is the shipping cost. If your customer is paying $20 for a product, they will not want to pay $5 more for shipping charges. 

If they add an item on a sale and then find that they need to pay taxes, that means you are breaking their trust. 

One of the best ways to reduce shipping and taxes related cost abandonment is to show customers a price break-up before they add the product to cart.  

Here are a few more things you can do immediately: 

• Add an order target and let customers get free-shipping when your customer reaches the checkout page 
• Include the shipping cost with the item price. Let’s say your product is $20, and you hide the $4.99 shipping cost. The customer will immediately abandon the cart. If you show the cost at $24.99 with free delivery, it shows the customer the total cost. No hidden items. 
• Another process you can use is to identify a visitor’s location and then offer location-specific delivery. 

An easy way to make use of a user’s location is to use Google Tag Manager to set up location-based cookies and then apply dynamic texts. For Shopify store owners, there are various apps and tools available to help with geolocation and personalize the site.  

8. Make Your Checkout Simpler to Reduce Friction:

The design of Checkout Pages is another primary reason for cart abandonment. The best policy is a test-and-learn approach to optimize pages. 

Here are some tips that you can use to reduce friction in the checkout page: 

• Require fewer fields to be filled out 
• Keep the interface simple to reduce anxiety 
• Keep trust signs like SSL certificates in a visible location
• Adding a progress bar, summaries, and field anchors to make page utilization easier 

Doubt about the site, Confusion about the process, and difficulty keeping track are all forms of ‘Friction’ that prevent customers from completing their purchase. When a customer is presented with one of these obstacles, they will give up and move on to another site. 

One way to reduce friction is to split the payment process into 2 or 3 sections and highlight key elements. This way, the customer knows what is essential and adds to the security measure for the customer. 

9. Reduce Distraction and Address Doubts:

eCommerce shopping is a world of infinite options. And it is difficult for customers to commit to a single option. But, if you stop people from looking for other options or worrying about unique negatives, you can reduce your cart abandonment rate. 

Here are a few ways you can address any doubts your customers may have: 

• Make sure you highlight your return policies and provide warranties for your products
• Highlight product ratings and reviews to show potential customers what your loyal customers think about the product or service
• Create surveys and see what your customers want, then explain how your product helps them achieve their demand 

When creating a product page, you need to show potential customers details about the product itself and also display reviews and testimonials, so a customer knows they can trust you. While you can’t remove the distractions that will be present, you can reduce it by displaying the necessary information by: 

• Creating a price-match policy and displaying it clearly 
• Collect testimonials and reviews that show your products are the best 
• Add a time-condition to create urgency 

10. Use Proven Consumer Psychological Effects:

Several psychological effects help create a connection with a particular product. By engineering your sales strategy to encourage the link, you can reduce your abandoned cart rate more effectively. 

1. Trigger Loss Aversion:

A paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1981, “Loss Aversion in Risk-Less Choice” by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, highlighted that losing something is twice as powerful as the experience of gaining something. This is the main reason why so many products have free trials. Having to give up on something is worse than not having gained it at all. 

So, how can you use the loss aversion concept before a customer makes a purchase? 

Using specific terms can trigger this emotion. Using words like ‘your’ or ‘you’ can help create that loss aversion feeling and add an emotional connection. 

2. Use Implicit Egotism: 

The mid-1980s saw growth in psychological studies to study people’s preferences for names, places, or things that match their own identities. For example, people connect better with those of the same age, gender, or social position. People also gravitate to details that apply to them or their situation. 

In 2002, this effect was named’ Implicit Egotism” in a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

So, how can you use the Implicit Egotism effect towards your online customer experience? 

By creating personalized features like added recommendations or reviews, and retargeting emails and notifications. These can both be tailored to create a trust factor in your potential customers. When checking testimonials and reviews, they will connect better if the name, location, and age of previous buyers are mentioned. For retargeting emails adding the customers’ names and why they might like the product also adds to the implicit factor. It shows that you, as a seller, have taken the time to know your customers.  

3. Providing Choice Closure:

From the time customers add an item to their shopping cart to the moment they pay for it, most customers experience a level of anxiety about their choice. This small seed of uncertainty is what leads to cart abandonment. One way to stop this is to provide Choice Closure. 

A 2013 study by Botti and Faro at the London School of Business showed that the simple “Acts of Closure” increased the overall satisfaction of choice. Like the closing of a simple menu helps create a sense of closure and finality. 

A simple way to create this “Act of Closure” is to reassure customers that they have made the right choice by adding a positive Add-to-Cart message. If it is combined with an element of Social Proof, then it creates a more effective strategy. 

4. Apply Social Proof:

Social Proof is the psychological element when a customer’s decision is shaped by the choices and behavior of those around them. But, how do you prove that your product is right without customers seeing or touching them? This is where Social Proof marketing comes in. So, how do you achieve social proof marketing? 

• By adding star ratings by loyal customers 
• By including customer reviews and testimonials
• By adding expert comments, endorsement, and reviews 

But this is mainly for product pages. You can add different Social Proof to your checkout pages and baskets to reassure customers that they are making the right choice. 

11. Establishing and Building Trust with Your Transaction Forms:

When starting your own Shopify store, a transaction form seems like a mere formality in the sales process. Your customers will be tempted with your products, so why do they need to fill out a lengthy form, right? 

Wrong. Your transaction forms are a vital tool in establishing trust and building a loyalty factor for your brand. 

When you ask customers to fill out a transaction form, you ask them to go beyond the simple contact details. You are asking for credit card details, that most people hesitate to part with. 

To reduce hesitation, you can use transaction forms to build trust. Add signals like security logos in prominent positions to show that big brands recognize your brand. Adding logos like ‘Norton Secured’ or ‘McAfee Secure’ or ‘Verified by VISA’ helps add trust to your brand and reduces customers’ hesitation to provide their credit card details. 

12. Including a Progress Indicator on Checkout Pages:

Imagine standing at the checkout counter of your favorite store and having the cashier bombard you with hundreds of questions. You zip code, phone number, star sign, rewards card number, and if you would like to save 20% by getting one. While in a brick & mortar store, you really can’t escape the situation, in eCommerce stores, if a customer is forced to answer so many questions, they will immediately leave. So, these should be avoided at all costs. 

One of the best ways is by adding a progress indicator on your website’s checkout page. 

By showing a clear picture of where your customer is in the checkout process, you already eliminate the doubt that the actual buying process is longer than the selection process. It assures the buyer that they are almost done with the buying process and can go back to what they were doing. It also helps make the process clearer for customers to understand. 

Like any other process, it is worth testing a few progress indicators before making a firm decision. After all, what works for others might not work for you. 

13. Include Thumbnail Images of Products Throughout the Entire Purchasing Phase:

Most people remember what they have added in their shopping cart. As a progress indicator, adding thumbnails of product images they have placed in the cart is another technique to ensure customers know what they are purchasing. 

When shopping from a brick & mortar store, customers can see what they are buying. They have the change to touch it and check with their own eyes and hands if they want it or not. That is not the case with an eCommerce store. By including a thumbnail image, you are helping them build a connection with the product. You eliminate the possibility of a distraction, especially if a customer can’t immediately remember what they are buying. 

Another benefit of adding a thumbnail image is that it keeps the actual product in the mind of the prospect, reinforcing them of the desire to buy that and prompting them to continue with the checkout process. 

Optimizing the eCommerce checkout experience is all about reducing friction and making it smoother for the customer to buy products. Adding thumbnails of purchases helps simplify the process and reduces the risk of cart abandonment due to a moments’ hesitation. 

14. Make Sure Navigation Between Cart and Store Effortless:

Customers generally have a back and forth with themselves over a purchase. Rarely does it happen that they decide on a purchase and immediately select it and checkout in a single process? Just like in a brick & mortar store, eCommerce shopping is indirect, and far from linear. The more comfortable you make it for a customer to transition from the store to their cart, the more they will stick with it to the end. 

But, while making the navigation between the store and the cart is one of the most effective ways to reduce friction, it is also the hardest. Even big retailers like Amazon and Alibaba are continually experimenting with the flow to optimize their checkout experience. 

Many of the same principles of navigating a website that applies to the rest of your site also use to your checkout page. The rule of the ‘Back button does not exist’ is especially true for the checkout process. If your customers are clicking ‘Back’ in the checkout page, you need to rethink your site’s navigational flow. 

You can make the process effortless for customers by adding save and later return to options and help them navigate your site by adding logical, intuitive, and smoother options between checkout and product pages. The more work you ask your customers to do, the less they will convert. 

15. Offer Multiple Payment Options:

When designing your website checkout page, you don’t want something to stop your customers from having a satisfying shopping experience. If you offer only one payment option, that means your store isn’t ready to cater to clients from all over the world. This, in turn, means that you will not gain the sales figures you wanted. 

Credit card payment options are apparent, but consumers want more transactional options. While PayPal is a healthy choice, mobile payment systems like GPay and Apple Pay are becoming increasingly popular.   

Offering more payment options means you eliminate another reason a customer has to abandon your cart. 

While offering more payment choices may be stressful for you as a business owner (you may need to pay higher merchant service fees), but in the end, you are giving customers what they want. 

16. Including a Strong CTA on Checkout Pages:

Most eCommerce store owners fail to include any Call-to-Action or CTA buttons on their checkout pages. The assumption here is that if a customer has added something to their cart, they don’t need an added incentive to buy it. But, this is a fatal flaw. Instead, checkout pages are the perfect location for secure CTA buttons that hit the customer’s final resolution to complete their purchase. 

While it is essential to add a strong CTA to your checkout page, it is equally important to have the buttons’ messages consistent with others from your site. You need to remember that you want to provide your customers with a continuous and seamless experience. If you abruptly change the tone of your CTAs, then it might be too big of a jump for your customers. 

You also need to keep your CTAs as clear as possible. If it is ambiguous, consider changing them to add more precise and more active verbs to help customers understand exactly what is expected of them. 

Remember to keep the messaging consistent throughout your CTAs and don’t jump the gun and make assumptions about your customers’ understanding of where they are in the process. 

17. Offer Guest Checkout Options:

For an eCommerce store owner, the checkout process is invaluable for collecting data about their customers. But forcing customers to create accounts with your store can be a significant thorn in the purchasing process.  

According to a study done by Invesp, approximately 14% of online shoppers commented that forcing them to log in to finish a purchase was enough to abandon the process. 

By offering your customers a guest checkout option, you may need to sacrifice some of the data you wanted to collect, but it makes the purchasing process much more comfortable. Plus, if you offer a frictionless shopping experience, you may find your previous customers will be willing to purchase from you again and create accounts to take part in your loyalty programs. 

Conclusion:

Reducing cart abandonment systematically is an essential step to growing your store’s overall revenue. However, when utilized correctly, abandoned cart data can be turned into a useful source of information. 

Online shoppers use the cart feature as a way to organize their choices. That means carts contain items that are impulse-driven and eye-catching in your store. It also follows that many stores generate revenues by offering the commonly placed items in abandoned carts as upsells. 

Most importantly, abandoned carts give useful insight into the value your brand is offering to your customers. Paying proper attention to this segment can help you optimize your checkout process and plan your marketing strategy accordingly.