Reduce cart abandonment on your WooCommerce store with these 7 simple ways

As an eCommerce business, there are many things you need for success. Proving a smooth online shopping experience is one of them. You must have heard the term like Cart Abandonment Rate, right?  Well, WooCommerce Cart Abandonment is a term used often but is not understood very well.

When a potential lead begins the checkout process but drops the order. This is known as shopping cart abandonment. The visitor may top in the beginning or in the middle or at the end without completing the buying process. Items put in the shopping cart for buying never get transacted for.

Of the entire buying process online, shopping cart abandonment needs attention. It is an important aspect that brings better results.

Scenario of WooCommerce Cart Abandonment:

Did you know??  More than 90% of people who visit an online store do not complete the buying process. Are you curious? Well, this is not the toughest challenge for marketers or business owners.

But, an average eCommerce store loses about 75% of sales revenue due to cart abandonment. Online buyers visit the portal, add a product in cart and forget about it. They drop out instead of completing the buying process. That is very much the case for most eCommerce websites.

Can you guess what could be the reason behind this?

There are a lot of factors that result in a high cart abandonment rate.  Since every store is different in the nature of the business, the rate is different. Yes, in WooCommerce conversion rate reasons behind the cart abandonment are also similar.

Lack of trust is one of the major issues that people face online. Everybody will not be comfortable adding their credit card details online. If your business is new, you will take some time to establish trust. The users will have to be given some examples of great customer experience, safety etc.

Another issue that stops users from buying is the checkout flow complexity. If your website has a too long checkout process it is going to add to cart abandonment. You have to make sure your checkout page has not more than the required information to complete the buying process.

HumCommerce has a checkout optimization list for free. You can download it from here.

Some ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment on Your WooCommerce Store:

Below are a few methods that can help you reduce the WooCommerce cart abandonment rate.

1. Shipping Discounts Attract Customers:

One of the easy ways to reduce the cart abandonment rate is by reducing the shipping costs for customers. Online buyers do not like to pay for a high shopping charge. Waving it off seems to work the best for eCommerce stores. Usually, buyers do not feel accounted to pay an extra charge for shipping. Thus, it is better to include the shipping charge in the price of the product itself.

The price tag may seem like a good deal but adding the shipping may disrupt the budget of the buyer. In such a case, providing a discount could turn out to be the best way to attract more transactions. This puts them in a more comfortable position to complete the buying process.

Customers are likely to buy more when they are not charged the shipping. Zappos is a good example.  It is an online shopping platform like an eCommerce store. They let customers know the offer of free shipping on the head of the landing page. It is your responsibility to maintain complete transparency. If you are charging shipping or not, it has to be clear to your audience.

2. Shorten The Checkout Process:

One of the reasons for cart abandonment is the long checkout process. A long checkout page is the last thing to have in your website UX. Online users expect an impeccable and smooth user experience. If your website offers this kind of experience, reducing the abandoned cart rate is a lot easy.

So, do not make buyers go through too many steps to checkout online. Drop as many unnecessary steps as you can from the checkout process. This helps you keep your potential buyers in the website sales funnel.

An accurate checkout process focuses on a smooth purchase. It is very essential for your store. Avoid having multiple sections on the checkout page.

Also, keep the website contact form simple. Ask only for the necessary details to complete the buying process. This way buyers will begin to trust your website. And the credibility of your store will grow.

3. Improve the load time of the Site:

Slow Page load time of your website can impact the cart abandonment rates to a great extent. Make sure you have a good load time on your website for higher conversions. Ensure that your website is interactive and loading as fast as possible.

Irrespective of its domain and niche load time has become crucial nowadays. As per the reports by Google, the longer your site takes to load, the higher the bounce rate.

Sometime back, Amazon has declared that one extra second in load time could mean a huge loss to websites. Thus, having a fast site is one of the main achievements that can help you reduce the rates of cart abandonment.

4. Give them gentle reminders:

At times, your potential buyer may browse the store to save products for later. Some people may not have the budget to finish the task at that time. There could be various reasons to not complete the buying process. That is why it is important to remind them of their buy intention on a later date.

It is possible to have such situations as an eCommerce store. Even when your customers feel distracted and decide to buy the preferable item later or hold it at that time. Whatever may be the reason for such user behavior, it is your responsibility to remind them. Let them know that you have saved their cart. and all they need to do is log in again and process the checkout.

You can remind them by sending out periodic emails. But, make sure that you are not spamming their inbox. Also, try not to sound desperate through email campaigns. Limit your reminder emails per week to 1 or 2. Keep them personalized and yet professional. Your aim is to convince these potential buyers to complete the buying process. Let them complete the process through a link that you sent them in email.

5. Allow Guest Checkout:

We know by now that Checkout could be a large reason behind cart abandonment.  Hence, you can allow guest checkout on your eCommerce store. Not everybody would like to create an account on the site to complete the buying process. Some of them may do it, but guest checkout makes their experience much better.

To prove this point check the website of Flipkart. Here, you can not only buy just by logging into it but also can check out through the guest option. This makes it a reliable shopping platform. That is why providing this facility to users is a good idea. It has increase conversions and reduced cart abandonment rates for many online stores.

On top of that online users are more likely to abandon the site if they are forced to create an account for small purchases.

6. Offer Alternative Payment Methods:

When you operate an eCommerce store, you are open for business with the entire world. You are a part of the open market.  This is true even if you are playing within the geographical boundaries of your country. One must know that one payment method will not be enough for customers. That is why it is a must to allow different payment methods to users from different parts of the world.

On the basis of where you are serving your customers, you need to incorporate a strategy. It can include credit cards, debit cards, or the latest trend of online wallets. Yet, you must try and have almost every option on your site. This would make it a buying process much easier for your potential buyers.

To increase the WooCommerce conversion rate your store needs to provide cash on delivery. An online store does not necessarily imply online payment. The primary reason behind this is that many of the users are not willing to pay online. Or even more importantly not willing to add the card details on your store. Of course, you would have to think about every mindset.

7. Offer Mobile-Friendly Shopping Experience:

This is the era of digitisation and smartphones. A study says that more than half of the web traffic comes from mobile users.  More than 55% of website visits happened from mobile devices. The mobile activity accounts for 38% of the revenue for the e-commerce industry.

Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile Phones are three majorly used devices for online shopping. Out of which mobile phone accounts for 85.65%  of the abandonment rate. This is a huge number to be ignored. That is why paying attention to mobile users is something you cannot neglect.

Google has spoken many times about implementing mobile-first indexing. One good strategy that you can put in place is to optimize a website for mobile-friendliness. You can use Google AMP that provides a way for users to view your website.

Conclusion:

WooCommerce stores are witnessing a spectacular growth. Yet, it is not easy to guess where it could be with 3/4th shopping carts abandoned on average. One needs to study the behavioral pattern of users. The eCommerce businesses need to clear up huge revenue stuck in abandoned carts.

You can study user behavior using the HumCommerce tool on your website. Understanding why users are abandoning their carts is important. HumCommerce gives you Heatmaps and Session Recordings to seek more information about users. Then you can install a proper strategy to counter significant problematic areas.

You can even use a HumCommerce plugin for further efficiency. Being an online seller, you will definitely be dealing with cart abandonment, aren’t you?  So, let us know the precautions that you are taking to combat these problems.

Use HumCommerce heatmaps to pay attention to where there are big drop-offs. See what exactly people are seeing vs. not seeing on the page using visitors’ recordings. Session recordings can help you assess elements or parts of the page that are broken. You can then optimize these pages for higher conversions.

Incomplete purchases are like missed out opportunities for your business. It is very normal for eCommerce stores. Yet, they need to keep looking for ways to decrease these abandonment rates. It is a part of your responsibility as an online business owner.