Shopping cart abandonment is a common scenario in an online purchasing process.

1. How To Strategically Market Abandoned Shopping Carts
Shopping cart abandonment is a common scenario in an online purchasing process. It happens
when buyers abandon their online shopping cart due to circumstances ranging from personal
indecision to the merchant's poor marketing efforts.
In 2010, Forrester Research and MarketingSherpa reported abandonment rates of 55% and 52%
respectively. By this year, 2012, the numbers hovered up around 72% according to Fireclick and
DigitalRiver.
Apparently, there are roadblocks in the online purchasing process that frustrates or confuses
shoppers and lead them to abandon their purchases. The reasons why this shopping cart
abandonment occur can be classified into 4 categories: User Experience, Indecision, Technical
Issues, and Total Order Cost.
What are the proven strategies to reclaim customers who decided to abandon their shopping cart?
Be aware that setting up a shopping cart abandonment program need to be tested based on offer
type, total dollar amount of the shopping cart, new or existing customer, and several other factors.
Here are some pointers to follow immediately after the shopping cart has been abandoned.
1. Send the first email. Many industry researches stress on the first mail sent after the cart has
been abandoned because waiting for a single hour is proven to be expensive for the merchant.
2. Start with a conservative approach and test. Three email sequences should be enough for the
purpose of attracting the attention of targeted receiver. The followed time gap between all the
mails should be like:
• 1st email: sent immediately
• 2nd email: sent after 23 hours of the 1st one
• 3rd email: sent after 6 days and 23 hours of sending 2nd mail
3. This is a negotiation and the tone must be such that the mail sounds more like an appeal to
offer service rather than anything related to sales aspects. It should be more, like a customer
service message, where the content has to be relevant and personal.
4. Often carts are abandoned by customers due to price of the product and timing for delivery.
The price issue can easily be overcome by offering a discount. But, this is not a good idea.
Instead, find the offer that best returns the most sales for the least amount of discounts.
5. Free shipping after a certain benchmark helps getting back customers. This also helps in
effective promotions.
Digital Organics: Web Design Sunshine Coast - 1/102 Howard Street, Nambour, QLD 4560 T 617 5476 3800, SEO Sunshine Coast

2. To put it simply, email marketing is a powerful tool and when employed strategically, can go a
long way in combating shopping cart abandonment. Many online retailers have seen an increase in
shopping cart completion when using a targeted email campaign that entices the customer to
complete the purchase by offering an incentive.
To effectively do this, merchants must first make certain they have permission to email the
customer. An analytics system that associates a user with the abandoned cart is needed. The easy
way to facilitate this is through a registration process or through integration with an email service
provider and the analytics solution. Once these pieces are in place, testing can begin on various
campaigns and tactics to see which ones lift your abandonment conversion rate.
Digital Organics: Web Design Sunshine Coast - 1/102 Howard Street, Nambour, QLD 4560 T 617 5476 3800, SEO Sunshine Coast