1 Strategy = countless rewards

With Australian online business burgeoning over the past few years, more and more entrepreneurs are feeling the triumphs of a successful business – and the stings.

And there’s no greater sting in the e-commerce industry’s tail, than an abandoned cart. You can do everything right, be the world’s greatest sales copywriter, invest in the latest marketing strategies and have genuinely brilliant products—and some people will still walk away at checkout.

It’s frustrating and it can make you feel powerless. What happened? Why does it keep happening? If they don’t contact you there’s no way you can follow it up right? Or can you….

It’s not over ‘til it’s over, time to get strategic 

According to a recent summary report from SUMO, focusing in on your abandoned cart recovery strategy can boost your conversion by, on average, roughly 10%. Taking a closer look at the breakdown of SUMO’s Top 10 Shopify stores, we see that after implementing a simple recovery strategy, the top e-store was able increase the transition from cart to purchase by 36.2%. That’s over a third on sales, not to mention the major additional boost to the business’ mailing list.

The strategy is actually pretty simple. When someone makes it to the cart or checkout page on your website, then leaves without making a purchase, you offer them a percentage discount, dollar-off or free shipping deal to attract a purchase. With the right technology or app, this can show as an aesthetically-friendly pop-up with a simple message like: Don’t go just yet… we’ll give you 10% off if you complete your order now.

In addition to this discount offer, you should align the deal with an email sign-up. The sign-up option should come with its own tag, reading something along the lines of ‘for the latest updates and exclusive offers…’. By offering your customer a monetary incentive to complete the purchase, then combining this opportunity with a simple request to sign-up for your site’s mailing list, you are extending your reach and boosting conversion at the same time.

Let’s see those numbers in action

Breaking down some more of the numbers, let’s take one of SUMO’s top clients. The Horse is an accessories e-store, specialising leather goods. After implementing a basic 10% Off Cart Abandonment Strategy, we see some remarkable results. Firstly, we establish the audience size; how many people actually intended to exit the cart page, and were directly shown the pop-up. This pop-up had 20,701 views, and this number serves as our baseline. From this roughly twenty thousand, The Horse received 7,749 email conversions (the number of people who entered their email address into the pop-up form); 3,868 new customers (people who were successfully converted to purchasing after viewing the pop-up offer); and this all amounted to $311,585.73 in new sales.

Almost 4,000 newly converted customers and closing in on 8,000 email conversions (a 40% conversion on email sign-ups!) is a very pretty prize for offering just 10% off–and remember, the discount is only offered to people who were already wanting to walk away. These are customers you would have otherwise lost for good–no contact information, no data to work with and no sales to their names.

You know it, we know it, it’s a fact, business is all about relationships. At the end of the day, your customers just don’t want to feel like they’ve been swindled. By making these relatively small concessions, you ensure your business is the good guy in a world full of big tyrants, squeezing every cent from their customers – and virtually destroying any chance of a returning customer in the process.

If you’d like to chat more about how to get the most out of your ecommerce business, we’d love to talk. You can call us on 02 6023 1700. Or drop us a note via the form below.