How To Save A Lost eCommerce Sale

There’s not much that’s more infuriating than an abandoned trolley….

All that hard work you went to get the products in the cart to start with and coax the customer right the way along the sales process towards the checkout and then whoosh… suddenly off goes the oh-so-promising purchasing behaviour, redirected to the big abandoned cart area in the sky. And there’s nothing you can do about it, right? Not necessarily.

Don’t despair over the odd abandoned cart. It’s not always the case that what looks like a lost sale ends up lost forever. It’s worth tackling the problem with a bit of insight though, rather than resorting to begging letters or getting a complex about it.

Have you thought of steering things back in the right direction with a quick incentive? A popup or email reminder to get things back on track could be really effective if it includes an eCommerce discount of say, 5%, or £5 off. Customers who abandon trolleys typically demonstrate interesting behaviour around the area of discounts. Mobile eCommerce sites offering a discount with a £ or $ sign rather than a % make it a no-brainer to work out how much better off the customer is when they return to complete their purchase. Research shows this is often the best incentive for trolleys that haven’t yet been filled. However, if the customer has already placed some items in the cart, they’ll often be more prepared to calculate the value of a percentage discount and find this more appealing than a quick and easy £5 off.

It’s so important to get inside mobile commerce customers’ heads and understand their likely reasons for abandoning a sale, otherwise, it won’t matter what incentives you try to tempt them with, you’ll have less chance of success. But with a bit of research and trial and error, carts that get left before the checkout could come back again as converted sales.

Oh, and remember to do the housekeeping on your site design if lost sales continue to be a problem: load times, calls to action, size and location of buttons, it’s always worth a check.