Don’t abandon abandoned cart emails.

Online retailers and shops who use an abandoned cart email really do see shoppers returning and completing their purchase.
Here are some numbers.
- Over 60% of shoppers abandon their cart at the “pay” stage. So they’ve added stuff to their basket but for whatever reason do not go on to make the purchase. That’s a lot of people. And a lot of missed revenue.
- Nearly 50% of people who receive an abandoned cart email, open it.
- 11.6% go on to click a link in the email.
- A third of people clicking the email go on to finish or recover their purchase.
- What’s more, they add to their basket, 14.2% have a higher basket value than other shoppers. Making even more worth while.
And yet, we see very few retailers deploying an abandoned cart strategy. Why is this?
Most likely they fear that they could annoy their customers. Fair enough. But consider the stats above and also that many people cite the reason when they abandoned their cart as down to a technical issue or a time out.
So you’re actually doing them a favour. Obviously some people just changed their mind and you may annoy them with an email. And this is the trick to getting your abandoned cart strategy effective and yet minimise the risk of annoying someone.
- How many emails to send?
- When do you send them?
- What the messaging?
- What subject line should we use?
These are the sorts of questions retailers need to answer before they launch these emails and this applies across industries including retailers, charities, B2B, services.
If you’re in the service industry you can look at this as an “abandoned contact us” strategy.
Fundamentally, consumers are bombarded and inundated with choice, and yet they chose to visit your site and spend time shopping and adding items to their basket. That’s a massive win in itself. They just, for whatever reason didn’t close the deal. So why wouldn’t you make the effort to help them close it?
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