Abandoned Cart Recovery: 4 Ways to Win Back Your Customers

These days, no one has to tell you that e-commerce is bigger than ever. In fact, few businesses will survive without it. And e-commerce is not just for end-use consumers. The global revenue opportunity in B2B e-commerce leaves trillions of dollars up for grabs for businesses that can meet the needs and expectations of buyers.

Naturally, if your company has successfully attracted business customers to your website, the last thing you want is to have them abandon a half-filled cart and take their business elsewhere.

The average e-commerce cart abandonment rate is nearly 70%. Research tells us that professional buyers have a long list of demands for e-commerce that they’d like to see before they purchase more online. We’ve interpreted those demands and come up with four ways that you can boost cart retention and work toward abandoned cart recovery. Here are our top four tips:

1. Optimize Your Checkout Process From Beginning to End

Have you ever been in the grocery store and abandoned your cart because of unusually long checkout lines? As many as 30% of buyers abandon their online shopping carts because they find the checkout process annoyingly lengthy or complex.

According to the Baymard Institute’s Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics, buyers are telling us why they fail to complete their transactions. The reasons are varied, but most of them can be fixed with simple design modifications to your web store.

Some reasons buyers abandoned their carts were:

• Too long/complicated checkout process
• Website had errors/crashed
• There weren’t enough payment options
• Additional costs were too high
• I couldn’t see the total order cost upfront

The average e-commerce site could see a significant increase in conversion rate though better checkout design. Potentially lost orders could be recovered through a better checkout design and flow.

There are many opportunities to improve your web store’s checkout process. For most checkouts, it’s possible to make a 20-60% reduction in the number of form elements shown to users during the checkout flow. Don’t try your customers’ patience. Give them the information they need in an easy to use format.

2. Improve Site Performance and Speed

A slow website is almost guaranteed to increase cart abandonment rates, and that’s a risk you can’t afford to take. Bad website performance does nothing to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat purchases, even if your product offering is sound.

Online customers know they are in the driver’s seat and can continue to demand better performance. Business sites that see peak conversion rates are the ones that have load times between 1.8 and 2.7 seconds. Even a brief delay can cause buyers to become impatient and look for other options.To combat this disruptor, ensure that your site is always running smoothly and can handle high-volume spurts during peak times or events such as limited-time-only promotions.

3. Be Both Accurate and Transparent About Cost

Buyers are put off by extra fees and costs. High shipping costs may be out of your control, but they should be clearly stated and, if appropriate, options given. Sometimes customers abandon their carts not because fees and shipping prices are too high, but because they are frustrated that they cannot see or calculate the total cost of their order upfront.

Be open and honest with your customers. If they can see from the start what it costs to do business with you, the end cost will be less of a surprise, and they will be less likely to jump ship at the last minute. With Sana’s Commerce’s ERP-powered software, you can update your pricing and product information in real-time, directly from your ERP system. Learn more about our solution here.

4. Keep in Touch with Your "Lost" Potential Customers

Additional findings from the Baymard Institute show that in the U.S. alone, 58% of online shoppers have abandoned a cart simply because they were not ready to buy. They may have been seriously browsing but not quite ready to make a decision.

Even if this significant portion of your audience doesn’t complete a transaction right away, it doesn’t mean that they may not still be interested when the time is right. And when the time is right, you’ll want them to consider coming back to your site.

This is where abandoned cart recovery emails can make a difference.

Cart abandonment emails are a proven strategy. According to Annex Cloud, 45% of emails sent to follow up on an abandoned cart are opened by buyers, and 10% of those buyers return to the site and complete a purchase.
If these emails are personalized, targeted, and especially if they contain a discount offer to sweeten the deal, the success rate is bound to be even higher.

Learn even more about the power of online marketing, and how Sana can help drive your success, from our Solution Highlights: Marketing Edition.

Want to Learn More About Abandoned Cart Recovery?

For more information on how an ERP-powered, integrated (and personalization-focused) e-commerce strategy can help you ensure a more successful online customer experience for B2B buyers, download our B2B Buying Process 2019 Report. Your buyers' demands will dictate how to better capture revenue.