5 proven strategies for Shopify stores to reduce cart abandonment

No matter what your Shopify store sells, to reduce cart abandonment has become one of the biggest challenges for brands. In fact, the state is such that the abandonment rate has reached a whopping 80% across some industries. Considering the number of choices a shopper has while making a purchase, it is only obvious that this metric has been increasing.

Now you can’t stop an online shopper from exploring more deals. But you can implement a few strategies that will keep these shoppers engaged and help you reduce cart abandonment.

Strategies to reduce cart abandonment

1. Remove competitor ads from your Shopify store

Yes, you heard that right.

A typical online shopper has at least ten browser extensions and web apps installed to compare products, prices or accomplish other tasks. But did you know that some of these extensions are actually infected?

While they don’t hack into your Shopify store, they actually end up injecting competitor ads on the consumer browser. So while you think every product page is well optimized for conversions, here is the difference between what you see and what the shopper does:

In this case, the shopper doesn’t even need to go exploring other discounts. They are being advertised on your Shopify store itself!

Imagine driving all that traffic to your store, only for them to be lured away by deals from a competitor. It’s like handing over shoppers who could be your customers to other stores.

Now it is impossible for you to track what extensions or web apps each of your shoppers are using. It is further impossible to identify which out of the 13,000+ adware strains that are introduced to the digital space, will come through these extensions. That’s where you put technology to use.

And no, your CMS is not enough to keep your site safe when it is the consumer browser we’re talking about.

Leveraging the power of machine learning, conversion suites like BrandLock monitor these adware strains on the consumer browser. It then identifies the ads they may inject onto your site, and blocks them in real-time, before they even show up to the shopper.

Global brands like Nine West, Kirkland’s, Footwear etc. and more noticed that almost 14% of their traffic was seeing these unauthorized ads. Removing them from the consumer browser, helped them reduce cart abandonment and increase their overall conversion rate by 16%.

2. Re-engage them with web push notifications

No matter how optimized your Shopify store is, there will always be shoppers who want to explore other options. Be it look for product variations or be able to avail a better deal, they’d rather wait it out.

That’s where web push notifications have stepped in as a new channel that has proven to improve shopper engagement.

Web push notifications are rich content messages that your Shopify store can send to subscribers even when they are not on the site. Since these messages can be delivered to all devices - web, and mobile, they are more likely to be read instantly.

Imagine receiving a web push notification like this on your desktop:

Or like this on your mobile:

If the message is crisp and clear, offering something that you’re interested in, you’re bound to click through it and reach the store. Pretty much similar to how you get a notification from mobile chat apps - you see a message from your friend and you immediately jump into the conversation.

Now you can set up web push notification campaigns with PushOwl to reduce cart abandonment in a few ways:

I. Cart reminders

Use web push notifications to send quick reminders to what the shopper has left behind. Instill a little sense of urgency around making the purchase by mentioning how the product is fast selling. You could even offer a special discount to sweeten the deal.

II. Price drops

A shopper tends to leave a purchase when they are price-sensitive. That’s why price drop web push notification get higher engagement and conversions. Send them a quick message on how a product they had shown interest in, is now available at an unbeatable price - but for a limited period only.

III. Product hacks

Apart from the price of a product, it is skepticism that often results in cart abandonment. Shoppers today want to be able to make informed purchases and do their research before buying anything. That’s why you should share product hacks or advice using web push notifications with those who have abandoned their carts. They could simply be people who are not sure about how to use your products.

3. Retarget cart abandoners on Facebook and Instagram

With over 2.8 billion monthly active users on Facebook and about 1 billion on Instagram, it is safe to say that most of your target audience is present on these two social media platforms.

It is also safe to say that the shopper who just abandoned their cart discovered your brand on one of these platforms. Then why not reach out to them after they have left your store on the same?

Yes, we’re talking about retargeting.

Retargeting ads basically use the logic of using a shopper’s on-site data to present them with ad campaigns. These ad campaigns remind them of the products they have left behind, offering an additional discount to nudge them to make a purchase.

They can also be used to show the shopper different images of the same product or similar products.

But imagine having to map every shopper’s interest, setting up and optimizing retargeting ads - too tedious.

That’s where Ako Retargeting comes into play. It enables you to create multiple retargeting campaigns with different product sets and ad formats (carousel and collection ads) for different levels of your sales funnel to maximize your ROAS.

It also makes it easier for you to track the performance of your retargeting ads on the Facebook Ads Manager itself. This enables you to derive actionable data about your shoppers and optimize the campaigns continually to reduce cart abandonment.

4. Start the conversation again on Facebook Messenger

With over 126.3 million Facebook Messenger users in the US alone, it is also clear that your shopper is most likely using the platform to communicate with their network on a daily basis. Now count in all the other countries and imagine the number of shoppers you could reach out to on the chat app.

Now doing so manually, is practically impossible. But what if you could put a friendly bot in place to do the socializing for you?

Ako Chatbot helps you automate conversations with your shoppers on Facebook Messenger.

Be it reaching out to them with a quick message reminding them of what they have left behind, asking them if they need any help selecting the right size, recommending similar products or even offering them a discount, the chatbot lets you start a timely conversation.

Your Shopify store is able to reach out to the shoppers and re-engage them before they lose interest in making the purchase or find the product on another store.

Increase shopper engagement. Reduce cart abandonment.

But that’s not all. You can use the Facebook Messenger Bot to keep the shopper engaged post sales too. Right from sending them tracking information to recommending more products!

5. Reach out to them via personalized emails

Email marketing still remains to be one of the most effective marketing strategies for eCommerce businesses. The channel has proven to give a 4400% ROI on every \$1 spent on it running campaigns.

But every Shopify store out there is using emails to re-engage cart abandoners. So how do you make your email stand out and grab their attention before they lose interest in the product?

Personalizing your strategy with a data-driven approach.

SmartrMail enables you to take your cart recovery emails to another level. You can set up a series of up to three abandoned cart emails with cross-sell recommendations to reduce cart abandonment.

It even offers fully customizable templates to match your brand, helping you get started with automated cart recovery campaigns in minutes.

But if you want to take your cart recovery campaigns to another level, boost them with the power of artificial intelligence.

EmailPulse is one of its kind email marketing sidekick that provides you high converting strategies. Backed by AI and human experts, the strategies target typical shopper behavior, increasing the number of conversions on your cart recovery campaign.

Reduce cart abandonment - starting today!

While the above strategies have proven to reduce cart abandonment, it is also a must to follow the general rules of optimization. It’s not just your campaigns that you need to monitor closely and optimize.

You should be tracking how shoppers are actually interacting with your store. Right from the navigation to the product pages and checkout, every little detail matters when it comes to reducing the number of shoppers who leave without making a purchase.

What is the one strategy you have used to reduce cart abandonment? We’d love to hear all about it.

Author bio

Vanhishikha Bhargava is a content marketer at PushOwl, an eCommerce web push notification provider for Shopify stores. She can mostly be found digging out growth tactics for online retailers. You can follow her blogs here or talk to her on Twitter.