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Win Back Customers with Shopping Cart Abandonment Emails

Online stores are familiar with the scenario: customers add items to their shopping cart, but then don’t complete the purchase. Around 70 percent1 of online purchases are abandoned in this phase. When online stores address these customers specifically by email, they can often be persuaded to purchase what’s in their cart after all. That’s why a shopping cart abandonment email is a good way to bring customers back into the store.

How Does Shopping Cart Abandonment Happen?

Shopping cart abandonment is when visitors leave the online store without making a purchase. They have already browsed, selected products as favorites, and added them to their shopping cart. But in this case, visitors do not complete the purchase and leave the filled shopping cart behind. For online retailers, shopping cart abandonment translates into lost sales, administrative costs, and hesitant or even annoyed customers who don’t return, if they, for example, experienced technical problems when placing an order.

Shopping cart abandonment is a challenge that e-commerce companies face and something that their marketing efforts – aiming to keep the customer’s attention – ultimately miss the mark with. However, online stores can take measures to persuade customers to complete a purchase after they have abandoned a filled shopping cart. The better you understand the reasons for the customer’s behavior, the more effectively you can address shopping cart abandonment by email.

What Are the Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment?

Customers who abandon their purchase in the final stretch may have been confronted with problems they could not solve. There are many reasons a shopping cart is abandoned, however they can be categorized as follows:

Technical Problems

It is important to find out if there are any technical problems before or during checkout. These can cause customers to leave the online store prematurely. For example: - The shopping cart is displayed incorrectly. - The loading time is too long. - Problems arise during the payment process.

Personal Reasons

In addition to the reasons described above, visitors may also have personal motives for abandoning their shopping cart. Here are some examples: The products are too expensive for the customer after all. The visitor was unable to complete the purchase due to time constraints. The customer deliberately placed the products in the shopping cart in order to remember them and complete the purchase later.

Faulty User Experience

Are there factors in the design of individual pages, the shopping cart, or the checkout that do not meet user expectations? If so, the likelihood of shopping cart abandonment is high. Possible reasons are: - Customer data that has been entered disappears again. - The desired payment method is missing. - There is no separate save-for-later list.

What Is a Shopping Cart Abandonment Email?

A shopping cart abandonment email can give potential customers a second chance to buy. Recipients automatically receive this email when they exit the shopping platform without purchasing the products. The email should remind them that they left items in their shopping cart and encourage them to complete the purchase.
Shopping cart abandonment emails are considered transactional emails. The Retarus Messaging Platform can be used to send transactional emails automatically once a shopping cart has been abandoned. Online stores can customize these emails for different target groups. The following options are available as examples of content:

Reminder Emails

Visitors have abandoned their shopping cart due to time constraints. The reminder allows them to place the order at a later time.

Email with Service Offer

The customer has canceled the purchase process due to technical problems. Help from a support center is offered, for example, by replying to the email.

Email with Incentives

A customer who abandoned the checkout process receives a discount code or free shipping.

Why Are Emails Important When a Shopping Cart Has Been Abandoned?

Just because visitors have abandoned the shopping cart page doesn’t mean the store has lost them. Compared to other retargeting measures2 such as banner ads, emails sent after shopping cart abandonment are more personal and straightforward. Ideally, they appear directly in the customer’s inbox and are customized to reflect their shopping cart. Without this email, the customer may remain undecided, forget the items in the shopping cart, or even buy similar products from a competitor.

In addition, it is significantly more cost effective to encourage a visitor who is already interested to make a purchase than to attract new customers. Shopping cart abandonment emails help to build a strong bond with existing customers and boost sales. Retarus’ email experts support their customers by connecting the marketing automation solution, CRM system, and e-commerce solution to the Retarus Messaging Platform. Retarus provides services that comply with all locally applicable data privacy regulations and supports its customers in sending emails in accordance with international data protection laws and compliance requirements.

What Content Should a Shopping Cart Abandonment Email Contain?

To win back potential customers, shopping cart abandonment emails must not appear to be promotional emails. This helps transactional emails to be more likely to be accepted and benefit from a higher open and click-through rate. Stores should therefore opt for a simple design that differs from graphically eye-catching promotional emails. Here are some tips for creating shopping cart abandonment emails:

Short, Sweet, and Enticing

The subject line is the first thing that the email recipient will read. Therefore, it should be clear, concise, and generate interest. The email should be short and contain only the most important information.

Clear Call to Action (CTA)

Returning to the store should be as easy as possible for users. Clicking on a CTA button leads them directly back to the payment step where they can complete the purchase process

Personalized Content

The recipient’s name should appear, as well as the item(s) left in the shopping cart. Personalized content 3 is important for building trust and strengthening brand recognition.

Good Timing

An initial, short email should be sent in one to three hours after the shopping cart was abandoned. An email sent too soon can seem pushy. Companies can send a second email 24 hours later.

Weigh the Incentives

When stores use discount promotions with discretion and offered no sooner than four to five days after the shopping cart has been abandoned, they can pique the interest of potential customers.

Incorporate Social Proof

Reviews from other shoppers and testimonials encourage visitors to complete the purchase after all.

Use Product Photos

A small number of product images visually reminds the customer of the uncompleted transaction.

Are Shopping Cart Abandonment Emails Legal?

Even if the recipient perceives the shopping cart abandonment email as a kind of service, from a legal perspective it is an advertising email. This is because actions that encourage the conclusion of a purchase must be classified as advertising. When sending these types of emails, stores must comply with the currently applicable legal provisions, such as a possibly applicable Act Against Unfair Competition as well as any locally applicable data privacy regulations (GDPR).

How Does Retarus Support the Sending of These Emails?

Shopping cart abandonment emails are a good way for e-commerce companies to draw customers back to their online stores. The emails can be customized and sent via optimized marketing automation, which can be easily connected to the Retarus Messaging Platform using standard interfaces. This offers the following advantages, among others:
  • Retarus’ infrastructure and services help customers send emails that automatically comply with applicable data privacy regulations.
  • Retarus offers personal support provided by its employees — from connection to operation — not just through software and forums.
  • Retarus ensures reliably high inbox placement.
  • The Retarus email API offers flexibility for store system connection.

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Sources:
1 https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate/
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting
3 https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/glossary/personalization/