Ecommerce has proved to be a blessing for buyers and sellers in many ways. While it has undoubtedly made the retail experience much more convenient, one area that still lags far behind physical retail: cart abandonment.
Customers adding items to their cart but failing to complete their purchase is a rare sight in brick-and-mortar stores. Online, however, it’s an all-too-familiar occurrence.
Every online retailer, including ecommerce grocery stores, must deal with cart abandonment, which is essentially lost revenue. Finding ways to overcome customers’ hesitation to complete purchases reduces cart abandonment rate while increasing profits.
If you run an online grocery store, we’ll explain how to reduce cart abandonment in your grocery ecommerce store.
Understanding cart abandonment
If you run a physical grocery store with an online component, you will notice a stark difference in cart abandonment rates. This is because online shoppers are more fickle in general. They may browse online and add items to their carts with no real intention to complete a purchase. This window-shopping behavior is unavoidable.
Another example is when customers abruptly terminate a checkout session after beginning the process. This points to a serious problem with your ecommerce model—something is turning your customers away even after they have decided to buy. They may have abandoned their carts because shipping prices were too high, the checkout process was too complicated, or there was some other technical snag.
Unfortunately, cart abandonment rates are quite high across all ecommerce categories. Research from Swrve showed that products in abandoned carts total up to $4 trillion in value. Meanwhile, the Baymard Institute calculated that as much as $260 billion of that potential revenue is recoverable.
While the overall cart abandonment rate for ecommerce is nearly 70%, the online grocery category is at just over 50%, according to a 2022 report from SalesCycle.
It is important for grocery retailers to find out why customers are abandoning their carts and reduce these rates.
Identifying reasons for cart abandonment
If you want to reduce your cart abandonment rate, the first step is to discover why customers leave your storefront without completing a purchase.
As mentioned before, it’s impossible to completely eliminate cart abandonment because of online window shopping. Instead of focusing on these disinterested browsers, you must target customers likely to convert with your cart abandonment reduction plan. Improving their online shopping experience gives them an easier way to complete their purchase.
Online shoppers abandon their carts in ecommerce grocery stores for several reasons:
- Lack of trust in purchasing perishable items online
- Over-complicated checkout processes
- High shipping fees or additional charges
- Limited payment options
- Prompted to create an account before checkout
- Poor website performance
- Better prices at competing stores
If your ecommerce grocery store’s cart abandonment rate is unusually high, your customers might be experiencing some or all of these issues. You must address them immediately.
Strategies to reduce cart abandonment
Cart abandonment will impact your overall revenue, but there are ways to counter its effects.
Incorporate these strategies to see your cart abandonment rates plummet and your sales numbers soar:
1. Optimize website performance
Provide online shoppers with a smooth customer experience when they visit your website. One principle to remember for ecommerce is that the smaller the screen, the higher the cart abandonment rate. This means mobile phone shoppers are likelier to abandon their carts than those using their tablets and desktops. Ensure your website works for all users on all devices to retain them throughout the checkout process.
2. Simplify the checkout process
Speaking of the checkout process, it must be as streamlined and intuitive as possible if you want to reduce cart abandonment rates. Don’t make account creation mandatory, as that could drive away one-time buyers. Try to limit the checkout process to a single page. Include clear instructions and progress indicators so that customers can easily navigate the process as they complete their purchases.
3. Transparent pricing
Online shoppers also care very much about product prices. Your store should be upfront about additional charges and mark them clearly.
Furthermore, free shipping for bulk purchases or other such discounts can help reduce cart abandonment.
4. Build trust and security
Customers only share their payment information with ecommerce businesses that earn their trust. You need to display your website’s security certifications prominently, and support integration with secure payment platforms if you want shoppers to complete their purchases at your store.
Cash in on social proof by featuring reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers on your website.
5. Personalized recommendations
Creating a personalized experience for your customers will encourage them to return to your store and purchase more. When you leverage data analytics to provide customers with relevant product recommendations each time they return, you will see their tendency to complete purchases increase.
6. Abandoned cart recovery
There are many ways to reel back a customer who has previously abandoned their cart. You can incentivize them with personalized discounts or send a reminder email about items left in their cart.
7. Optimize mobile experience
Although the number of people shopping on mobile devices has increased in recent years, it remains the platform with the highest cart abandonment rates. Work on developing a mobile-friendly website or a proper mobile application that are just as easy to navigate and buy from as the desktop browser version.
Decrease cart abandonment, improve ecommerce grocery store sales
If you are dedicated to providing customers with an excellent online shopping experience, your cart abandonment rates will naturally decrease. The tactics covered in this article are a good starting point for tackling cart abandonment on your grocery store website.
If you need help creating a smooth-running website with minimal cart abandonment rates for your online grocery store, check out Wave Grocery. It’s an ecommerce platform designed for online grocers, and you’ll be able to give your customers an experience where they are happy to go through the checkout process over and over as they make repeated purchases!
