5 Ways to Reduce Cart Abandonment on Shopify.

There are many different trials when it comes to your store. You might be by yourself or have a small team, but at the end of the day, you have to find a way and time to get to everything on your to-do list. Do not feel discouraged because there are many other merchants in the same situation as you, doing all they can to make it happen. Along with that, there are many groups, forums, blogs, and other resources that can get you through everything. It is the beauty of the Shopify ecosystem. In our blog, we are going to point out the five obvious things you should have to minimize cart abandonment.

5. Use a Smart Shopify Search

I am going to start with a more proactive step rather than a reactive. For stores that have a smaller catalog (10 items or less), this is not as impactful. However, if you carry 20, 30, 1000 products – this can be gold.

Smart Search & Instant Search by Searchanise for Shopify.

We have found that websites that have an intelligent search component within their Shopify storefront have higher conversion rates. What is even more stunning for these stores is that the shopping engagements that started with a search converted 3x to 8x better than experiences that started with a non-search component.

However, be careful when you add a Search app to your website. It can have negative effects on your website. Here are a few Search Apps for you to explore: Findify, Searchanise, Algolia, etc.

4. Utilize Social Proof with Shopify

Having user-generated social proof can be huge for any store, but especially those who are just starting out with their own products. Buying from an unknown, unreviewed store is risky business for consumers. Why should they give a stranger (you) their $50, if they know they can go to an established alternative (maybe pay a little more), but be at peace because they know that the big brand has great reviews, product, service, etc.

Learn from the biggest store of them all – Amazon. Amazon pushes reviews, most importantly social review/proof more than anything else. More reviews, more social proof equals more sales.

Amazon drives trust and transparency with their reviews.

But how can you get your products to have reviews, especially social proof driven reviews? Here are a few suggestions:

• Give your friends and family your product and have them provide product review with social proof

• Reach out to influencers and ask them to post on their social media profile and to provide a review

• Send automated post-purchase emails with a platform like Klaviyo to collect reviews

• Feature reviews on product pages

• Create a testimonials page that provides insights into your customer support

3. Be Fully Transparent

Transparency in ecommerce is pretty much everything. This should not only be applicable on your website, but also on your adds, organic results, etc. Do not have your page title show up as “Free Shipping On All Orders” in organic results or your ads, but when they get to your store free shipping is only applicable to “Order Over $50.”

Top reasons users abandon shopping carts online.

Here are some items from comScore that indicate some of the biggest reasons why users leave or abandon their cart – and most of them have to do with customers being misled or merchants not being transparent:

• 58% stated that shipping ended up being more than anticipated

• 50% order value was not large enough to qualify for free shipping

• 37% states that shipping and handling costs listed way too late during checkout

• 28% stated that shipping time was too long for the amount they were willing to pay

If you just focus on those four items…you will see a spike in conversion rates and a drop in abandonment. Shipping is huge…adding something like a Shipping Rates Calculator to your store can go a long way.

Get Shipping Estimates by Shopify.

Think of any other items that could be misleading or not transparent enough. I always suggest having a poll on your website to get feedback from your customers. HotJar has this as a free feature, check it out:

Polls and Customer Surveys by HotJar.

2. Company Accessibility and Transparency

When you are a new business or brand, or even a growing business or brand, people do not know who you are, how reputable you are, are you trustworthy, why should they pick you over Amazon or thousands of other merchants.

• About Us Page: have an About Us page that is fully transparent. Tell them your story, as well as your business’ story. Add your co-founders or partners, add your staff…quick bios and their images can go a long way. Add links to your Instagram or LinkedIn profiles so people know you are genuine and real, so they know whom they are giving their money to.

• FAQ Page: This is a nice way to minimize customer super inquiries and also provide transparency. You can cover anything from Shipping and Returns, Warranty, where your products are made, etc. Any common questions to provide a sense of security to your potential buyers.

• Contact Us Page / Customer Support Page: Make it very, very easy for customers to contact you. You want to show everyone that you are ready to answer their questions and if anything was to go wrong, that you will be there to support them. Also, adding a map and a physical address helps as well, so users know where you are located. If you are working out of your house, you can always get a virtual address.

• Chat Feature: Shopify has a ton of apps that allow you to add a chat/live customer service feature to your Shopify store. But, if you do add it, we recommend getting one that has an app/mobile feature so that you can communicate with clients on the go as well, but make sure that you insert and provide “chat” availability hours in case your customers try to contact you at 2 am. Here is a list of Shopify chat apps: Shopify Chat Apps.

1. Offer Free Shipping

We have done many studies that involve shipping…how it impacts cart abandonment and how it impacts conversion rates. Free Shipping is the king when it comes maximizing conversion rates and improving cart abandonment rates…people have been trained to expect it.

Depending on the Shopify merchant we have worked with, we typically experienced a 30-50% decrease in cart abandonment when free shipping was applied to the store automatically.

We worked with a company that sold high-end home speakers. They manufactured the devices themselves and started off with one product with a few different variations. They are a Shopify Plus merchant. The speaker was $400 plus shipping was $75. At this point, their Cart Abandonment rate was 92%.

Right away we told them that no one wants to pay $75 for shipping. We ran some tests with HotJar, including a few surveys, and that is exactly what the case was – shipping was just too darn high for users to purchase it…even though they loved, loved, loved the product. When we presented this to the merchant, they said that they can’t afford to provide free shipping. Which is understandable.

We recommended, that instead of providing free shipping or charging $400 for the speaker and $75 for shipping, to change the price of the item to $475 and blend in the product and shipping price into one. After doing this, their Cart Abandonment rate dropped from 92% down to 76%. It was a huge win.

You will find guides with 10, 20, 50 cart abandonment tips and tricks – do yourself a favor. Focus on these 5 and build the foundation so that you can dive deeper. Do not overwhelm yourself and put too much on your plate. Focus on revenue-generating activities.

Let us know how it goes!