SHOPPING
CART
ABANDONMENT
A Data Review
Nicole Rose
Sr. Applications Engineer
June 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
1
Need for Cart Abandonment Strategy
According to the latest statistics, the average eCommerce shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.53% 1. This means
nearly 7 out of every 10 of your online customers are not completing their sales.
Business Insider estimates that almost “$4 trillion of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this
year, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable”2.
In this white paper, we’ll discuss many of the reasons behind the trend along with suggested remedies for addressing
shopper concerns. Those who make the effort to analyze shopping cart abandonment and recapture sales from
customers who’ve fallen through the cracks will put themselves at the head of the ecommerce pack.
A Look at Cart Abandonment Studies
To understand the details of cart abandonment, we will look at two of the most recent cart abandonment studies and
then compare them to a 2006 cart abandonment study.
Cart Abandonment Studies
Cart Abandonment study #1: Cart abandonment infographic stats with research from Forrester, SeeWhy, Biz
Report and Fifth Gear.3
•
44% Expensive shipping costs
•
41% Not ready to purchase
•
24% Wanted to save and come back later
•
27% Wanted to shop around
•
25% Product cost more than expected
•
22% Shipping costs were listed too late
•
20% Adequate purchasing information was not provided
•
14% Did not want to create an account with the merchant
•
11% Checkout process was too convoluted
•
7% Preferred payment method was not accepted
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
2
Cart Abandonment study #2: Cart abandonment stats with data from Worldpay (19,000 participants).4
•
56% Presented with unexpected costs
•
37% Just browsing
•
36% Found better price elsewhere
•
32% Overall price too expensive
•
26% Decided against buying
•
25% Navigation too complicated
•
24% Website crashed
•
21% Process taking too long
•
18% Excessive payment security checks
•
17% Concerns about payment security
•
16% Delivery options were unsuitable
•
15% Website timeout
•
13% Price presented in foreign currency
•
11% Payment was declined
A preliminary review of these study details reveals some immediate observations:
1.
Unexpected costs are a large driver of checkout abandonment
2.
Consumers don’t want to pay for shipping
3.
Consumers want to look around and compare prices
Category Groupings
However, to really understand what is happening with cart abandonment we’re going to create umbrella groupings
that these details fall within. Creating category groupings helps to make sense of the details and also provides a path
for creating systems of holistic and repeatable strategies for your ecommerce team.
Category groupings created for the 2012 study details:
1.
Cost Expectations
2.
Timing Not Right
3.
Comparison Shopping
4.
Checkout Process Friction
•
UX
•
Technical Failure
•
Shipping Delivery
•
Personal Data
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
3
The two studies were aggregated and then the details were assigned to these category groupings. Sometimes details
could be assigned to two or more categories but the most dominant category for the detail was given preference.
Therefore, there is some overlap on some of the category areas. Since the original studies raw data was not mutually
exclusive in each study, the total percentages of each study exceeds 100%. For the aggregate category groupings, the
total percentages were fit within a 100% pie chart to make it visually easier to understand the relationship and weight
between the categories. In the legend to the right of the chart, the details across each study can be seen assigned to
each category grouping.
Aggregate studies category pie chart:
Graph by LYONSCG
What Category Groupings Tell Us
When we see the cart abandonment details within their category groupings a new picture starts to emerge:
1.
Cost expectations are a large factor in the consumer’s decision to buy. Cost expectations cover the spectrum
of product costs that are thought to be too high, unexpected overall costs and/or shipping costs.
Understanding the current temperature of consumer cost expectations and managing them through the
product purchase flow process becomes a dominant theme. It’s not just as simplistic as slashing shipping
costs or marginalizing consumer expectation in this area.
2.
Although cost expectations are the largest single category percentage, the combined Checkout Process
Friction categories rivals the cost expectations wedge, with a combined total of 36%. It is also arguable that
some details that were placed in the Cost Expectations category also fall into the Checkout Process Friction
area, including ‘shipping costs were listed too late’, and ‘presented with unexpected shipping costs’, as these
would also fall under an issue with the way product information is presented through the shop cycle process.
The Checkout Process Friction super-category becomes the predominant category of cart abandonment.
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
3.
4
Timing Not Right, an emerging wedge of the pie, covers issues where timing was a factor in the consumer’s
buying process. Because the category isn’t ‘product not right’, there’s the suggestion, not readily apparent
from just looking at the study details, that the product is right, but the time isn’t.
4.
Only 2 out of every 10 shoppers is actually comparison shopping. This number seems relatively low and
contradicts observation #3 that came out of the cursory assessment of the study details.
To compare how shopping cart abandonment has changed over time, let’s look at some data from a 2006 study.
2006 Cart abandonment Study - Source WebSurveyor 6
•
30.1% Comparison Shopping
•
27.3% Shipping cost too high
•
27.3% Didn’t have the time to complete transaction
•
15.9% Product was out of stock or backordered
•
8.3% Uncomfortable with buying process
•
8.1% Shopping cart technical problems
•
7.2% Other
•
6.1% Price is too high
•
3.9% Product isn’t the one desired
•
2.0% Payment issues
Category Groupings 2006
If we take these details and pour them into categories, we can make some comparison analysis between 2006 and the
most recent survey.
2006 category groupings based on study details:
1.
Cost expectations
2.
Timing not right
3.
Comparison shopping
4.
Checkout process friction - UX
5.
Checkout process friction - Technical failure
6.
Inventory/Merchandise
7.
Undetermined
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
5
Comparing Recent Findings with 2006
In comparing these 2006 categories with the categories from the most recent study, there are some immediate
notable differences:
1.
Two new categories in Checkout Process Friction - Personal Data and Shipping Delivery - emerged since the
2006 study.
2.
Two categories cited in 2006 study - Inventory/Merchandise and Undetermined - no longer appear in the most
recent study.
Graph by LYONSCG
Many of the same cart abandonment concerns of 2006 are still seen in the current study. Some key observations:
•
Timing Not Right is still as much of an issue for the 2006 consumer as it is in recent years. It appears that even
with more mobile devices and ways to access the internet, timing considerations seem to live apart from internet
ubiquity.
•
On the same note, comparison shopping percentages have not sky-rocketed. This is interesting to observe since
the current perception is that consumers are constantly prowling the internet shopping domain for the best
prices.
•
Checkout process friction is also about the same percentage, but in the most recent study there are more pain
points within this macro-category. As matters of fulfillment and managing consumer data have grown
significantly since 2006, it’s no surprise that Checkout Process Friction contains the two additional areas of
Personal Data and Shipping Delivery.
•
The one area that has undergone a significant improvement between 2006 and the most recent study is
inventory/merchandise. There are no significant issues in the checkout process in the most recent studies
regarding inventory and merchandise.
•
Data concerns don’t show up in 2006, but do in the most recent study. As data collection increases and is utilized
as a powerful tool in our online experience, it raises concerns everywhere from security to the protection of
consumer private data.
All information contained within this document is proprietary and confidential
© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
6
Reducing Cart Abandonment
Addressing cart abandonment for your ecommerce site is an ongoing and evolving process, one in which you should
have a dedicated team of individuals who continually work towards the goal of improvement in each of the categories.
Improving cart abandonment takes a dedicated approach to a process of data analysis and action based on those
analytics. The rewards of commitment to this type of work can result in a better process for data analytics for your
team across the online portal and a chance towards building upon data mining in a positive direction for improved
customer relationship building. Using the pie chart breakdowns we can create areas of review, measurement and
action for our internal teams.
The ideas presented below are not a quick fix, but rather
starting point suggestions for a continual process of
improvement.
Area 1: Cost Expectations
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Expensive shipping cost
•
Product cost more than expected
•
Shipping costs were listed too late
•
Presented with unexpected costs
•
Overall price too high
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns:
•
Customer survey to query the customer for feedback on
shipping costs
•
Competitor analysis of similar products
•
Review of sales strategies throughout the year
•
Review of company shipping costs & policies
•
Review of where shipping costs are revealed in the checkout process
•
Review of checkout process to reveal any hidden costs that could be more clearly presented or clarified
•
Cart abandonment email that includes a free shipping promotion to bring back customers
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
7
Area 2: Timing Not Right
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Not ready to purchase
•
Wanted to save and come back later
•
Decided against buying
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns
•
Analysis of when your customer is buying
•
Creating strategies that present the message to the customer at the right time for them
•
Cart abandonment emails that present the customer’s desired products at a different/better time
Area 3: Comparison Shopping
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Just browsing (comparison shopping)
•
Found better price elsewhere
•
Wanted to shop around
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns
•
Regular competitor analysis and strategy for sales taking into account competitors’ sales cycles
•
Triggered cart abandonment email with promotional special
Area 4: Check-out Process Friction
Friction in the checkout process is anything that gets in the way of the consumer making a purchase in the shortest,
easiest way possible.
A. Check-out Process Friction: User Experience
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Navigation too complicated
•
Process taking too long
•
Price presented in a foreign currency
•
Payment was declined
•
Adequate purchasing information was not provided
•
Checkout process
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns
•
Utilizing consumer surveys and customer inquiries, find out from your customers what their pain points are in
your site’s checkout process.
•
Have your eCommerce team or an outside agency review the checkout process to identify friction areas and
solutions
•
Continually assess and review the checkout process on an ongoing basis to remove friction as new features are
implemented
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
8
B. Check-out Process Friction: Technical Failure
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Website crashed
•
Website timeout
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns:
•
Checkout performance and load testing should be a regular part of your technical team’s diagnostics.
•
Having a keen sense of where your customer is browsing and shopping and on what device will bring awareness
to possible areas of network/bandwidth failure and issues
•
Running regular tests to generate checkout errors involving third-party services - is the error messaging what you
want your customer to see and does it lead them back to engage with your site?
C. Check-out Process Friction: Shipping Delivery
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Delivery options were unsuitable
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns:
•
Fulfillment and shipping strategies should be an
ongoing growth point
•
Strategies of top fulfilment services like Amazon are
driving customer perception about the norm in shipping
and fulfillment, evaluate how your business is growing
shipping strategies to stay current
D. Check-out Process Friction: Personal Data
Consumer Points of Concern:
•
Excessive payment security checks
•
Concerns about payment security
•
Did not want to create an account with the merchant
Remedies for these Consumer Concerns:
•
Review of how much or how little friction payment security requirements are adding to the checkout process
•
Making sure your checkout has the right image security icons to visually assure the consumer that their data is
safe
•
Consideration of adding Google Trusted Stores
•
Assessment of the site requirements for checking out as a guest vs. logged in user. Forcing the user to create an
account although advantageous for the merchant, can be negatively perceived by the online consumer
All information contained within this document is proprietary and confidential
© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
9
Cart Abandonment Emails
To begin to understand how effective cart abandonment emails can
be, keep in mind that email marketing has one of the best returns
on investment for ecommerce sites. The average conversion rate is
between 1 and 3%. A Mail Chimp survey lists the open rate for
eCommerce email at around 16.94% and a click rate at 2.60%.7
Cart abandonment email stats are even more impressive:
•
•
Experian Marketing Service data:8
•
40.3% average open rates
•
41% lift vs regular promo emails
Numbers from a 2-month study by LYONSCG:
•
Average open rate: 55.1% - with a good percentage of sends as high as 70-80%
•
Conversion rate: 5.9% - with the highest conversion rate of 20%
The key takeaway from this data is: Customers are opening and taking action on cart abandonment
emails.
The example shows a cart abandonment email sent out
within 24 hours of cart abandonment. It includes the
products left in the cart and a free shipping offer to further
entice the user to complete their purchase. If the
customer’s items have sold out within the period of
abandonment, the item will not appear in the email. If all
products in the bag are no longer available, an email with a
different message and no products will be sent.
As an enticement to get them to come back and complete
the purchase, a special code for free shipping is included.
Another way to woo shoppers back is with a discount off
their final purchase. Sometimes all it takes to get the sale is
to make it easier for your customer. Try giving them the
chance to pick up merchandise at their local store or even
offer to match a competitor’s price. Create or strengthen a
customer relationship by showing them you value their
business.
All information contained within this document is proprietary and confidential
© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
10
Segmenting Cart Abandonment Emails
While cart abandonment emails may seem like low hanging fruit, you’ll still have to evaluate them from a cost/benefit
perspective. The best course of action is to determine what shopper segments are worth re-marketing depending on
your business strategy. Here are some simple categories and strategies you might want to consider.
•
Most valuable customers – You’ll want to keep your best customers satisfied. Look for a shopper who
makes a purchase often and has a high AOV?
•
High value orders – If this shopper is new to your site, you’ll want to make sure to convert them and
continue to cultivate their business.
•
Carts containing specific brands/product categories – Do you have brands or items may represent
higher than usual margins or merchandise you want to move quickly.
•
Low value orders – You can increase such orders by establishing a threshold the shopper needs to make
to quality for free shipping or receive a coupon off a future order of a certain amount.
Technical Overview of Creating an Email for Cart Abandonment
For the purposes of this quick overview, we’ll assume the site is on the Demandware platform, uses Omniture to
gather the abandoned cart analytics, and ExactTarget is the email provider. Some of the below steps can be omitted if
no product data from the cart needs to be included in the email.
1. Collection of cart abandonment data from the site in a daily feed (e.g., Omniture)
2. Method to take data and put into a data extension, and filter and query extension (e.g., ExactTarget)
3. Script in the email provider templates (e.g., AMPSCRIPT) that pulls data from the data extension tables and
performs get request to an ISML template with the product tile information
4. ISML file with the product information
5. Automation of the feed, filter, query and email send process (ExactTarget Data Hub)
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LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
11
Technical Script for Cart Abandonment Emails
The key to creating these customer-specific cart abandonment emails in Exact Target is the use of AMPSCRIPT.
Below is an example snippet of the AMPSCRIPT used to create a cart abandonment email that features the products
selected, but not purchased. AMPSCRIPT is a powerful tool that can be leveraged not only for cart abandonment
product data, but creating highly dynamic and personalized retargeting and marketing emails.
%%[
var @rows, @row, @rowCount, @product, @maxProductCount, @url,
@baseUrl, @queryString
set @maxProductCount = 3
set @baseUrl = "http://www.examplestore.com/on/demandware.store/SitesUS-Site/default/ExactTarget-GetProduct"
set @rows = LookupOrderedRows("Cart Abandonment Filter Results",
@maxProductCount, "Date DESC", "EmailAddress", emailaddr)
set @rowCount = RowCount(@rows)
if @rowCount > 0 then
for @i = 1 to @rowCount do
set @row = Row(@rows,@i)
set @product = Field(@row, "Product")
set @queryString = Concat(@queryString,"pid",@i,"=",@product,"&")
next @i
set @url =
Concat(@baseUrl,"?",@queryString,"campaign","=",emailname_,"&","email"
,"=",emailaddr)]%%
%%=HTTPGet(@url)=%%
%%[endif]%%
The snippet loops through the final filtered data extension locating the products associated with the unique customer
email record. The product ID values are concatenated and added to a base Demandware file url as parameters. A get
request to the Demandware ISML file is performed at the end of the snippet to pull in the products procured from the
data extension as well as additional html and data.
The key factors with AMPSCRIPT is that all snippets need to be opened and closed with %%, and all variables used in
the snippet are declared at the top. All AMPSCRIPT functions are well documented in the Exact Target online
documentation.
Don’t Lose Out on Sales
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
12
You can turn cart abandonment around with re-marketing. After all, shoppers who’ve abandoned a cart have
demonstrated in interest in specific products. You can’t get a better prospect than that! And re-marketing costs will
typically give you a high return on a minimal amount of effort.
The key is analyzing each step in the buying process to determine what the consumer’s concerns are so you can
determine what tactic you need to employ to get them to convert. Employing a series of emails at specifically timed
intervals after cart abandonment allows you to engage on a 1-to-1 basis with a customer, showing them how much you
value their patronage.
Very few other marketing campaigns will deliver the response cart abandonment emails provide. According to
Listrak, a digital marketing solution provider, “initial emails, sent three hours after a consumer abandons a cart,
average a 40% open rate and a 20% click-through rate”. 9
To find out more about analyzing cart abandonment and developing strategies to recover lost sales, please reach out
and contact us. (http://www.lyonscg.com/contact/)
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
13
Footnotes
1 http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
2 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-retailers-can-reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment-and-recoupbillions-of-dollars-in-lost-sales-2014-4#ixzz3e5U8szpK
3 http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/11/21/reasons-for-shopping-cart-abandonment/
4 http://conversionxl.com/shopping-cart-abandonment-how-to-recover-baskets-of-money/
5 LYONSCG
6 http://www.goecart.com/Support/shopping-cart-abandonment.aspx
7 http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/
8 https://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/reports/ccm-bestpractices-remarketing.pdf
9 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-retailers-can-reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment-and-recoupbillions-of-dollars-in-lost-sales-2014-4
All information contained within this document is proprietary and confidential
© Lyons Consulting Group 2015
LYONSCG White Paper: Shopping Cart Abandonment Strategy
14
Thank You
About LYONSCG
LYONSCG is the industry’s premier eCommerce digital agency, serving brand, retail, and B2B organizations with
tailored eCommerce solutions that maximize online potential. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm offers a full range
of services beginning with digital strategy and digital marketing and extending through experience design, platform
implementation, application development, hosting and support. The approach is holistic—to provide every client with
a creative, robust and increasingly profitable eCommerce website. LYONSCG is eCommerce Realized!
LYONSCG
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Chicago, IL 60606
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F: 312.506.2022
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© Lyons Consulting Group 2015