Cart abandonment is a major headache for e-commerce stores. Statistics show that, on average, 70% of carts are abandoned, as shown in Fig. 1. The reasons vary from shipping costs being too high to bad return policies1. While this is definitely a worrying statistic, it is also an opportunity for significant improvements. These improvements can happen before abandonment occurs (prevention) and afterward (recovery).
Cart abandonment prevention is usually accomplished by offering product discounts and coupons. Common sense would say that the shopper is more likely to buy a product at a discounted price.
However, studies show that a coupon-code field during the checkout process could actually increase cart abandonment2. For example, the shopper might not remember the coupon code and, while trying to find it, get distracted and not return to the store.
Moreover, stores can’t provide coupons all the time; it would lead to long-term losses in revenue. Hence, while discounting might benefit the conversion rate, it also has some caveats.
For example, once the shopper abandons their cart and leaves the store, another mechanism is triggered to recover the cart. An automatic email, SMS or — even more annoying — an exit-intent trigger is sent, reminding the shopper that “products are waiting” in the cart or offering the possibility of saving the cart for their next visit.
However, the shopper is often bombarded with unwanted/uninteresting emails or messages. Cart recovery then becomes an obsolete mechanism whose cost-benefit result might even be negative.
Recovery measures like discounts and reminder emails insufficiently address cart abandonment reasons rooted in a lack of information, decision difficulties or even the behavioral tendency to use the shopping cart as a wishlist.
Behamics solves this bottleneck with a preventive solution.
Behamics analyzes the shopping experience to prevent cart abandonment, rather than simply reacting afterward or providing discounts to keep customers in the store. Behamics AI analyzes the shopper’s behavior to understand why they are visiting the store, why they would abandon their cart, and how to convert them into a successful sale.
There are many reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. Behamics predicts those reasons and takes preventive action by displaying behavioral science-based messages to help the shoppers avoid adding the wrong products to their cart while shopping in the store.
Behamics’s novel approach for dealing with cart abandonment has proven successful with various major retailers. If this solution sounds like what your business needs, feel free to ping us anytime!
