Even if you provide a rich, engaging e-commerce experience, there is still one adversary that costs all shop owners $18 billion in lost revenue each year: shopping cart abandonment. It’s a critical concern for e-commerce store owners as $4 trillion worth of merchandise is predicted to be abandoned in digital carts by the end of FY 2022. 

The biggest adversary needs the most engaging channel, WhatsApp. WhatsApp has over 2 billion users and over 500 million daily views which makes it highly unlikely for anyone who visits your website/app to not use WhatsApp. And with over 98% open rate, they are also sure to read the message. With numerous benefits and gaining popularity every day, WhatsApp is the best bet for cart abandonment recovery.

Cart abandonment

“cart abandonment is a term used to describe visitors adding items to their online shopping cart, but exiting without completing the purchase.”

To be fair, many cart abandonments are just a result of how people browse e-commerce sites – many users will undertake window browsing, price comparison, saving things for later, researching gift alternatives, and so on. Cart abandonment is nearly always unavoidable.

Cart abandonment rate:

To calculate your shopping cart abandonment rate, divide the number of customers that add an item to a shopping cart by the total number of completed transactions. Then, subtract this value from 1 and multiply by 100. 

Cart abandonment rate and your businesses:

Cart abandonment can not be eliminated. All you have to do is get it lower than your competition. Listed below is the grading system based on cart abandonment rate across multiple industries in 2022. You can compare how you perform against others and strive for as low a rate as possible.

Reasons for Cart Abandonment

Based on a study done in the retail sector, the following were the most common reasons for cart abandonment:

• 34% were ‘just looking’ i.e. not ready to buy.
• 23% had an issue with shipping.
• 18% wanted to compare prices.
• 15% decided to buy in-store instead.
• 6% abandoned due to a lack of payment options.
• 4% experienced a technical issue.

Metrics and KPIs that Hippo can help you track

Below are the main KPIs to track to understand shopping cart abandonment rates:

• The number of abandoned cart items: The number of items in the shopping cart at the time of abandonment.
• Abandoned cart value: The monetary value of the entire shopping cart that has been abandoned.
• Time to complete order: The total time it takes customers to finish their checkout from the moment they begin browsing items.
• The transaction path length: The number of steps or pages a customer goes through on their journey, from browsing to a completed sale.
• Shopping cart load times and responsiveness: The time it takes for an item to be added to a shopping cart after it is selected.
• Checkout page load time: The length of time it takes for your checkout page to load and how responsive it is to shoppers.
• Traffic source: The site/source your customer came to you from.

How to recover cart abandonment through WhatsApp by using Hippo

Hippo is a customer support and marketing automation tool that helps you engage with your customers on a personal level and provide them with a delightful experience. With WhatsApp integration, now you can run campaigns and provide real-time support to your customers on their phones.

Providing a single place for every interaction with your brand will help customers build trust and increase brand value.

Personalised reminders and campaigns

Follow up with customers on WhatsApp after checkout abandonment with cart recovery messages. Remind them that they haven’t finished their purchase and give them the option to continue where they left off. Learn about the reasons they left and offer the same. Consider adding a link that redirects them to the same stage they were at before they left the cart abandoned.

You can also notify your customers of upcoming or live offers and sales on WhatsApp. It is unlikely for them to miss the campaign on WhatsApp. If they have any queries, they can be resolved there too. You can create campaigns using various types of media like images, videos or GIFs beside the text and the campaigns won’t go into spam either.

Provide offers and vouchers

Offering a little discount is another effective technique to attract customers to return for another transaction. Some customers chase deals. If they can’t find a coupon or promotional code, they will go and look for one elsewhere.

According to Statista, a full 8% of customers cite not being able to find a coupon code as the primary reason for abandoning their cart – opting instead to wait until one shows up and try and find a better deal elsewhere.

You can send them coupon codes on WhatsApp along with the link to get back to the cart. WhatsApp is ideal for sending coupons and vouchers reason being it will be definitely read, unlike email which could be missed. And if they decide to buy sometime later, they don’t have to look for a needle in the haystack of emails. The chat will be available a few clicks away.

Be sure to add a time frame to the coupon or offer so as to motivate them to buy at the earliest. And you should not always offer coupons otherwise customers will start leaving your carts for the very reason that you will be providing them coupons

Provide Customer Support

Lastly, lack of support is detrimental to shopping cart abandonment rates.

Customers expect service and convenience. A study conducted by LivePerson found that 83% of online shoppers want help while they are on site. 51% said they are more likely to purchase if they had customer support during the session.

You can provide customers with real-time support on the website itself or on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a better way because even if the app or site is closed, the conversation can continue and customers can visit again.

Conclusion

Hippo can be a one-stop solution for all your customer engagements from managing campaigns to real-time customer support. With the latest free integration of WhatsApp, it strives to create an omnichannel experience across all touchpoints. if you want to know how Hippo can cater to your business’s needs, click here and book a free demo.