Bloomreach

Bloomreach is the world's leading Commerce Experience Cloud, empowering brands to deliver customer experiences so personalized, they feel like magic.

Mountain View, United States
Founded: 2009
Staff: 850
More
Less

This promoted content is produced by a publishing partner of Open Mic. A paid-for membership product for partners of The Drum to self-publish their news, opinions and insights on thedrum.com - Find out more

How marketers can rescue the abandoned cart with customer relationships

November 1, 2022

A recent study found the average cart abandonment rate across all industries is 69.99%, showcasing a massive hurdle for retailers looking to drive e-commerce growth within a particularly challenging economy. In fact, abandoned carts were found to cost e-commerce brands about $18bn in sales per year.Yet an abandoned cart can actually offer substantial opportunity for marketers to build better customer relationships.

Here, Bloomreach highlights what’s often overlooked when it comes to abandoned carts, and how a different approach can turn them into even greater opportunities for lasting customer loyalty.

Redefine the cart

Imagine this: the winter season is approaching and you receive an email from one of your favorite stores about their upcoming seasonal sale. Browsing the site, you add a dress you’ve been eyeing, a jacket in your size, and a pair of jeans. The next logical step would be to check out – the shopping journey is complete and seamless. But as most marketers know, this isn’t always the case.

Instead, you might become distracted, clicking to another site and looking for similar items. You might switch to the mobile app to see if they offer a promotion on that item. You might decide you actually don’t need to be spending any more money this month. Your cart is abandoned, and retailers see this as the end of your journey.

That’s where the misconception lies. The cart, whether abandoned or converted, isn’t where the customer journey ends. In fact, how customers view their digital shopping cart has shifted quite a bit with the rise of e-commerce, changing the role it plays in the overall buying journey. Many see the cart as more of a wish list, rather than a commitment, and use it as a place to store items they may come back to in the future. The cart is also a major part of the research stage for customers. When customers are adding items to their cart, they are still sifting through options, narrowing down their list, or looking for discounts and promotions.

Reframing the purpose of the cart with this context, marketers can better utilize this ‘research phase’ of the customer journey as an opportunity to gather more information. What customers leave behind offers insight into preferences and behaviors — valuable information that marketers can use to offer more relevant communications and build a stronger relationship with that customer. Rather than seeing the cart as an end, marketers should recognize it for what it actually is: a starting point for continuous engagement.

Abandoned carts should spark conversation, not notifications

An abandoned cart is not the time to stop engaging with a customer, nor is it time to begin a relentless retargeting campaign pushing them to convert. Customers can become frustrated when communication with a brand feels pushy, and constant reminders about an abandoned cart often fall within that category.

Once a customer abandons their cart, instead of streamlining them to checkout, marketers should take the opportunity to re-engage and continue communication with the customer in an organic way. Expand the language you use and encourage a conversation. When you become better acquainted with your customers and figure out the reasons why they might have clicked away from checkout, it’s easier to learn what will convince them to later return and complete their purchase.

For example, if a marketer learns that a customer is a bargain shopper, they might send an SMS advertising an extra 20% off sale items as a part of their abandoned cart campaign, instead of a text that simply says “Hey! You left some items in your cart!” It’s important for marketers to leverage customer and product data in this way so that they can find alternative ways to offer value, whether that be with relevant product recommendations, promotions, or even content to show them how that product could be used or styled.

Because many shoppers are still in their “research phase” when they add items to their cart, it’s an opportunity for marketers to also help their customers buy with confidence. Presenting more product reviews or a “how-to” blog post about the item can go a long way in helping customers understand why they should buy that product. Zeroing in on what’s important to customers once they abandon their carts presents a moment for marketers to truly understand their customers and communicate with them accordingly.

Consider every channel

Marketers are working across multiple channels each day (email, SMS, MMS, website, mobile, etc.) and consumers are no different. Leveraging the omni-channel experience in an abandoned cart situation and communicating with customers in different channels can help streamline their journey to the purchasing stage.

If an abandoned cart email was already sent to the customer, reaching out through SMS or a push notification on the mobile app about upcoming discounts or a free shipping promotion may be the tactic that ultimately re-engages the customer. Offering more information about the item via chatbot could also peak their interest.

The omnichannel experience also serves as a reminder that an abandoned cart doesn’t always translate to a lost customer; it’s very possible that a customer converts on that product in another channel. Utilizing technology that allows for gathering accurate and real-time data on the entire customer journey is critical for this reason. Marketers will be able to see where their efforts made an impact, even if the customer ultimately converted offline or in another digital channel.

Zooming out

The cart abandonment issue remains a massive challenge for retailers, especially with billions of dollars of lost sales stake. However, marketers can play an important role in helping to mitigate this challenge if they reframe the way they look at the problem. From looking at the cart in the context of the larger customer journey to shifting their overall messaging to leaning on their omnichannel experience, there are multiple ways to not only redirect the customer back to checkout but also to build a lasting relationship. An abandoned cart isn’t the end of your customer’s journey, it’s really just the beginning.

Tags

Abandoned Cart
Retailers
Personalization Marketing
omnichannel
revenue
cart abandonment
email
SMS