More Tips for Converting Abandoned Shopping Carts Into Sales

[mandy]

Given more cautious spending among consumers, it’s critical that online merchants do all they can to close the deal once a consumer puts an item into a shopping cart and try to save a sale after the consumer has abandoned a shopping cart. Yet too many e-retailers – 29%-- don’t even know their shopping cart abandonment rate, and 74% don’t communicate with shoppers who have abandoned carts...

The survey report recommends the use of incentives when contacting customers about abandoned carts. 29% of the sites reviewed used incentives, including discount offers ranging from 10% to 15%, conditional free shipping, and dollars off purchases meeting a defined dollar amount. Another tip for transforming abandoned carts into sales: Don’t stop at one reminder. Of the merchants who sent e-mails after a cart was left, 14% sent a second notification an average of 5.5 days later, and 50% of these included an incentive...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=28612

[mandy]

A related article:

To summarize, here is a list of nine tips for preventing shopping cart abandonment:

  1. Establish a strategy for saving items in your cart.
  2. Ensure that real-time inventory messaging is found on the product page and in the shopping cart.
  3. Message cart strategy to ensure customers know when and if their cart will be cleared.
  4. Review abandonment opportunities.
  5. Understand current technology's ability to trigger abandonment e-mail.
  6. Send multiple e-mail reminders spaced so as not to be annoying.
  7. Use incentives to save the sale.
  8. Include merchandising tactics to foster the customer relationship and encourage purchasing beyond the abandoned item.
  9. If abandonment is due to out-of-stocks, consider a stock alert capability.

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions...hp/3788976