What is one smart way to get e-commerce visitors who abandon their shopping carts BACK on your site?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Send Email Alerts
Send customers an email after they abandon their cart content, and see if they need help with their order. A day later, send another email offering a discount. Following up with customers with an automated system will convert a nice percentage of them into buyers.
– Josh Weiss, Bluegala
2. Use a Multi-Step Checkout Process
If you build a checkout process that requires customers to create an account before completing their purchase, you can create entire campaigns in your marketing automation software that encourage customers to return and complete their purchase. This can even include phone calls, mailings, text messages and other media formats.
– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes
3. Use Ve Interactive
We have recently begun testing Ve Interactive. They offer a pop-up service when a customer closes his cart. There’s a small discount that remains available for 15 minutes if they actually purchase. Sometimes, all customers need is a little nudge.
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
4. Remarket With Google AdWords
Google will essentially show tailored ads and search results across affiliated websites to those who abandon your site without purchasing anything. This encourages them to return for a second look.
– Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net
5. Send Customized Emails
Send personalized emails with offers especially created to fit purchase patterns. Not only will customers come back to your site to make the purchase, but the coupon offer will also increase your profit margins. For instance, one person may be enticed by 20 percent off, while another may only need free shipping. It closes the sale and keeps a higher profit margin than a generic triggered email.
– Erik Severinghaus, Simple Relevance
6. Tempt Them With Last-Minute Offers
Although they haven’t left quite yet, it’s smart to entice them with a last-minute offer before they abandon their shopping cart. This could be a last-ditch discount offer. However, it needs to be offered only to visitors who have reached the last step of the shopping process — not the first step as a pop-up — because that would be annoying to the site experience.
– Russ Oja, Seattle Windows and Construction, LLC
7. Use a Retargeting Strategy
My suggestion is to make sure that you have a retargeting strategy in place and offer not only deeper discounts, but also greater assurances that your company will provide the best quality and most personable customer service.
– Evrim Oralkan, Travertine Mart
8. Use Content
Many successful e-commerce sites have great content strategies, too. Rather than pummeling a potential customer with discounts, new products that might interest him or last-minute offers to try to get him back to your website, consider sending him an interesting and helpful piece of content. It could be an article or how-to video that will get him excited to be back on your site.
– Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.
