How to Overcome Order Page and Shopping Cart Abandonment

People exiting from your order page or abandoning your website when they have an item in their shopping cart is a big problem.

Typically abandon rates can be anything from 50% to 80% depending on what you sell.

But whatever your rate is, you want to reduce it, because this can make a massive difference to your sales revenue and profits.

Want to easily cut your abandon rate by 10%, 20% or more?

There are lots of strategies that can reduce your abandon rate and recover lost sales, but some like retargeted ads cost a lot of money.

But why wait until later or spend your money on retargeting?

A simple exit popup can do the job before your customers have even left your website. As their name suggests they detect when a customer is about to leave and instantly display a popup.

Obviously, you won't stop everyone leaving without buying. But you'll definitely cut your abandon rate and increase your sales revenue.

Exit popups are far cheaper and more cost effective than expensive retargeting strategies.

Who do you need to target to get better results?

New and returning visitors and existing customers who try to exit your website when they're on an order page or your best sellers or top deals page.
Anyone who tries to abandon their shopping cart with at least one item in it.
Everyone who abandons your checkout at any point in the process.

How to make abandon rates fall and boost sales revenue?

To start with you need to find out why people are exiting and then persuade them to continue with their purchase right now.

If you already know exactly why people are abandoning their orders / shopping cart, then you can address this directly in your popup. You might want to:

Answer any typical objections that customers have (or provide links), and tell them why they should buy.
Allow customers to contact you directly if they have questions, this could be by email, phone, SMS, chat, etc, as appropriate.
When customers don't trust you, highlight reviews, testimonials, warranties / guarantees, free samples / demos / reports.
Include a button that takes customers back to your order page or checkout page, so they can buy now.
Always ensure that there is an option to exit from the popup, either a button or a clickable link, plus a large cross (top right).

When price is a major factor, a good offer / incentive in your popups can sway customers, such as:

A flat rate or percentage discount if they buy now, especially when they're a new customer, we'll explain why below.
Discounts for buying larger quantities or multiple items, again they must buy now to secure the discount.
If you offer free delivery / shipping above a certain spending level, but a new customer didn't qualify, offer it to them now as a one-time offer.
A free gift for new customers if they buy right now.
Increase the urgency by adding a countdown timer to your popup.

Creating scarcity and urgency in your popups (if that's possible), such as one-time offers / discount, make people want to buy now. Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) has been proven to drive up sales revenue.

Why new customers are so vital to boost sales revenue?

Specifically, you should target new customers that have never bought from you before. You may only have one chance; they may never come back.

Without new customers, your sales revenue is likely to fall, because some of your existing customers will stop buying each year.

New customers are typically far more expensive to attract to your website than existing customers. So, if you don't want to waste your money, pay particular attention to abandoning new customers.

But, after you've got them to buy once, they're likely to buy again from you.

How to survey exiting visitors and get better sales results

Getting feedback from exiting visitors allows you to improve your website, your offer / sales pitch, the customer experience, etc, leading to far higher sales revenues and profits.

When a visitor tries to abandon your order page / shopping cart, you can open a survey popup to find out why they are leaving without buying.
Alternatively, if you open the popup with your contact details, testimonials, etc, then you can open a survey popup if they tap / click on an 'exit' button or the cross (top right).

Your survey popup should:

Ask them why they didn't buy today, giving them a choice of multiple answers, plus a box where they can enter free form text.
Make it easy for them to exit without completing the survey if that's what they want.
Reward everyone that completes your survey with a free gift / special report or a small discount off their next purchase, whatever would be valuable to them.
Signpost this incentive at the start of your survey to encourage people to complete it.
The small cost of any incentive such as a discount or free gift will be more than made up for by the extra insight you get into your customers and their needs.

There is a risk that taking them to a survey rather than letting them exit when they expect to might annoy the customer. But you have to balance this against the important feedback you'll get from a survey.

Great new ideas that help you save lost sales

There's lots of clever stuff you can try, but make sure you've covered the basics first.

Just having an exit popup may be all you need to start with, and this can certainly reduce your abandon rate and increase your sales revenue.

But once you have an exit popup here are a few other ideas to try:

If they're close to your free delivery minimum spend and they try to exit, remind them that they only need to spend a bit more (or just offer them free delivery).
Always save their shopping cart and when they return display a popup reminding them they still have item/s in their cart.
After they've exited, send them a reminder via email or SMS text that they still have items in their cart.
If offering discounts is part of your strategy, then include a discount code with your email / SMS text.

Exit popups give you a second chance to make a sale

Your exit popups are like having a sales assistant that stops a customer from physically leaving your 'shop'.

Sometimes people forget they've added something to their shopping cart / basket. At least if you give them a reminder, they might buy.

Whilst if people leave your order page, it may just be that you didn't answer their questions, concerns or objections.

Exit popups allow you to survey your visitors on why they are leaving, answering any questions, concerns or objections.

You can even offer them an extra incentive, such as a discount or a free gift, which will make them more inclined to buy there and then.