How to Handle Abandoned Carts that Don’t Result in SalesAs customers browse your products, it’s not uncommon to add products to cart without making a purchase. Unfortunately, the average abandoned cart rate is 72%, which can seriously take a bite out of your profits. While frustrating, there are solutions to help this happen less often while having more successful transactions. In this two-part series, we’ll show you to handle abandoned cart situations that don’t result in sales. Why Do Customers Abandon Carts? Before we dive into effective strategies for handling abandoned carts, it helps to know why people abandon carts in the first place. There are several common reasons:
The good news is that there are ways that you can reach out to abandoned cart customers and alleviate their concerns. Reaching out to Abandoned Cart Customers: Time is of the Essence There is a strategic process for reaching out to abandoned cart customers, especially if you want to do it effectively. Timeliness is important when it comes to reaching out. You’ll want to act quickly, as the experience at your online store will be fresh in the customer’s mind. Meanwhile, a timely outreach can help tap into the purchase mindset. A customer might still have the idea of an item or shopping on their mind, making it easier to lead them back to the cart. Another important note to keep in mind is accessibility. The customer might still be on their computer or on their phone. If this is the case, it can be a quicker and easier process to finish the purchase. Best Practices for Abandoned Carts: Customer Outreach Now that you know the importance of timeliness, it’s time to think about best practices to put into action. One of the most popular ways to reach out to customers with abandoned carts is via email. Abandoned cart emails can be quite effective when used correctly, helping you to regain up to 14% of your sales. You’ll want to send the email within the first 2 hours of the abandoned cart occurrence. If this doesn’t yield a response, send a follow up email 24 hours later. In the email, you’ll want to include a photo of the item that the customer is considering. This approach will get the item back on the customer’s mind. Providing a link to their cart can give them quick access to make the final purchase. If you still find yourself having a hard time with abandoned carts, this is a chance to add a discount to the product or offer free shipping. Since unexpected costs can contribute to abandoned carts, this is one way to address the issue. For part II of our abandoned cart series, we’ll discuss tools to use for abandoned carts. These automated suggestions will help save you time with the ultimate goal of customers finishing their transaction. Photo by David Clarke on Unsplash
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Meet Shoploop, Google’s latest toe-dip into creative digital selling. It’s been called everything from a “Tik Tok for shopping,” to a new version of an old idea, to the next hottest thing in the future of online buying. Some even liken it (for better or worse) to telemarketing for ecommerce.
Somewhere in the middle may work. It goes without saying that the younger generation of consumers is already fully on board with video. They’ve cut their teeth on it, be it through large-screen gaming to Instagram feeds. That captive audience is fruitful, but older shoppers are also taking to the medium in large numbers. The upshot is an intriguing way to personalize and expand your marketing. The Google surge to dominate online buying explores the spiking reliance on video to entertain and inform, turning the tables and using it as an ingenious way to offer detailed visual and audio product information. Shoploop is under the Google “Area 120” umbrella, which explores ways to expand its reach into ecommerce. Unlike close competitors and platforms, its video services come grouped, eliminating the need for multiple apps. At rollout, its focus is on the obvious sectors such as clothing, cosmetics, and skin care. Expansions are inevitable as the trend catches on. For seasoned ecommerce sellers, those struggling through their first year, or even newbies, the decision on how and where to peddle your goods is critical. Everyone is familiar with the colossal platforms Amazon and eBay, Shopify, and more. They offer a vast audience full of potential customers. They also offer an almost insurmountable level of competition.
You aren’t stuck with them. Using good research skills, you can pinpoint an alternative market. We have some tips for exploring product-specific markets, or those that are best suited to your business. The importance of choosing the right platform relates to the reason they exist in the first place. Ecommerce stores allow you to collectively manage products, offer promotions and sales, personalize the sales and service experience, and access analytics to see what is and is not working. Completely customizable, the best of these facilitate personalized content. In short, you can create a brand for yourself without investing in and counting on a solo website. You’re a smart e-commerce retailer with quality, stylish home decor items in a variety of design themes. From classic to trendy, you have the perfect solution to update any boring decor. The orders should be pouring in, right? But they’re not where you want them to be, for sure. Customers can’t buy if they can’t find you.
SEO is both more important and more complex than ever. Technology advances in AI and voice commands make older techniques obsolete. You need to rank high on search results to make more sales, but how? What if we told you some of the best tools to help you boost SEO (and sales!) were FREE? I’m serious, and promise, we don’t work for any of these companies. We just think some of these are likely to become your favorites, too. We're going to do a little something different on the blog this week... Something that popping up on our radar more and more is stolen content. This isn't specifically our wheelhouse, but Greg Secrist and Search Engine Journal did a really fantastic job summarizing and providing options to stop content theft. So we're going to send you there to read more. Is Your Content Stolen? Here's What You Can Do A Google search turns up plenty of results on this topic - lots of them are worth the time and effort find and read.
One more resource we found useful -- there's a WikiHow that talks about prevention and some easy deterrence methods that we think are going to be useful. Check it out here: WikiHow Got a story to share or advice to pass along about protecting against and dealing with stolen content? We'd love to hear about in the comments. If you host your website on a WordPress CMS, you may or may not be aware of the enormous supply of valuable plugins that you have access to. With more than 55,000 plugins available for seemingly everything about your website, it can be very tricky to identify the most ideal options for improvement. Here, we’ll highlight the five plugins most valuable for satisfying and managing SEO needs.
First, let’s start with big-picture, all-in-one plugins. It’s hard to talk about WordPress SEO plugins without looking at Yoast SEO. Since 2008, it’s been available as an all-in-one solution for improving SEO, with a variety of tools and features geared toward pushing sites toward the top of the search results. It includes templates to ensure you’re correctly handling titles and meta descriptions, while also helping to focus in on writing SEO-friendly content. A favorite feature is its snippet preview, which allows you to see how your pages appear in search results, before publishing them. Additional content is available through Yoast SEO Premium. Happy New Business Year
If you think the pace for technological change is mercurial, you are absolutely correct. With the digital platform came a seemingly endless array of possibilities to make things bitter, better, and more voluminous. If you run a business that is centered around the internet, your need to keep up with these changes can’t be overstated. One of the most distinctive will be a need to confront a change in the way people access the internet. Mobile devices are quickly topping desktop and laptop computers as the consumers’ go-to media, so it stands to reason that 2018 will see a significant transformation. If Google moves on this and makes 2018 the year of the mobile-first index, you won’t want to be behind the 8-ball. Keyboards rank far differently when it comes to mobile versus desktop content, and showing up in searches may require you to update your SEO strategy. Many SEO experts foresee a move toward “dense content,” or a reduction in volume that still manages to preserve the information you want out there. This is consumer-driven; if potential customers are tired of wading through scads of overused copy, you may just lose a sale. Keep Everyone on the Same Page
Maybe when your ecommerce business was just getting started, one person was doing all the marketing and social media, plus a whole bunch more. It’s easy to create and maintain a voice for your brand in this circumstance. But when your business grows, so does the needs for some formalized processes. Why A Style Guide The short answer to the why a style guide question is a consistent and clear voice to best represent your brand. The long answer depends a bit more on the specific needs of your business. A style guide can become the foundational building block of your entire social media and marketing strategy. Your style guide can easily become one of the most important and informative documents you create. Ultimately, your goal should be to create a go-to document that is constantly evolving with your business. Your ecommerce social media arsenal simply isn’t complete without a strong presence on Instagram. Drawing a diverse audience that stretches from Boomers to those not quite ready for a driver’s license, Instagram is a powerful tool in your social media portfolio.
But you know this. And you’re there. You’re already making the most of your Instagram, right? Maybe. But there’s a good chance there are features you’re missing. Features that could boost your scope and help you reach more of your target audience. There’s no fitting room to detour into while shopping online. Most sites allow shoppers to place items in a “cart” before proceeding to checkout, but there’s no mirror to help ensure that jeans or shoes are going to fit in a flattering way.
For the convenience of browsing the seemingly endless online marketplace from their couches at home, Internet shoppers have surrendered the convenience of being able to try something on before purchasing it. Image quality is what consumers rely on to fall in love with an item that isn’t tangible for them until their credit card has been processed, and they’ve waited for it to arrive at their door. |
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