Research shows that up to 70% of shopping carts are abandoned by visitors shopping on e-commerce sites,* which represents a huge number of lost sales. Shopping carts are abandoned for all sorts of reasons, as illustrated by the HubSpot graphic at the end of this post, but the main point is that an empty shopping cart means that a potential buyer was interested in a product – say, a couple of books – and then hesitated.
They got to the checkout page, they saw the books they’d put in their carts, and then they began pressing the dreaded “-” or “delete” button until they got to the horrible number of 0.
They got to the checkout page, they saw book(s) they’d put in their carts, and they began pressing the dreaded “-” or “delete” button until they got to the horrible number of 0.
And then, and then … they walked away! The Amazon delivery man came to the door or their kettle boiled. They closed the screen and that was that.
Why, oh why?
Why did that potential buyer get nervous at the checkout? Maybe, especially in the age of Amazon’s one- or two-day free shipping, they emptied their shopping cart because of sticker shock once taxes and shipping made their way into the final bill. Maybe it was the fact that they felt no urgency to buy the book that interested them. “Cool,” they thought, “Now I know and maybe I’ll get it later.” Delete. And maybe the whole process of buying – the time required to enter personal details, nervousness about entering credit card information – seemed too daunting. Delete. Delete.
Here’s the good news. And thank goodness – the above paragraphs are shiver-inducing.
Stop. Wait a Minute!**
On top of ReaderBound’s insanely good, secure checkout process – one page, with “instant checkout” available for those who don’t want to take the time to fill out the form to create an account – we now have a Shopping Cart Alert feature available to publishers. Here’s how it works:
Shoppers do their horrible clicking on the minus button until it gets to 0. But they don’t get away that easily! Before the delivery man rings the doorbell, before the kettle screams, they see a comely message appear at the top of the shopping cart/checkout page. And it looks something like this:
The message catches the potential buyer in a moment of hesitancy, a moment in which they’ve thought better of a purchase but also in which they may still be persuadable. They may stick to their decision to empty the cart. But they may not. They may – used to the impulsiveness and distraction that characterizes so much online shopping – check out the recommended books. They may stay on the site for a lot longer than they would have otherwise and discover more of your books. And they may just buy a book they hadn’t even considered buying before.
In short, ReaderBound allows publishers to potentially recapture a significant proportion of lost sales by persuading visitors to fill up, rather than empty, their shopping carts.
ReaderBound allows publishers to potentially recapture a significant proportion of lost sales by persuading visitors to fill up, rather than empty, their shopping carts.
Contact us to find out more!
* Source: https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
**With thanks to Bruno Mars.
