Cart Recovery: Boost Sales Using Email

A customer arrives to your online shop and starts building a shopping cart. After going through your products the customers proceeds to check out with a cart full of items.

There are many ways to increase the conversion rate in eCommerce. You can find a lot of ideas even in this blog without looking any further. This time, I would like to talk about a painful thing for all retailers – the abandoned shopping cart. According to recent Baymard data, the rate of abandonment in eCommerce is 68.55%. It means that only 3 out of 10 customers successfully checkout. One of the top reasons why it happens is the indecisiveness of the customer. What a pity, right? So how can we extra motivate the customer and increase the success rate? The solution could be sending an abandoned shopping cart email.

What is an abandoned shopping cart email?

It is an automated email which is sent by your email service provider to your customer who has recently abandoned his/her shopping cart. The email would highlight the same items from his/her cart, as well as encourage the customer to complete the order. You probably won’t believe it, but the results of these kinds of emails are incredible – the revenue in $ of cart recovery email is many times bigger than of any other promotional email.

The e-commerce email service provider places the cookies into the customer’s browser. After he/she has abandoned the store without making a purchase, a cart recovery tool sets up the consumer’s order, packs it into the email, and in one hour after the abandonment, sends it ready-made to the client as a friendly reminder to proceed with the purchase.

Let’s analyze one online store that sends cart recovery emails.

Brand name: SOUTHERN FIN APPAREL

The Subject Line: Don’t leave!

The Open Rate: 41.99%

Number of Subscribers: 1000-5000

The Southern Fin Apparel is a growing online store that sells clothing for guys that love fishing.

For abandoned cart emails, this brand uses:

• A good looking, branded email template, and a well-placed logo.
• An offer of free shipping. By the way, unexpectedly high cost for shipping is one of the top reasons for cart abandonment. So free shipping as an extra incentive to accomplish the purchase is a smart move!
• A short copy with a slight ‘hurry’ message
• Photos and a short description of the abandoned items (these are added automatically from the store)
• Clear call-to-action buttons

Southern Fin Apparel has been sending abandoned cart emails for seven months. You can see the variation below.

Revenue through their email marketing channel over this period has increased on average by 33%.

Cart recovery series

If you do not believe in one abandoned cart email, try out a series of emails. According to the Omnisend practice, the best cart recovery series works when the first email goes one hour after the cart has been abandoned, the second in 12 hours, and the third one in 24 hours. Every email can offer different incentives, for example, the 1st email can kindly remind a client about the abandoned shopping cart, the second can offer free shipping, and the third one – free shipping and a special discount. If the customer is convinced to buy from the first email, he/she won’t get the other ones. Read more about abandoned cart emails, as well as cart recovery series.

An example of cart recovery series

Brand name: Monabello

The subject lines of the Cart Recovery Series:

1. Still Shopping? You have items left in your cart
2. Do not miss! Your chosen items will sell out very quickly
3. Final reminder: what about those items in your cart?

The Open Rate: 43.31%

Number of subscribers: 5000-10000

Monabello.com sells electronics and accessories for smartphones. This brand uses a series of three abandoned cart emails. Over the last eight months, Cart Recovery emails have brought 29.5% growth for all orders through the Omnisend channel and 26,5% in revenue.

1st email. 1 hour after cart abandonment.

2nd email. 12 hours after the cart abandonment.

3rd email. 24 hours after the cart abandonment.

It offers a 15% discount as an incentive to buy. In the case of Monabello, this email is the most effective of the entire series.

Additional value of cart recovery emails

You re-engage the consumer that left your store without buying. Statistically, it helps to increase the conversion by up to 20%. Cart recovery emails help to bring the customer back to the online store and purchase. Make sure that the email contains all important data calling to buy: big images of the items, a clear message about the refund, shipping price, etc. If the customer has forgotten or has had any doubts about the necessity of this item, it is your chance to remind and convince them.

Some of the email service providers, including Omnisend, offer ready-made templates for such emails, so you don’t have to worry if you lack confidence.

1. Using a cart recovery solution enables you to better understand your customers’ behavior, as well as gain information that is not on the website. Maybe in your case, a too big shipping price is the reason why customers stop themselves from buying, and a free service offered in the email removes all of the boundaries from purchase.
2. Active communication with customers strengthens your brand position in their heads.
3. According to statistics, only 19-20% of merchants do follow up actions to customers after they abandon their online stores. So this can be your competitive advantage!

Think about your growth. The more visitors come to your store every day, the more abandoned carts you will have. Why don’t you start retaining customers by sending a friendly reminder about the items they are already interested in?