Recover Abandoned Carts and Win Back Shoppers using SFCC

Written by Divya Shetty

Senior Business Analyst - Salesforce

Shopping Cart abandonment is the perpetual bane of e-commerce owners. It happens when a website visitor leaves the site without completing a purchase. The Baymard Institute's list of 41 different studies, going back to 2006, indicates the average online shopping cart abandonment rate at checkout page to be 69.57%. To put this in perspective, e-commerce brands lose about $18B in sales revenue each year and unfortunately, this is a number that has been increasing. This wouldn’t have been the expected outcome by any e-commerce business, after buying into Salesforce CRM platform. It is important to recognize the customers' psyche to absorb why online shoppers abandon their shopping carts. The reasons for the drop-offs could be many, including:

Reasons for Abandonments During Checkout

  • Raised costs such as taxes, shipping, and other unanticipated costs: Any complementary costs being added when a customer adds an item to the cart make them rethink their purchase. In some cases, customers add items to their cart to view a final total and then proceed.
  • Sophisticated, long-drawn-out Checkout process: The intricate checkout process is one of the prominent reasons customers abandon payment. Each additional facet slows the user from finishing payment and makes it more arduous.
  • Binding account creation rule to checkout: What leads to bad customer touchpoints? Making it mandatory for the users to create an account or register to add items to the cart - breaks the purchase sequence by adding a step.
  • Insufficient payment methods: Shoppers want the convenience of using their preferred payment method- the lesser the options, the more likely they are to abandon.
  • Website performance issues: Major problems with performance such as crashes and errors usually lead customers to seek a better user experience.
  • Security Concerns, Overpayments: Shoppers count that their credit card details, and other monetary and personal facts will be maintained safely and that payments will be processed securely- preventing fraud on an e-commerce store.
  • Tardy/charged delivery and limited shipping options: Delivery being the main component of the e-commerce experience, shoppers expect multiple shipping options based on their sine qua non and on-time delivery.
  • Hand-to-Mouth Return Policy: Shoppers frequently get information on the return policy and warranty of items after appending the cart- causing them to quit and seek a better place to buy the product.
  • Plethoric Upselling: Upselling and cross-selling drive sales and increase e-commerce website average order value (AOV) - However shoppers get distracted from the original purchase and discard the cart series.
  • Better pricing from other e-commerce sites: To get the best deals, shoppers will browse and compare pricing. If they find a better deal with the competitor, they will abandon their shopping cart.

Countless reasons exist, but what is the way ahead?
Steve Jobs once said, "Get closer than ever to your customer. So close, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves"
Your true customers, if they are your target customers, and they are unhappy with you, they are the best source of feedback on your product or service, and you should listen to them always. Every e-commerce avenue needs to understand from a customers point of view, their purchase behavior and inspect to eliminate the various possibilities of cart abandonment. Correcting the process and structure would help shoppers complete the purchase and boost the online store sales & revenue.

Implementing the Salesforce Commerce Cloud Solution

Cultivating a sense of urgency

A sense of urgency on the page always grabs the attention of the shopper. The FOMO works best here and brings about the fear of missing out on offers and special discounts that they were keen on buying.

Displaying all charges candidly

Digital shoppers relate the idea of store success with transparency. The alternative way is by creating a threshold, and customers can bypass the shipping charges or any extra cost.

Incentivize Based on Cart Value

Incentivizing the shopper based on their cart total is where the shoppers would be gratified, accelerating the checkout rates immensely and achieving the ultimate motive.

Exercise Exit Intent Pop-up

There is no harm in urging your shoppers to confirm if they really plan on abandoning their cart with an exit-intent pop-up. The idea is to give them something compelling and irresistible, so they may stay and complete the introduced purchased series.

Targeted abandoned cart email

Retailers can convert more shoppers with a targeted abandoned cart marketing email. These emails are sent to the shopper at set intervals, including pictures of the items they selected, sharing testimonials from other shoppers, guarantee & refund policy information, strong call to action to bring them to the site again. Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud complement each other and effectively use targeted digital marketing.

Enabling Basket persistence feature

Constructing and enabling basket persistence and basket lifetime feature on Salesforce e-commerce for registered and unregistered customers to save shoppers shopping carts. The system clears the cart, by default, when the session times out.

Implementing Abandoned Cart Journeys with Salesforce Marketing Cloud

One of the excellent ways to retrieve shopper's attention and complete the sale. With B2C Commerce and Marketing Cloud, you can handle a few common scenarios:

  • When a shopper does not make a purchase, an email with a purchase incentive is initiated.

  • Click tracking is initiated when the shopper clicks the link in the incentive email.

  • If cases where the shopper clicks the link in the email but does not make a purchase within a configured wait period, a second email can be sent offering a different incentive or something else.

  • If the shopper makes a purchase via that email, that data can be recorded for future reference.

An Abandoned Cart Workflow

To help visualize this cross-cloud journey, observe the handy workflow diagram below. The green boxes happen inside B2C Commerce (e-commerce site), while the orange happens in Marketing Cloud. As you can see, the Personalization Builder Collect.js file is really the "secret element" that enables behavioral marketing. We are not just guessing when someone has abandoned the cart — or waiting "an hour or two" — we actively keep track of the shopper's session length. When that individual visitor's session ends, we start their journey.

  • Commerce Cloud monitors the shopper's behavior via Collect.js and shares it with Marketing Cloud.

  • Marketing Cloud sends the shopper a different coupon or promotion if they decide not to purchase.

  • Marketing Cloud emails the shopper of the purchase history if they decide to make a purchase.

  • The shopper first adds items to their cart but does not check out.

  • Marketing Cloud grabs the shopper’s attention using their preferred channel.

  • Marketing Cloud listens to the shopper's behavior.

  • The shopper gets and clicks on the abandoned cart email received.

  • Marketing Cloud sets up click tracking via this email.

  • Marketing Cloud places shopper on a journey .

What do you assume the cart abandonment rate to be? Well, a 0% cart abandonment rate is an illusion. This can be changed by retargeting abandoners and re-engaging with them to make them return to your online store and complete their purchase. Royal Cyber with Salesforce Commerce Cloud can help you get those cart abandoners back and reduce the abandonment rate. To stay ahead in this digital-first world, get in touch with us today.

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