Shipping as a cart abandonment factor for e-commerce

cart abandonment rate and shipping
Author Magda Miler
Updated:
2022-05-04
Reading time:
3 minutes read

Let’s talk about how customers put items into the cart and leave them. Why clients abandon checkouts? The number of cart abandonments has been worrying shop owners for a long time. Now we know exactly what is the reason of the numerous cancellations of purchases. Let’s see how we can resolve this problem.

The troubling relationship between cart abandonment and shipping

Research from Baymard Institute provides us with the information that about 70% of carts are abandoned. This is a lot of missing clients and a lot of money. Why do customers resign then? Shipping is the answer.

Let’s get into the customer’s shoes. He or she has already put items into the cart. They are on the way to purchase, but suddenly, they see a surprising shipping cost. Nobody has mentioned it before. So, the anger and disappointment are very normal feelings in a situation like that. But they also have their results – cart abandonment. Hidden extra cost are on the top of reasons for abandonment.

cart abandonment rate and shipping

How to reduce cart abandonment with better shipping options?

Shipping is a huge and important factor when it comes to increase of sales in e-commerce. So if you find yourself in an online shop with numerous cart abandonment issues, you need a good solution. Read more, and you will learn a few ways on how to increase the sales and reduce the cart abandonment.

1. Real-time shipping cost calculation

You have two options: surprise your clients with the extra cost after they add items to the cart or give them the same price which they saw on the product page. Which do you choose?

The updated cost in real time on the product’s page seems like the easiest way to mitigate the issue of abandonment cart. If you want to know how to do it, learn more about live rates plugins. You can also check it out in real life by trying the demo.

UPS WooCommerce Live Rates and Access Points

Offer UPS Access Points support and live shipping rates in WooCommerce.

Download for free or Go to WordPress.org
9,000+ Active Installations
Last Updated: 2024-04-18
Works with WooCommerce 8.5 - 8.8.x

2. Free shipping for subscribers, members or regular customers

Would it make your clients feel unique if you gave them free shipping? You can create rules based on user role and owing to it giving them benefits. For example, subscribers, members, regular clients or VIPs could expect free shipping.

If you’re wondering how to implement this solution, try the Flexible Shipping PRO. With this plugin, you can create rules based on the user role and do a lot more.

cart abandonment rate and shipping

3. Rescue a cart abandonment with email sequence

Not all is lost even if your client’s abandoned the cart. Can you improve this situation? Try to send them encouraging messages with code to come back for free shipping.

4. The more shipping options, the better shipping options

Everyone likes having a choice. Your clients too. So give them more than one shipping option. With integrations of few suppliers (DHL, UPS, FedEx) you give customers a chance to choose an option – cheapest or more expensive, same-day or next-day delivery.

5. Free shipping threshold

How to encourage customers to buy a little item in exchange for free shipping? A free shipping threshold is a good and easy tip to increase sales in online shops. Here you can learn more about display remaining amount to free shipping in WooCommerce. You can try this functionality with Flexible Shipping PRO.

As you can see, cart abandonment is a huge issue in e-commerce and in most cases it is a result of not sufficient shipping options. If you want to change the number of abandonments, try our tips and reduce abandonment rate. And remember, improving conversion rate is a challenge, so you should provide a few experiments with different shipping options – for instance with free shipping for members or real-time calculation of shipping cost. Then you will see what works or not.

Comments
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Check out our case studies

Octolize Case Study
EnglishSpeakingMum’s Story

Read Octolize Case Study about EnglishSpeakingMum – Polish dedicated and involved parenting blogger.

2 minutes read
Octolize Case Study
Vitrek’s Story

Read Octolize Case Study about Vitrek – a provider of innovative global solutions for High Voltage Test and Measurement.

2 minutes read