What is digital shopping cart abandonment?

Digital shopping cart abandonment is when a prospective customer visits an ecommerce store, begins the shopping process, and adds items to their online cart, but does not complete the purchase. Most cart abandonment indicates a confusing checkout process, and can be caused by a variety of related issues, including unexpected shipping costs, an unclear return policy, and requiring shoppers to create an account to complete their order.

Reducing cart abandonment rate

Shopping cart abandonment rate can be calculated by dividing an online retailer’s total amount of completed transactions by its total number of created digital shopping carts. Monitoring ecommerce cart abandonment for your store, and conducting A/B testing to identify the reasons your shoppers abandon their carts, can provide key insights into issues with your sales funnel and/or checkout flow. Depending on the nature of the issue, improving the user experience via solutions like offering a guest checkout option, providing promo codes, optimizing online shopping for mobile phones, and offering free shipping or clarity around shipping pricing and returns policies can help reduce cart abandonment rates and increase conversion rates.

Abandoned cart recovery emails 

In addition to using strategies to reduce cart abandonment, online retailers can also attempt to recover abandoned carts. Cart abandonment emails are one key way marketers can improve their checkout completion rates. Here, the retailer can send a customized email with a direct link to the customer’s cart and checkout pages so they can complete the purchase as they left it. At this stage, ecommerce businesses can also provide further incentives, such as free shipping or deals on specific items in their carts, to encourage customers to complete their purchase. These abandoned cart recovery emails are another strategy ecommerce retailers can use to improve conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

What is upselling?

Upselling is a sales tactic that offers customers a personalized product recommendation, based on their intended purchase, that provides more benefits for a price increase. By definition, an upsell is a way to encourage customers to purchase an item of higher value. Typically, the primary goal of upsells is to increase average order value, revenue, and customer lifetime value for ecommerce businesses. However, companies can also use upselling to increase buyers’ satisfaction, boost customer engagement, and increase brand loyalty.

An upsell is most effective when targeted toward existing consumers with confidence in your store. Due to the relationship-based nature of the repeat purchases they offer, subscription businesses are uniquely suited for upselling opportunities. 

The difference between upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling are both important sales techniques for increasing AOV and customer LTV for ecommerce businesses. Both upselling and cross-selling recommendations have the potential to streamline the shopping experience for customers, and both should be highly customized to fit shoppers’ needs. However, while an upsell aims to convince customers to purchase higher-quality products or services at a higher cost (upgrades), a cross-sell aims to add related items or services (add-ons) to a customer’s order. 

Upsell strategies for ecommerce businesses

Merchants can offer upsell opportunities on an individual product page or customized cart page, via pop-ups or follow-up emails, and even on the customer portal. Tailoring these product recommendations as much as possible to fit the customer via product recommendation quizzes, customer data, and analytics increases the probability of an effective upsell. Modifying your site functionality to accommodate these upsell suggestions will allow you to showcase items on your product pages, checkout pages, and the other key areas of your online store. 

Being upfront about the value propositions of a product upgrade is also important, with supplemental educational materials if customers are newer to the offering to improve the customer experience. With effective cross-selling and upselling options, your business can improve AOV and LTV while creating a more personalized shopping experience for consumers.