Our goal is to understand how product recommendations helped eCommerce stores.

We know that product recommendations work generally. As Wharton professor Kartik Hosanagar states, "We know these recommendations have a pretty significant impact on consumer choice. For example, at Amazon, they drive anywhere from a quarter to a third of the choices that consumers make."

The first step was gathering data. We aggregated session data from customers who use Barilliance's product recommendation engine.

Seeing a single product recommendation improved the average number of items added to the cart by 13.94%. Interestingly, clicking on a second product recommendation improved the number of items by a similar amount 13.11%, before the marginal improvement dropped off dramatically. Clicking on the third product recommendation still had a massive positive effect over simply clicking two, but at 7.29% increase is just more than half the improvement of clicking on a single recommendation had.

Global cart abandonment over Black Friday weekend came in at 72.5%.

Interestingly, this is significantly lower than the global cart abandonment average last year. In 2016, the average cart abandonment was 77.24%, a full 5 percentage points higher.

The United States experienced the highest levels of cart abandonment at 74.5%.  Meanwhile, Spain had the lowest overall cart abandonment rate at 70.0%.

Here's a quick breakdown of the four countries with the largest presence in our dataset.

Across the board, mobile performed the worst of all devices. At the Global level, mobile 10.7% worse than desktop.

In the United States, this disparity increased to 12.9%. In the US, consumers completed 31.8% percent of their transactions on the computer, while only completing 18.9%

Mobile has taken control of traffic.

Around the world, mobile has surpassed desktop - and in 2018 shoppers will use their mobile devices more than ever. According to comScore, the average shopper in the US spends 71% of their digital time on mobile.

Unfortunately, most studies lump all mobile users together.

Here's the thing...

Not all mobile users are created equal. As tracking tools and advertising platforms mature, we have an opportunity to do more than segment based on mobile or desktop.

We looked at mobile traffic in two major ways. First, has mobile continued it’s march toward traffic dominance in 2017? Second, can we maximize ROI through better mobile segmentation.

This study looked at over 1.4 billion sessions, from 2015 - 2017. To make the data as accurate as possible, we included the most recent companies in each year.

Unfortunately, this means that not all companies are the same from year to year.

Lastly, while some studies lump tablet and phone usage into a single "mobile" metric -  we do not. We separate tablets out into its own distinct category where we include the data. For most analysis, we took out tablet sessions to highlight the differences between mobile and desktop.

The shift to mobile is an unrelenting march. We charted the three major device types (phones, tablets, and computers) from 2015- 2017.

In January 2015, mobile accounted for 19.47% of total traffic. That month, desktop traffic was 346.97% the size of mobile - accounting for 67.57% of customer’s shopping sessions.

That quickly began to change.

In 2015, mobile traffic grew 48.83% while computer traffic dipped 12%.

At the beginning of 2017, customer’s shopped on phones 38.76% of the time. Four months later, sessions on phones eclipsed computers for the first time. 

Today, phones account for 50.48% of all eCommerce traffic. Meanwhile, computers’ share has plummeted from a commanding 67.57% to 41.47% - a 63% drop in three years.

As mobile traffic has grown, more brands have put in efforts to increase conversions from mobile traffic.

The increase has been substantial. The earliest data from our study shows that mobile traffic was only converting at .5%. Since, conversion rates have almost tripled! 

Unfortunately, despite the improvements eCommerce stores are still struggling to convert mobile shoppers at the same rate as desktop ones.

At the start of 2015, a shopper using a computer was 366% more likely to buy during their session than a shopper on a mobile device. However, as more and more brands began focusing on mobile interactions, conversion rates on mobile devices sky-rocketed.

From 2015-2017, mobile eCommerce conversion rates increased 123%.

Despite brands’ progress on mobile, shoppers still convert at a significantly lower rate. Computer shoppers are still almost twice as likely to complete their purchase on a desktop session.​​​​​

There are abundant resources on how to create and improve mobile campaigns.

Unfortunately, most of these articles treat mobile as a single homogenous group. However, today’s tracking and ad platforms can further segment mobile traffic in two significant ways.

First, we can segment mobile by the operating system the device is using (iOS vs Android).
Second, we can segment mobile by the actual device being used (iPhone X, Note 8, Pixel 2, etc.)

This study will focus on the first approach - segmenting mobile traffic by operating system. We look forward to continuing this study using the second approach for further refinement. 

Shoppers on iOS convert at incredibly higher rates than Android customers. While conversion rates increase steadily for both groups, iOS outperforms Android at every period.

However, Android is closing the gap.

At the start of 2016, iOS outperformed Android by 213%. One year later, that lead has shrunk to 160%. By the start of 2018, Android will perform it’s best relative to iOS.

Apple shoppers will still convert (on average) 149% more, but the trend is going towards parity.

Interestingly, while iOS converts a much higher percentage of sessions into purchases, the average number of items per purchase is much closer. Our data shows that Android purchases actually outperformed iOS purchases until the second half of 2017 where Android numbers plummeted.

​
This is in contrast to a few other studies.

For example, study from MOZ shows that Apple users spend almost 3x as much per transaction. 

Although shoppers may buy similar amounts, the conversion rate differences still point to platform segmentation as a massive opportunity. 

As you prepare your mobile strategy for this year, recognize that customer eCommerce behavior continues to move toward mobile.

Mobile should be an integral part in your personalization strategy.

Current best practices include:

This, of course, is just an introduction to obtaining success on mobile. To learn how Barilliance helps eCommerce brands succeed in this changing environment, request a demo here.

Improving your retention rate is a massive opportunity in your business. This article breaks down successful retention strategies by some of the most successful eCommerce stores.

 An often cited study by Bain & Company (in conjunction with Harvard Business School) has said that a 5% increase in retention can improve profitability by as much as 55%. 

​Implementing the lessons learned from these top retention marketing strategies will increase profitability in three major ways:

There are two questions you need to answer to successfully create and implement a retention marketing program.

1)  How many customers are leaving?
2)  Why are customers leaving

​

But before we dive into how the most successful eCommerce stores are utilizing retention strategies in 2018, I want to define what retention marketing is.

Retention marketing is a strategy which focuses on your existing customer base. The goal is create repeat customers, and increase both their frequency of purchase and the average order volume per purchase.

The most popular metric to measure the success of a retention marketing campaign is retention rate.

Retention rate measures what percentage of your customers are retained during a given period of time. It is the inverse of churn rate, which measures how many customers leave during a given timeframe.

If a customer continues doing business with you, they are retained. If they are no longer a customer, than are "churned".

​

The formula, according to Inc., is customer retention rate = ((CE-CN)/CS) * 100, where:

– CE= number of customers at end period

– CN= number of new customers during period

– CS= number of customers at start of period

Determining what a "good" retention rate depends on a number of factors -> your industry, product, switching costs, and business model. 

Advocacy marketing focuses on getting current customers to talk about your product to their friends or network. It depends on capitalizing on positive experiences to not only gain customers, but increase retention.

The RealReal formalized their advocacy marketing with their “Refer a Friend” offer. The program encourages repeat purchases for customers who choose to refer in a number of ways.

1) Consistency Bias - By openly endorsing The Real Real, these customers are more likely to use the service again. This phenomenon is known as the Consistency Bias.

2) Monetary Incentive - Second, this program provides a direct monetary incentive to use the platform again in the form of Store Credit.

A reactivation campaign is a series of messeges delivered to past customers who are no longer engaging with your products or service.

At Barilliance, we focus on personalization above everything else.

Like all retention strategies, to be successful, a reactivation campaign must first identify a specific segment of customers that are about to leave or that have already left, and second, accurately determine why they are leaving and propose a value proposition to overcome this.

One simple example is to set up a rule that sends an email based on recency of visit.

In this example, the segment is “Customers who haven’t visited the site in x days.”. The copy and series of messages should be directly tied to ​why your customer stopped ordering from you.

Return Path conducted a great study on best practices for reactivation campaigns. Some findings include:

Instacart provides a great example of how to conduct a reactivation campaign.

Their first email in the campaign urges the customer to download the app and gives a nice little bonus of free delivery. They also use urgency by putting a clear expiration date on their offer.

When a customer doesn’t bite, Instacart is quick to send follow-up emails. Each day an email is sent. The additional emails do a great job reinforcing the scarcity and developing the value proposition of why they should buy again.

In this example, they identify three ways Instacart benefits you in addition to the free shipping bribe.

At this point, most eCommerce reactivation campaigns are run through. However, Instacart shows how you don’t need to take no as a finality.

First, they empathize with their customer. The copy removes guilt from the transaction. It makes it ok that their first offer wasn’t taken, and gives permission to take advantage of the offer after the expiration date.

As customers continue to decline, Instacart begins builds more reasons for their customers to re-engage.

At the 9th email they introduce a monetary incentive to entice customers to come back. Notice that they use an exact $ amount, per the best practice.

There are two main types of deals eCommerce stores use to drive repeat purchases.

Discounts - Offer products at a reduced price.
Exclusivity - Offer products not normally carried to a particular group.

Hollar is a fast growing online dollar store and do an excellent job leveraging daily deals to drive repeat purchases.

A few tactics that Hollar uses to make their deals more effective are:

Premium memberships are not a new concept.

The most famous example is Amazon Prime. Amazon offers free 2 day shpping (in addition to unlimited streaming through Prime Video as well as the ability to “borrow” books on the Kindle platform) in exchange for a yearly membership fee.

Some estimates say that the average Prime member spends 2x as much as non-prime members.

Thrive’s whole business model revolves around it’s premium membership.

Like Costco, customers sign up for one yearly membership. This membership the primary revenue driver for Thrive, as they sell their products for near cost to their customers.

Thrive Market does an excellent job reducing friction through the signup process. First, they allow you to see exactly how much money you would save by becoming a member. Then, they give you a month free.

This membership design encourages retention in two significant ways. First, because customers pay upfront, customers want to shop more at Thrive to maximize their benefits. Second, Thrive Market’s business model allows them to monetize their customer base in a different way, giving them a competitive price advantage over other online grocers.

Because retention is the most effective way to increase profits, all of these eCommerce brands incorporate multiple strategies.

Here's how Hollar & TheRealReal integrate multiple retention marketing strategies.

We already saw how The RealReal utilizes customer advocacy to boost retention.

They also take advantage of exclusive offers. 

Like Holar TheRealReal uses deals to encourage customers to return. However, instead of providing a straight discount on their products, they focus on providing additional value through credit. 

This makes the retention strategy even more successful. The customer only gets the $100 bonus on their next visit. 

Additionally, TheRealReal leverages memberships to increase the benefits of becoming a loyal customer. 

However TheRealReal's membership model differs from Thrive's in a number of ways. 

First, it is primarily centered on getting "first look" access to new, one of a kind products. Next, it offers multiple tiers to its membership program. 

The first step is to commit to retention. This means tracking your retention rate, selecting a core customer segment to target, and creating retention marketing strategies to improve.

To learn how Barilliance helps eCommerce brands identify priority customer segments and create targets reactivation campaigns, read about our retention marketing product or request a demo here.

RFM Analysis will empower personalized marketing, increase engagement, and ultimately improve sales.

Today, we are breaking down what RFM analysis is, share step by step instructions on how to conduct your own analysis, and share example case studies and next steps to maximize your ROI.

RFM analysis is a customer segmentation technique. RFM itself stands for Recency, Frequency, and Monetary Value.

The central idea is to segment customers based on when their last purchase was, how often they’ve purchased in the past, and how much they’ve spent overall. All three of these measures have proven to be effective predictors of a customer's willingness to engage in marketing messages and offers.

While RFM analysis was born in direct-mail, it is a powerful tool for eCommerce stores to use today.

Conducting an RFM analysis on your customer base and sending personalized campaigns to high value targets has massive benefits for your eCommerce store.

Segmenting your customers with an RFM analysis is easier than it looks.

We are going to break each step down, complete with screenshots & best practices. Keep in mind that your eCommerce brand is unique.

This isn't going to be the best way for your particular business, but it will be a great template for you to iterate on.

Let's begin.

Before you can begin, you need to define the one KPI that matters most to your business for each segmentation: recency, frequency, and monetization.

To do this, you will have to connect your purchase history to each customer, and select a timeframe that you want to work with.

For our example, we are going to use the following KPI's and timeframe.

Recency: Date of Last of Purchase
Frequency: Total Number of Orders
Monetization: Average Order Value
Timeframe: 2 years 

As you will see, RFM analysis is a straight forward process. The goal is to systematically score each customer according to recency, frequency, and monetization. We do that by first rank ordering all customers across our chosen metric, and then scoring them based on how well they perform relative to the other customers in your database.

There are a number of KPI's you can use for Recency.

For this walk through, we are going to use days from last purchase as the primary metric. 

You should intuitively know which metric makes the most sense for your business. Chances are if you are a traditional eCommerce store, date of last purchase will be the metric of choice also.

First, we want to download your client information with your specified KPI's. Here, we simply downloaded this information directly from Barilliance, and uploaded it into a Google Sheet.

Next, we want to clean up the sheet a bit. 

I delete some unwanted columns I forgot to close out: Sessions, Last Seen, First Seen, First Ordered, and AOV.

Next, you are going to add three columns for your RFM scores. Title them across the top "Recency", "Frequency", and "Monetization". 

Finally, I apply a filter on the data to make it very easy to sort across. If you don't know how to apply a filter the process is easy. Select all of your data including your headings (you can do this quickly by holding down shift+command+arrows). 

Once all of your data is selected, click data->filter. 

After you are done, your sheet should look something like this. 

Navigate over to your Recency KPI, and sort the list in the appropriate order. In our case, we go to "Days from last purchase" and sort in descending.

Finally, score each customer according to their position. 

While there a few methodologies for doing this, I've found the easiest and most helpful to be with quartiles. 

Take your total number of customers divided by four. Next, give each quartile a score reflective of the position. 

First Quartile: 1

Second Quartile: 2

Third Quartile: 3

Fourth Quartile: 4

Don't worry too much about getting everything "perfect".  For example, here we have two customers who have both ordered in the last three days. I simply assigned them both a recency score of 1, even though that puts 5 customers with a score of 1 and three with the score of 2. 

At this point, your sheet should look similar to the one below.

The process is very similar for both Frequency and Monetization. 

While we are using the total number of orders over the past two years as our Frequency KPI, there are a number of competing metrics you can select. Some of them include:

As mentioned before, we are going to be using # of orders as our Frequency KPI. Repeat steps 2.b and 2.c, expect use your Frequency KPI as your guiding metric. After scoring, your sheet should look similar to the one below.

Finally, you are ready to knock out the Monetization scores. 

Monetization KPI's include

Awesome! 

At this point you have the analysis done. Next comes the fun part - actually using these newfound insights to identify profitable segments. 

There are many ways marketers have used this segmentation to help guide their marketing. Here are a few ideas to cherry pick from.

RFM Code: 111

Who They Are: Highly engaged customers who have bought the most recent, the most often, and generated the most revenue.

Marketing Strategies: Focus on loyalty programs and new product introductions. These customers have proven to have a higher willingness to pay, so don't use discount pricing to generate incremental sales. Instead, focus on value added offers through product recommendations based on previous purchases.

RFM Code: X1X

Who They Are: Customers who buy the most often from your store.

Marketing Strategies: Loyalty programs are effective for these repeat visitors. Advocacy programs and reviews are also common X1X strategies. Lastly, consider rewarding these customers with Free Shipping or other like benefits.

RFM Code: XX1

Who They Are: Customers who have generated the most revenue for your store.

Marketing Strategies: These customers have demonstrated a high willingness to pay. Consider premium offers, subscription tiers, luxury products, or value add cross/up-sells. Don't waste margin on discounts. 

RFM Code: X13, X14

Who They Are: Customers who return often, but do not spend a lot.

Marketing Strategies: You've already succeeded in creating loyalty. Focus on increasing monetization through product recommendations based on past purchases and incentives tied to spending thresholds (pegged to your store AOV). 

RFM Code: 14X

Who They Are: First time buyers on your site.

Marketing Strategies: Most customers never graduate to loyal. Having clear strategies in place for first time buyers such as triggered welcome emails will pay dividends.

RFM Code: 44X

Who They Are: Great past customers who haven't bought in awhile.

Marketing Strategies: Customers leave for a variety of reasons. Depending on your situation price deals, new product launches, or other retention strategies.

Take action.

RFM is an established, clear way to get more out of your client list. 

But...

If you want to take RFM to the next level you need to consider Barilliance's Retention. It improves traditional RFM analysis in two fundamental ways.

First, it connects your online and offline purchases, web behavior, and demographic data in one place - allowing you to make more accurate segmentations. 

Second, it lets you automate campaigns to defined segments. It connects to Web Personalization and individual email product recommendations to customize each interaction not at the segment level, but at the individual level.

Request a demo for Retention here. 

This is the ultimate guide to abandoned cart emails. 

It is NOT just a collection of tips.

Instead, you will see successful strategies employed by the most successful eCommerce stores of 2018.

Here's the thing.

You need abandoned cart emails. Cart abandonment stats are not good, with some industries losing 83%+ of each sale when asked to put in their payment information. 

But not all emails are the same. Which is why we've collected the tactics and strategies of the most successful retailers, and distilled from them actionable cart abandonment email templates you can use for your own site.

Let's dive in.

Note: This page was originally published in 2016 and updated to reflect the current successful cart abandonment templates of 2018.  

Throughout this article, we are going to be creating powerful cart abandonment email templates.

To do this, we are going to break down a number of successful campaigns up into specific parts. 

Joseph Sugarman, a legendary copywriter who has sold millions of units through direct copy, has a clear lesson on subject lines.

“The sole purpose of the first sentence in an advertisement is to get you to read the second sentence.”

With cart recovery emails, the first sentence is the subject line. It is the single most important part of a recovery email because it is what compels prospects to open and see the rest of your email.

Pouring over abandonment emails, we found four types of subject lines.

These subject lines leveraged some type of incentive to get you to open the email. 

Some were straight to the point.

Bonobos wastes no space (or time) and comes out swinging with an aggressive 20% off incentive. 

Other stores are less direct. One common tactic we saw employed was exploiting curiosity gaps.

Curiosity gaps are powerful mechanisms. CopyHacker showed how using curiosity can increase conversions by 927%, and here we see Everlane dangling a carrot without letting the recipient know exactly what the incentive is.

The next group of subject lines focused on consistency and recognition. 

By using personalization, these subject lines injected the actual products that prospects were looking at in their email, creating a relevant, highly specific lead-in.

Above, The RealReal opens with a simple question and follows with the exact item that was left in my cart.

A few eCommerce brands eschewed offers all together. Instead, they opted for more humanity centered subject lines. 

These subject lines used humor and/or personality to emulate a real conversation instead of a more transactional experience. 

Lastly, a number of retailers used simple, basic subject lines. The beauty in these subject lines is no non-sense, simple call to actions. 

I particularly like how The Honest Company customized their preview text with [OPEN]. 

It's also good to note that Faction Ski's preview text includes a product shout out. 

Almost every single cart recovery email we studied opened their email the same way.

There are a lot of good reasons for this. First, it capitalizes on whatever goodwill the prospective customer has towards the brand.

Second, it provides a consistency in the customer's journey from the eCommerce site to the email. 

Lastly, the benefit oriented copy often makes various appeals to complete the purchase. 

Thrive Market provides a great example of the basic combo.  Like most of the other abandonment emails, the logo is centered and well sized to cover about 1/4 of a mobile screen. 

Thrive Market follows this up by iterating its core value proposition: great products for less. They add great personalization in the email by injecting the exact amount you would save if you complete your purchase.

Finally, they designed an branded CTA button.

The Added Value variation offers a secondary value proposition in addition to their core products. This could be in the form of shipping, exclusive offers, gifts, various discounting schemes, or any other additional value offer.

Bespoke Post is an example of an Added Value variation. Instead of focusing on their core value proposition, they give the prospective customer another reason to complete their purchase: free shipping.

Everlane is an excellent example of how to layer urgency onto the basic combo.

They accomplish this through an expiring coupon. The deadline gives a real, tangible reason to act now instead of putting off the purchase.

The next most common element in abandoned cart emails are cart images. 

While there were a few retailers who did not include product images of the cart, almost all did.

What is more interesting is the way they displayed the images.

Some retailers opted for simple representations of their product, while others chose to include much more information in their widget.

Bespoke offers a great example of a simple, direct cart image. Product name, price, and quantity are all that is needed next to a classic product image.

Detailed cart images include additional information about the product. 

Below, Bonobos shares more than just the name of the product. They include some flavor text, allowing the customer to envision how they will use the product. 

The last major element in cart abandonment emails are product recommendations. 

Many retailers who utilized product recommendations personalized their offers to match what was originally placed into the cart. 

Most of the product recommendation widgets were similar: they had a product image coupled with a product name and CTA button.

But, a few eCommerce stores had unique tactics.

One of my favorite examples is below.

Here, in addition to providing a number of similar products personalized for the shopping session, Bonobos included an enticing category offer of "Editor's Choice".

We've gone over the main individual components of an abandoned cart email.

Now, we are going to explore the most common combinations to uncover the most popular, successful abandoned cart email templates.

This is the most basic cart abandonment email template we found.

The Personal Offer Template works because it strips the email down to the bare necessities: Your brand, reiterated value proposition, and additional cross and up-sale offers designed to get your customers back onsite.

Faction Ski's offers the quintessential Personal Offer abandoned cart email template.

It's short, sweet, and effective.

The Added Bribe Template was the most common cart abandonment email that we found. It works by tacking on an additional bonus offer in the email to get customers to complete their purchase.

Notice how each retailer draws attention to their added bribe through color, section breaks, and enlarged text.

Here we see Bespoke adding Free Shipping to the order with a simple callout. 

As with the next example, it also includes all the characteristics of the Personal Offer abandoned cart email template.

In addition to their standard free shipping, Bonobos offers an additional 20% off to complete your first purchase.

Mouth is our last example of the Added Bribe abandoned cart email.

There were some abandoned cart emails that incorporated many more elements.

Product recommendations.

Unique offers.

Cart Images.

App CTA's.

Site Navigation.

The idea is to offer a mix of immediate incentives and multiple calls to actions to get prospects to click through.

Below, we see an example from Thrive Market. 

The most successful abandoned cart email campaigns include more than one email.

Surprisingly, most retailers we studied did not employ this best practice.

As we shared in our larger  Shopping Cart Abandonment Guide, followup emails can achieve amazing CTRs when you optimize the sending time. 

​​Below, we are going to share how The Honest Company utilizes followup emails to maximize conversions from their abandoned cart campaigns.

The Honest Company keeps the same format for all of their abandoned cart emails. 

The template is simple.

The followup email is an exact replica of the first, simply changing the amount of time remaining for the abandoned cart to expire.

As with the last followup, the next follows the same format with updated text.

Even after the prospect has decided not to buy, The Honest Company persists with an opportunity to redeem their cart.

Technology can make cart abandonment email templates extremely powerful through accurate personalization, and automating sequencing.

Barilliance is built for retailers who want to build cart abandonment campaigns. You can elect to have our machine learning system automatically personalize your emails, or you can set your own specific rules to match your merchandising strategy. 

In short, Barilliance empowers you to create

And a multitude of other powerful features including cross-device continuity, coupon code support, rich segmentation, and email suppression logic. 

Request a demo here.

Cart abandonment emails work.

The problem is that a ridiculous 269 billion emails are sent every single day.

This guide reveals how the best eCommerce stores are getting their abandoned cart emails opened. We reveal cart abandonment subject line  tactics and strategies, along,  with the exact copy, used by the most successful stores of 2018. 

Let's begin.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current cart abandonment strategies retailers are using in 2018.

According to our study covering 200 eCommerce stores worldwide, the highest performing cart abandonment campaigns recovered 40% of revenue! 

The key?

Sending more than one email.

Despite this, the vast majority of eCommerce stores only sent one or two abandonment emails. To maximize conversions,  you don't need to write a single cart abandonment email template. You need to write a minimum of three. 

And the single most important factor of each email is the subject line.

According to Chadwick Martin Bailey, 64% of people open their emails based on the subject line. 

The challenge is, the best cart abandonment subject line is going to change depending on where in the funnel the email comes from.

The best cart abandonment subject lines result in incredible conversion rates.

I’m about to share with you my favorite cart abandonment subject line example.

The Honest Company focuses on natural health and food products, and is currently valued at $1.7 billion.

A huge factor in their amazing success is their ability to maximize revenue from each site visitor. Look at how well they construct their cart abandonment subject lines to compel the prospect to click through and complete their purchase.

I love this subject line for a number of reasons. 

First, it has great voice and tempo. It is short, direct, and upbeat. Second, The Honest Company makes the best use of customized email preview text I saw during the study. 

They employ brackets around an all cap sized [OPENED] to stand out and tease a "to see" with ellipsis for good measure.  

The second email was sent exactly 24 hours after the first. 

It was congruent in tone and voice to the first email. Even though the words themselves were simple, they convey an upbeat, friendly tone. 

Again, The Honest Company makes excellent use of the preview text. 

Lastly, The Honest Company uses a new tactic in their second email - urgency. They accomplish this through an imposed scarcity  of an expiring cart, and the copy centers around the fact that their cart will be expiring soon.

Their third abandoned cart email follows the cadence of the second, triggered to send 48 hours from the first.

Here, the subject line puts even more focus on urgency and loses the friendly tone. Instead, it is more matter of fact, underlining the urgency of the subject line.

Lastly, the preview text is again used to great measure. In this case, The Honest Company hints at an added benefit of free shipping.

While I wish this line was more personalized based on the shopper's cart, it still accomplishes it's goal of imposing time pressure and adding incentive to act now.

The final subject line in the sequence is a last chance email. 

What is most instructive is how persistent The Honest Company is once they have a lead with demonstrated purchase intent. 

Despite the customer not responding to previous emails, they don't give up. Instead, they keep their promise, expire their cart, and invite them to come back. 

The Honest Company used a variety of techniques to create a fantastic. abandoned cart campaign. ​​​​​

As we went over company after company, we saw many recurring themes, tactics, and strategies used. We consolidated the most common subject line types below, and provide a few examples for your swipe file.

In total, we discovered 8 subject line archetypes that retailers used to maximize conversions. 

Incentives work.

You want to be abundantly clear that your prospective customer is getting hooked up with an excellent deal if they complete the purchase. Words such as deal, promotion, % off are all powerful trigger words for price conscious shoppers.

​

Bonobos executes this subject line perfectly.

The bribe is upfront and clear. The call to action is direct, and uses an active verb. Empty your cart - save 20%.

​Accept My Bribe Subject Line Template Examples

Curiosity based subject lines are the exact opposite of the Accept My Bribe types. Instead of being direct and upfront with your offer, these headings get prospects to click through because they pique interest.

​

Everlane lets their prospects know that they are about to receive something. They just won't reveal what that something is until they click through. 

Again, I encourage you to contrast this to the example above as they really are two sides of the same coin. They both focus on creating value, but pull the reader into opening the email in completely opposite ways.

Curiosity Subject Line Template Examples

Consistency and recognition are powerful motivators to complete purchase.

Product shout-out subject lines leverage this to it’s fullest. They are to the point, and resurface the want or need the customer originally had when they placed the product in their cart.

Here, The RealReal uses a simple, friendly tone. They then personalize the subject line with dynamic cart insertion to create a relevant message to their prospect.

Product Shout-Out Subject Line Template Examples

Suggesive subject lines often make use of the Assumption Principal, which underpins the famous “assumptive close”.

The Assumption Principal functions by assuming the customer has already decided to make a purchase. In other words, it implies that the reason the customer abandoned their cart is because they forgot it rather than any other issue, such as costs, shipping, or finding a better alternatives.

Forever 21 gives a standard example. The subject line is simply "Did you forget about me?", and can easily fit for most brands.

Suggestive Subject Line Template Examples

People don’t always appreciate the hard sell.

Simply being nice is a great way to engage prospects on a personal level. These subject lines establish a relationship that is not transactional based. Instead, they focus on being "friendly". 

Chubbies is a great example of this style. The subject line isn't trying to sell anyting.

Instead, it focuses on being human, greeting their prospect the way a friend would great someone they haven't seen in awhile. The body of the email carries the same voice. 

Friendly Subject Line Template Examples

Customer service subject lines actively try and solve customer's problems for not completing their purchase.

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Oftentimes, these subject lines open a conversation with a simple question such as "Was there a problem with your order?" to learn what the issue was.  

Customer Service Subject Line Template Examples

You don’t need to make an offer in the heading to get your abandoned cart email opened.

Humanity centered subject lines work great.  Brand Personality lines do so with a focus on establishing the type of relationship you want with your customer. Oftentimes, these subject lines use humor to emulate a real conversation.

Here, Mouth plays on their name and stays light/playful throughout their copy calling their products "goodies" in the preview text.

If you go this route, make sure that your tone is consistant throughout all of your interactions with your customer.

Urgency and scarcity are often cited as the most powerful psychological ploys to get customers to act.

We see eCommerce brands create urgency in one of three ways.

The first is centered on the cart itself. Sometimes, they set the cart to expire, creating a sense that the customer needs to complete their purchase now. This is the tactic that The Honest Company used above.

Second, retailers create urgency around specific products within the cart. It may be a limited item, selling fast, or approaching out of stock.

Lastly, you can create urgency in your subject lines by pairing it with an incentive. Many retailers create discount codes that are only valid for a limited time to get customers to compete their purchase.

Customer Service Subject Line Template Examples

Below are real examples of cart abandonment subject lines used by some of the most successful retailers in the world.

We've organized the subject lines by industry to make it easier to navigate and compare across industries. We'll be adding to this list over time as we gather more and more examples.

Note* When the email preview text was utilized to complement the subject line, we placed the preview text after a hyphen. 

Company: The RealReal

Email #1: Still Deciding? Your Dolce & Gabbana Three-Button Wool Blazer Is Waiting!

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Company: Warby Parker

​Email #1: Downing might be the one - Shipping and returns are both free

Email #2: Downing felt the Connection

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Company: Bespoke Post

Email #1: You've Left Something Behind

Email #2: Forgetting Something?

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Company: Bonobos

Email #1: Empty your cart with 20% off.

​Email #2: Take 20% off your cart before it’s gone.

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Company: Modern Citizen

Email #1: A gentle reminder...

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Company: Chubbies

Email #1: clocking in

Email #2: Howdy Bud

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Company: Surfdome

Email #1: Thanks for visiting

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Company: Forever 21

Email #1: Did you forget about me?

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Company: Black Milk Clothing

Email #1: Where'd You Go?!

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Company: SurfStitch

Email #1: Reminder: Get Your Items Before They Sell Out

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Company: BooHoo

Email #1: Don't miss out! Your basket expires soon

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​Company: Everlane

Email #1: A Gift For You

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Company: Under Armour

​Email #1: Your Cart’s Loaded & Ready To Go - Free Shipping. No Minimum.

Email #2: UA Curry 4 Low Is Still in Your Cart

Company: The Honest Company

Email #1: Cart Reserved! [OPEN] to see…

Email #2: Don’t miss out! Your cart is expiring soon…

Email #3: Your cart is about to expire - You may qualify for free shipping >

Email #4: Cart Expired - [Items might still be available] - your cart expired!

Company: Urban Skin Rx

Email #1: Stephan, You Forgot Something!

Company: EyeBuyDirect

Email #1: EyeBuyDirect 15% off on your entire order

Email #2: EyeBuyDirect 15% off on your entire order for 24 hours only

Company:  Thrive Market

Email #1: Oops, you forgot something

Email #2: Hurry, the items in your cart are going fast!

Email #3: Complete your purchase now - you made great choices. Check out now

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Company: Mouth

Email #1: You left your Mouth open!

Company: Real Truck

Email #1: There’s something in your cart.

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Company: Shower Pass

Email #1: We saved your cart for you

Email #2: Your cart is about to expire - Still interested?

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Company: FloraQueen

Email #1: Hi Stephan, continue shopping with a discount!

The subject line is the first line of a cart abandonment email. You still have a long way to go. Below are some additional resources for you as you build out your own cart abandonment campaign.

This guide will break down exactly what eCommerce Personalization is, along with real examples and tactics being used by the most successful eCommerce stores.

Personalization is table-stakes in 2018.

Read on to discover how to use personalization to

Let’s begin.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current eCommerce personalization strategies retailers are using in 2018.

Chances are your store now carries more SKUs than anytime before.

It makes sense.

There is more competition, endless shelf space, and an absolute need to match the perfect item to each individual customer.

The challenge?

There is real evidence that presenting prospects with too many options- from product launches, customizations, promotions, and combinations, are overwhelming customers and losing sales.

According to Accenture, nearly 40% of shoppers have left a store to buy from another site because they were overwhelmed with too many options.

Even if they don't leave, almost 75% of your potential customers will be frustrated with irrelevant content or products that are not specific to them.

Further, a study by Evergage shows that 96% of digital marketeres agree that personalization advances customer relationships.

It is your responsibility to help site visitors find the right products. If you don’t, your customers will move onto the next store.

The solution is eCommerce Personalization.

Personalization is the real-time customization of a customer’s buying journey.

Unfortunately, many marketers execute the low hanging fruit and feel that they’re done.  In reality, most are just hitting the tip of the iceberg.

 There are unlimited ways you can personalize your store.

I want to briefly touch on the major ways you can improve your customer's experience. 

By going over the major types of eCommerce personalization, you can begin understanding all the ways you can optimize your customer's journey - from when they first hit your site to after sales service. 

Data is the lifeblood of personalization. 

Depending on your provider, personalization software will use a variety of data points to create the most accurate, highest converting experience for each individual visitor.

Barilliance uses the following types of data:

Website personalization tailors your actual site with dynamic content, messages, visuals, and offers for each individual shopper.

These eCommerce personalization tactics create much more relevant experiences across your entire site.

The three most popular KPI's for website personalization are:

As personalization has exploded in popularity, so has the number of tactics that technology enables.

Today, you can personalize virtually any aspect of your website. However, these are the most essential pieces in terms of impact. 

Offers are the single most important aspect of your site to personalize.

You can customize the product itself, the price shown, impose time limits, or change the supporting copy and visuals supporting the offer.

After you've personalized your offer, you should focus on how you are educating and motivating your prospects while they are on the site. 

Personalize the content that is presented in front of your customers. You can change which featured products are shown, blog posts, downloadable assets, or hero images on any page.

Pop-Ups represent a "second net" or opportunity to progress your prospects when they are about to leave. 

If your site leverages pop-ups, you should optimize conversions by personalizing both the content and offer. All types of pop-ups can be personalized including browse abandonment, on-click, timed, on-scroll, and any other type.

Lastly, Information Bars and other call-out offers continue to be an effective way to maximize value of each site visitor. 

Personalizing information bars can be as simple as offering different shipping rates depending on location to offering higher priced items to returning visitors who are in the top 25% of your AOV in past orders.

It's always best to learn from examples. 

Feel free to add these examples to your own swipe files as effective ways to personalize your eCommerce site and optimize your customer's experience.

Thrive Market is excellent at personalizing every aspect of the customer journey.

During on-boarding, I defined "Paleo" as one of my interests. When I return to the store's homepage, I see a series of offered content from their blog. 

Each post is tailored to my known interest of "Paleo". It is a perfect example of how to execute personalized in-line content.

Saving time and removing friction is one of the best uses of personalization. 

This is crucial when your store serves multiple locations. Here, Butterfly Twist pulls the IP address of my computer and personalizes the product page to default to American sizes.  

Today product recommendations are common.

However, some retailers are leveraging personalized product recommendations much more effectively than others.  

When used correctly, product recommendations increase the average number of items in the cart by 68.14% and increase conversion rates by an incredible 320%.

Like web personalization, product recommendations have completely transformed over the past 10 years. 

In 2018, there are literally countless ways you can segment your product catalogue and pipe the perfect products into your recommendations.

That being said, some product recommendation templates have proven to be more effective than others. Some technology platforms, like Barilliance, allow you to place these recommendations anywhere on your site or within your email communication.

One of the original product recommendation templates remains the most effective. People trust the crowd'e recommendation

Best Seller recommendations are great when you do not know a lot about your prospect. It gives you the best chance of suggesting something that fits their particular needs.

However, it is after you collect more information about your prospect that this type of suggestion becomes powerful.

Personalized "best seller" recommendation widgets perform twice as effective as those that are not personalized.

Items are based on currently viewed items. 

You should personalize the recommendations based on other website behavior or past purchases and determine if you should upsell by displaying higher-end alternatives or downsell and display lower priced products.

This tactic shifts from suggesting similar products to complimentary ones.

By offering complementary products you can increase AOV by educating the customer on how to make their current selection better in some way.

​THE REAL REAL Trigger Email Example

These recommendations help the customer navigate through your catalogue.

You should consider this type of personalization when you product list is large.

This personalized product recommendation was on their product page.

ThirdLove customizes the products they offer based on the currently viewed product, matching the item with complementary products. 

The offer is especially effective because of how ThirdLove executes the entire widget.

As mentioned, best selling product recommendations are twice as effective when they are personalized to your prospect's known affinities. 

Thrive knows that I care about Paleo products. Because of this, they don't just show me the highest selling products of their entire site.

Instead, they restrict the offerings to products that match my affinity.

eCommerce brands can (and should) personalize as many customer touch points as possible - including email.

The RealReal sends a personalized similar product widget along with their cart abandonment email. Notice that the offerings are based on what was originally in my cart. 

Social proof notifications allow you to give real-time notifications and updates to your customers.

This is one of the newer ways to personalize your eCommerce site. Brands are leveraging this technology to provide relevant, contextual information about themselves, or the products they are viewing.

Retailers have already pioneered a number of effective ways to use social notifications to increase sales.

Fit Tribe does a great job of matching which live notifications they send to currently viewed products.

You can see how the live notification is sent, communicating how popular the product is and providing additional social proof with details like time purchased, and where in the world the customer came from.

Here, Kickers underlines one of their key benefits: the durability of their shoes. 

What is interesting about this notification is how they customized the image to match the item in my cart. This tactic makes the message much more effective. As a prospect, I completely understand that this statement pertains to the items in my cart.

Lastly, eCommerce stores should extend their personalization efforts beyond their site. 

Email remains the most essential communication channel, and personalizing your correspondence will multiply your results.

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A "triggered email" is sent based on some sort of user action. The most common type of triggered email is a cart recovery email, which is sent when a customer places an item in their cart but leaves without completing their purchase.

We've written extensively on triggered and cart abandonment emails before. 

However, it is worth noting some of the most common ways you can personalize triggered emails.

The most common types of personalizations for triggered emails are demographic. 

Dynamically inserting a prospect's name in the subject line is a common tactic to call out attention in the sea of emails. 

The next most common type of personalizations are session based. 

Common tactics include inserting products' names, images, and dates into the subject line or body of the email.  

These personalization tactics ensure that your email is relevant, following up on known wants of your prospect. 

The next most common type of personalizations are session based. 

Common tactics include inserting products' names, images, and dates into the subject line or body of the email.  

These personalization tactics ensure that your email is relevant, following up on known wants of your prospect. 

We've already broken down triggered cart abandonment email examples in depth here. 

I encourage you to check out the post which goes over four of the most effective cart abandonment email templates used by hugely successful eCommerce brands in 2018.

This guide went over the four major ways you can personalize your customer's experience in an eCommerce environment.

Now is the time to begin scoping out your own personalization strategy.

We've put together a clear, step by step worksheet to help you select the best personalization vendor for your needs.

It covers the four biggest challenges in eCommerce personalization, and the most essential questions to ask potential partners to make sure they are capable of overcoming these challenges.

Read how to select your personalization vendor here.

How valuable is getting a customer back to your site?

In 2014, Harvard Business School published research showing that a 5% increase in retention results in increased profits of up to 95%!

We wanted to break down customer retention with the most recent data. Our question: how do returning visitors effect the most important KPI's in eCommerce across all industries?

We found retained visitors:

Customer acquisition is like planting seeds. It is a lot of effort and work and to prepare the land i.e. create the conditions to get a customer on site.

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Retention takes that customer from seed to fruit bearing tree. All the profit happens in the retention stage where customers are much more likely to engage with your brand, add items to cart, convert more often, and spend more.

Taken together, retained visitors are worth over 2x as first time visitors.

To conduct this study, we sampled 1.3 billion sessions over the past two years. 

We wanted to see how retention effected the major eCommerce KPI's: add-to-cart rate, cart abandonment rate, overall conversion rate, and average order volume. 

This writeup focuses on how retention effects add-to-cart rate and conversion rate, while the next will focus on cart abandonment and average order volume.

Throughout this study, you will see that we segmented site traffic in two major ways.

First, we compared first time visitors to returning visitors, measuring the overall impact retention has on profits.

Second, we further segmented according to device type to see how retention’s value changes across devices.

The first step in getting a visitor to convert into a buyer is to engage them. 

Add-to-cart rate is a simple, effective measure that captures high level engagement with your site. 

In this one graphic we begin to see the value of retained customers. 

While new visitors added items to their carts on 4.84% of sessions, returning visitors added an item to their cart 8.26% of the time - a 70.6% increase on average.

Mobile continues to grow in importance across the board. Not only is mobile traffic growing as a percentage of overall traffic ( you can see our own study breaking down how to maximize mobile advertising spending here), but Google and other search engines continue to prioritize mobile in their rankings.

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Because of mobile's continued importance, we wanted to see if retention's power was more or less important on smaller screens. 

The numbers are convincing.

Returning visitors are even more valuable on mobile devices. 

This makes sense given the difficulties mobile presents: less real estate makes it more difficult to convey value and make offers that resonate. 

The truth is...

Creating relevant, remarkable first-time experiences can benefit your store more than customer acquisition efforts.

This is why you need to focus on retention. 

To discover how, check out our in-depth guide on the best retention strategies and tactics in 2018 all geared to increase your retention rate. 

While add-to-cart measures engagement and intent,  it's really only valuable in-so-far as it helps you understand your overall conversion rate. 

As a quick aside, for the purpose of our study we calculated conversion rate as the number of sessions that resulted in a completed purchase divided by the total number of sessions.

Therefore, adding the item to the cart DID NOT have to occur in the same session. We choose this methodology because it reflects real consumer behavior: customers shop, add to cart, abandon, come back, and may or may not complete purchase.

Retention has an even stronger effect on conversion rate. 

Returning visitors will complete a purchase about 75% more than a new visitor would. This effect has held relatively constant over the past two years.

Retailers must build loyalty and retention in their site to improve conversions. 

Obviously there are a number of ways that you can do that. However, one of the fundamental strategies you should employ is personalization.

A study by Accenture makes this clear.

Accenture's findings are consistent with our own study on personalized product recommendations.

In that study, we found that creating personalized product recommendations had a massive effect on conversions.

Unlike the add-to-cart ratio, retention's effect on conversions did not increase on mobile.

That being said, returning customers were still clearly more valuable than new ones. 

Part of this can be attributed to the fact that personalization techniques are more easily implemented on larger screens.

On a computer, you are able to place more widgets and customizations. In contrast, many stores strip their mobile UX down to the essentials. 

This brings to light another important aspect in maximizing sales.

Many customers begin their purchase journey on mobile, and complete their purchase on a computer. To provide the best experience, you need to be able to track customer's across devices, identify them when they land on your page, and personalize your offers in real time.

This study looked at how retention positively impacted two major eCommerce KPI's: add-to-cart rate and conversion rate. 

Next month, we will look at how retention effects both cart abandonment rate and AOV. 

However, from this study alone we can conclude three things. 

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First, retention can be a driving factor for increasing add-to-cart rates.

Second, retention can increase sales, as returning visitors are 75% more likely to buy from you.

Third, personalization is a major key to maximizing the effect retention has on profits..

As mentioned, we've written a number of resources to help any eCommerce brand improve their efforts.

You can also see how Barilliance has helped hundreds of retailers combine and execute retention and personalization strategies to drive retention and increase profits by requesting a demo.

It's 2018 and cart abandonment continues to plague retailers. This post collects a number of cart abandonment statistics, both from our own database consisting of billions of sessions and third party studies.

The truth is…

You lose sales from cart abandonment.

The questions are
(a) Why customers leave your site without purchasing, and
(b) What you can do about it.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current cart abandonment statistics in 2018.

There have been hundreds of studies surrounding cart abandonment statistics.

Some studies place abandonment as high as 80%, while other studies place cart abandonment as low as 55%.

In our study, we found the average cart abandonment rate for 2016 was
77.24%. In other words, over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave the site without completing a purchase.

However - as we show below - there is much more to the story of cart abandonment than the average. We segment these aggregate stat across three primary dimensions:

The good news is that you have a massive opportunity to dramatically increase revenue by transforming these abandoned carts into recovered ones.

We compared abandonment rates between 2015 and 2016. Unfortunately, what we found was not encouraging.

In 2015, the global average abandonment rate was 71.39%. In one year, stores on average experienced an 8.4% increase in shoppers leaving without completing their purchase.

This trend held true across all devices.

Third party analysis from Statisa shows a similar trend. 

In 2006, 59.8% of shoppers abandoned their cart. By 2017 that number has risen to 69.23%, a 15.79% increase.

Today mobile traffic accounts for over half (50.48%) of all traffic in eCommerce. 

Unfortunately, according to our own research, there is a clear correlation between small screens and increased cart abandonment.

Mobile has the highest cart abandonment rates, with 85.65% of all transactions ending without a sale. Meanwhile, tablets converted sales 80.74% of the time, a 5.7% improvement in revenue.

Desktops performed the best in terms of cart abandonment, with 73.07% of transactions failed.

The trend is obvious. The smaller the size of the screen, the more likely a customer is to not purchase. This is problematic considering that for the first time ever, more digital buyers will use smartphones than desktops to shop.

Why is this?

According to RetailDive, eCommerce shops are still not optimized for mobile. Slow load times abound. Many stores remain unresponsive, forcing customers to zoom in and out to navigate a page.

Worse, pop-ups that are fine on desktop take up are often not fine on mobile.

Further, every inconvenience driving cart abandonment on desktop - such as mandatory registrations and long checkout processes, are intensified on smartphones.

Data in aggregate can be misleading. The truth is, abandonment rates vary drastically from industry to industry.

In order to understand how your store is performing, you should compare your current checkout rates to other stores within your industry.

A study conducted by Statista shows that the abandonment rate went up by over 24% from the Gaming Industry to the Finance Industry.

This graphic from SalesCycle illustrates the point nicely.

As you can see, a "good" cart abandonment rate changes dramatically depending on what industry your store is in.

Finance and Non-Profits experience some of the highest cart abandonment rates, averaging over 10% more than the global average shopping cart abandonment rate. 

Meanwhile, Gaming and Fashion industries experience some of the lowest rates. 

There are a number of important stats to keep track of an optimize in a full fledge cart abandonment campaign.

Below is a quick definition of the most important cart abandonment statistics. I've also included some global stats from the folks at MooSend.

If you are a Barilliance customer, all of these statistics will be tracked automatically in your dashboard.

We've put together an in-depth article on the top 10 reasons for cart abandonment and their solutions here. 

Two key takeaways to touch on here.

First, a full 22% of respondents said that they abandoned their carts because they were asked to create a new user account. 

When you combine that with other time-consuming and frustrating tasks from the user's point of view (literally labeled "Long and Confusing Checkout" in the survey), you can reduce your abandonment rate by 31% by simply streamlining your checkout process!

Second, some customers simply abandon carts because they are comparison shopping.

While you won't be able to prevent these visitors from shopping other stores, it does stress the importance of implementing cart recovery campaigns to get back in touch with prospects and distinguish yourself from your competitors.

While this article has focused on shopping cart abandonment, there are many other abandonment points that you should consider.

Form abandonment occurs when customers begin filling out fields in a form, but for some reason decide to leave before completing.

These forms could be for free products such as newsletters, more information such as a free demo request or price requests, or online applications.

In general, the longer the form, the more friction customers experience, and the greater possibility that they will not fill out the form.

Browse abandonment is a higher level form of abandonment. Sometimes, shoppers clearly engage with a product category, viewing multiple products, zooming in on pictures, and comparing prices without placing a product into a cart.

Browse abandonment refers to customers who show this level of engagement, but leave the site without either placing an item in a cart or completing a purchase.

Understanding the facts is the first step in creating an effective marketing campaign to recover abandoned carts.

The next step is understanding why your customers are not deciding to purchase.

We've ​created a number of free resources for you as you begin to combat cart abandonment.

Lastly, if you are looking for a complete solution to cart abandonment, schedule a quick talk with one of our cart abandonment experts. We will be able to share how Barilliance has helped hundreds of retailers maximize their traffic.

Good luck!

Without understanding why customers abandon carts, it is impossible to reduce cart abandonment.

We've collected the top 10 reasons for cart abandonment. We'll be breaking down each cause in detail, and provide a quick overview of how you can eliminate cart abandonment and recover sales.

This article is part of Step 1 in our Complete Cart Abandonment Guide.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the current top reasons for cart abandonment in 2018. 

Cart abandonment is a problem. The average eCommerce store loses over 75% of its sales to cart abandonment. Some industries experience average cart abandonment as high as 83.6%. 

Given that cart abandonment is such a problem, it is no surprise that there have been countless studies as to why visitors add items to their cart just to leave your site without making a purchase. 

Two of the most cited resources are below. 

Source: Statista

Source: Baymard Institute

Looking at both studies gives us incredible insight as to how you can eliminate cart abandonment.

The first study only asks what the primary cause for abandoning is. 

Meanwhile, the second study asks what all the reasons are for cart abandonment. 

Probability Rank: 1

Impact Rank: 1

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Hidden costs are the primary reason your visitors leave without purchasing, ranking first in both probability and impact.

25% of customers specifically cited shipping costs as the primary reason driving them away.

However, you should also pay heed to other hidden costs such as taxes or required complementary items which have a similar effect.

These costs cause an immediate annoyance and irritation. In some cases, it can even propel consumers to feel remorse for purchasing.

The solution??

Fully disclose costs. Transparency is valued highly by digital shoppers, and is crucial for store success.

The best course of action is to state all costs from the outset.

Another successful strategy is to bundle the extra cost of shipping into the product and offer "free" shipping to the customer. CPCstrategy found that free shipping is deemed "critical" to 73% of customers to make a purchase and will encourage 93% of shoppers to buy more online.

Probability Rank: 3

Impact Rank: 2

Your customers expect convenience. Customers want to do things quickly and have instant results.

Spending more time and effort than expected is a significant source of friction. 22% of cart abandoners do not complete their purchase when they are required to create a new user account, and 28% of all shoppers say that it is a reason why they've abandoned carts.

The solution??

To state the obvious, don't force first time buyers to create an account before they can complete their order. Offer guest checkout.

Additionally, take some time and identify other points of friction in the checkout process that may be causing customers to spend more time and effort.

Probability Rank: 2

Impact Rank: 3

Some cart abandonment is impossible to eliminate.

eCommerce web behavior evolves. One online shopping habit is to use the internet to browse multiple products across shops. Research includes looking into the price, quality, shipping, and special offers.

Often, customers will add items to a cart in order to easily reference items. It is not uncommon for customers to exit a store with the full intent of coming back. In fact, many will return several times before making a purchase.

The solution??

While there isn't any solution per se to reducing this type of cart abandonment - you can do better.

The point of reducing cart abandonment is to recover lost sales. If you know shoppers are evaluating certain products on price, you can implement a price match guarantee pop-up to ensure customers ultimately purchase from you.

This line of reasoning extends to other types of guarantees, such as durability, quality, or money-back offers.

Probability Rank: 7

Impact Rank: 4

Payment security is the first cart abandonment reason that has a major disparity between it's probability and impact rating. 

It makes sense. 

When you are concerned about security, it has a dramatic effect. 

Major causes for suspicion include design flaws, outdated layouts, missing images, and no SSL certificate.

The solution??

There are many ways you can increase trust on your site. 

The easiest method is through various forms of social proof to assure customers that you are a trustworthy store. 

Use customer testimonials. Use product reviews. Use endorsements. Provide full contact information, such as a phone number and even faces and bios of you and your workers.

All of these factors let your customer know they are working with a real person who cares about their experience and will take care of their personal information.

Probability Rank: 4

Impact Rank: 5

This top 10 reason for cart abandonment is similar to number 2 (creating a new user account).

Long and confusing checkout processes are annoying to customers. Oftentimes, unnecessary forms contribute to unease and can even become confusing. All of this contributes to a poor experience, resulting in 28% of shoppers to abandoning their carts.

The solution??

Minimize form elements. Only ask for necessary information.

Additionally, streamline your site's navigation. Reducing the "number of screens" from initiation to completion is a great way to reduce time.

Probability Rank: N/A

Impact Rank: 6

Some customers chase deals. If they can't find a coupon or promotional codes, they will go and look for one elsewhere.

According to Statista, a full 8% of customers cite not being able to find a coupon code as the primary reason for abandoning their cart - opting instead to  wait until one shows up and try and find a better deal elsewhere.

Unfortunately, some checkout processes encourage the feeling of missing out. This happens most often when a coupon code search bar is near the checkout. The presence of this field promotes the idea that they are paying too much.

The solution??

It is best practice to auto-apply coupons when able.

Most carts have the ability to pass through parameters through the URL, and can be applied via emails or pop-ups.

Probability Rank: 8

Impact Rank: 7

If you haven’t noticed yet, customers care a lot about shipping.

While the cost of shipping is a top reason for cart abandonment, speed of shipping poses a significant threat to large purchases.

We all procrastinate (well, 95% of us according to Pies Steel, human resource professor). Important purchases are often time constrained. Think of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, or emergencies.

If your store is unable to deliver the goods in time, customers are forced to abandon their carts.

The solution??

The tragedy is that in all of these cases, customers are willing to spend more.

If you need to charge more for express shipping, do so. Customers are more willing to spend for expedited shipping, and you will benefit greatly from providing this option.

Probability Rank: 6

Impact Rank: N/A

The rest of these cart abandonment causes do not rank in the impact study performed by Statista. 

However, that does't mean that these issues should be ignored. Website errors, crashes, and load times are major deterrents to completing purchase, and contribute to a sense of insecurity on the site. 

The solution??

Focusing on the customer experience is paramount. 

Make sure that you are regularly going through your site, from home page to checkout, ensuring that your site is still up to date and there are no issues. 

You should perform these checks across a variety of screen sizes, especially as mobile continues to grow in importance. 

You can check site speed through a number of free services. We most often use Pingdom and Google Pagespeed Insights. 

Probability Rank: 9

Impact Rank: N/A

Up to 66% of shoppers say that they would spend more with a generous return policy.

Unfortunately, many stores put hard limits on their returns. This can take two forms. First, policies that restrict too much time. Second, policies that charge for the return, usually in the form of shipping.

The solution??

Make sure you are able to track the number of returns and costs associated.

Then, begin offering a free, 30 day shipping. Run the test for a month or two and see what lift, if any, occurs for your industry and demographic. Compare this to the added costs of such a policy, and see if free 30 day return is a profitable strategy for you.

Probability Rank: 10

Impact Rank: N/A

Nothing really to say here..., so we're going to throw in an extra reason that pops up fairly often.

Probability Rank: N/A

Impact Rank: N/A

Lastly, lack of support is detrimental to shopping cart abandonment rates.

Customers expect service and convenience. A study conducted by LiverPerson found that 83% of online shoppers want help while they are on site. Over half (51%) said that they are more likely to make a purchase if they had customer support such as live chat during the session.

The solution??

How can you provide more support throughout your shopping experience? If you do not offer live chat, experiment. Like the 30 day free shipping, invest in the technology for a month or two. Measure lift in sales.

While conducting research, we found a great, in-depth case study on Zara. Zara is one of the leading brands in the world, and they have taken great measures to protect themselves against abandoned carts.

The video is below. Watch it for a real life walk through on how to actively combat cart abandonment and eCommerce best practices(click here to view in Youtube).

Knowledge is the first step.

Action is the next. Perform an assessment (or assign to a team member) on how your site performs. While it is impossible to completely eliminate shopping cart abandonment, you can greatly decrease it by addressing these top 10 reasons.

Then, check out the full Guide on Cart Abandonment here.

This is an in-depth, step by step instruction manual on how to measure shopping cart abandonment rates in Google Analytics. The truth is, the process to set up tracking is easy (and free) through Google Analytics.

Unfortunately, many eCommerce stores fail to track one of the most important metrics for profit: shopping cart abandonment rate.

The statistics on cart abandonment are not good. The average eCommerce store loses over 77% of sales that are initiated.

We covered the most common reasons for this in Step 1 of Cart Abandonment Roadmap. For an overview, you can find the article here.

However, reading that article is not enough.

Why?

Because your store is unique. Your customers are unique. Your market is unique.

In other words, you need data specific to you. For that, you need to track cart abandonment on your site.

By mapping your conversion funnel in Google Analytics, you can pinpoint exactly where customers are deciding to leave your store.

To measure the shopping cart abandonment rate, we will be utilizing two advanced features in Google Analytics - Goals and Funnels.

Funnels are simply the steps leading up to a purchase.

In Google Analytics, goals can be set for each step. Once you define a goal, Google Analytics allows you to track the number of conversions (times the goal was completed), conversion rate (the percent of total visitors who completed the goal), and even segment your customers to view only those who complete a certain goal.

Kissmetrics has an excellent, in-depth article that breaks down funnels in Google Analytics. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of mapping your sales process and tracking user behavior on your website with Google Analytics, I highly recommend you set aside 30 minutes and give the article a read.

There are five general steps in setting up a funnel to track shopping cart abandonment.

For this walk-through, we will be going over a simple checkout process, where after a sale is completed the customer is directed to an order confirmation page.

We will use this order confirmation page as our goal.

The funnel will be the various URLs a prospect must go through before they are able to make a purchase on our eCommerce store.

For the sake of this example, we will truncate the funnel to start at the cart page (where they are redirected after they place an item in the shopping cart).

Please note that you must have administrator permissions for the Google Analytics account before you can create your funnel.

Click on admin, select your profile, and click on the "Goals" tab.

Enter a simple, descriptive name for the Goal. In this example, we'll simply name the goal "Cart to Purchase".

For the Goal Type, select URL Destination. Enter the URL of your order confirmation page.

​Next, check the "use funnel" checkbox to add the necessary steps preceding this goal.

In this case, our goal is a completed order. Before a customer is able to complete an order they must add a product to their cart. As you can see in the screenshot below, we now have two steps in our funnel.

That's it!

Depending on the amount of traffic your store receives, it could take anywhere between a couple of hours to a couple of days to see meaningful data.

Google Analytics automatically calculates conversion rates for each goal.

We can easily see the shopping cart abandonment rate by using the Funnel Visualization page.

Here, we can see that we have a 43.66% funnel conversion rate. To get the shopping cart abandonment rate, we take 100% - 43.66% to get at a final number of 56.34%.

If you haven't created a funnel to track shopping cart abandonment, do it now.

I highly recommend setting up specific funnels for particular products or product categories to get more granular and actionable data.

The next step is to begin building a strategy to reduce shopping cart abandonment and recover sales.

For that, I encourage you to begin Step 3 of our Shopping Cart Abandonment Roadmap.

Omnichannel retailing isn’t new. But the truth is …

Most retailers are failing at creating successful omnichannel strategies.

Despite the vast majority (90%) of brands having an omnichannel strategy in place, only 8% feel like they are succeeding.

This omnichannel case study is going to break down one of the most successful retailers, and how they use omnichannel marketing to drive revenue.

Read on to learn the real strategies and tactics Nordstrom uses across the three main components of any omnichannel strategy: