How Your Shipping Service Can Reduce Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges for online retailers. All eCommerce companies try to avoid a customer closing out their browser before finalizing the transaction. With the majority of shoppers abandoning carts over concerns with shipping costs and options, here are some tips that can help prevent your customers from jumping ship.
Update Shipping Costs in Real Time
When customers add items to their shopping cart in an eCommerce store, they expect the price they see to be the price they’ll actually pay. One of the easiest ways you can mitigate the issue of abandoned carts due to surprise shipping costs is to update those costs on the shopping cart page in real time.
Offer Multiple Shipping Options
Customers like to have a choice. For example, you might offer a standard shipping rate, or allow the customer to pay a higher rate for next-day delivery if they need their items quickly. While many people will be happy to wait a few days for their items and pay a lower shipping rate, others will happily pay more for quick delivery. With OSM’s flexible shipping options and economical rates, retailers can provide a range of options to match every customer’s needs and budget.
If you offer different shipping options, it’s a good idea to display all of them on the shopping cart page so customers can see what their choices are. By allowing customers to see shipping costs and delivery times at a glance on their shopping cart page, they’ll be more confident in choosing the option that best suits their schedule and budget at checkout.
Disclose Any Handling Fees Upfront
Do you charge any handling fees on online orders? If so, it’s best to disclose these to your customers upfront. If you don’t, they’re likely to become annoyed and close the window without checking out.
Always present the handling fee separately from the shipping charge, and disclose it upfront to the customer on the shopping page. If customers can quickly and easily see what they’ll pay, they’re far less likely to abandon their cart.
Offer Free Shipping
It sounds obvious, but many eCommerce retailers underestimate the power of free shipping. This strategy tends to make the most sense if you are selling high-ticket items or have a high average order value (AOV). In these cases, any costs you incur from shipping will be far outweighed by the large profit margin on your products. With OSM’s economical shipping rates, retailers are in a better position to offer low-cost or free shipping to their customers — which helps encourage them to keep coming back and to choose you over your competitors.
Cut Your Free Shipping Threshold
It might not be practical or make financial sense for you to offer free shipping on all orders. This is particularly true if you sell a high volume of low-value items, where the cost of shipping might negate the value of the order if you offered shipping for free.
If you’re seeing a lot of abandoned carts, one problem might be that your free shipping threshold is too high. Why not reduce it and see what happens? Try to set it at a point where most customers will be able to reach it, while still boosting your AOV. To do this, work out your AOV (total number of orders / total revenue = AOV), and then set your free shipping threshold just slightly above that number.
Offer Free Shipping for Members, Subscribers, or VIPs
Why not create a system where customers can earn free shipping on their orders while also having a marketing benefit for you? One of the best ways to do this is to set up a membership plan, VIP club, or email newsletter. You can then offer free shipping to customers who participate as a perk of membership.
Remember that improving your conversion rates and lowering cart abandonment is an ongoing challenge. Because shipping is often the number one cause of cart abandonment, it’s more important than ever to have a shipping partner you can rely on.
With a variety of flexible shipping options, economical rates, and reliable on-time delivery, OSM Worldwide has everything you need to ensure your customer’s packages arrive quickly and reliably. The more your customers can rely on you for fast, affordable shipping, the less likely they’ll be to abandon their cart.
Contact us today to learn how our flexible, data-driven shipping solutions can help you increase conversions and keep your customers coming back.