Customer Bailed on the Sale at the Last Minute

While I don't know what is considered best practice, I would send an email reminding them about the product in their cart. If they still don't buy, then I would offer a discount.

Don't go straight to the discount offer.

Just remind them about the BENEFITS of your offer and the fact that you're eager to help the customer achieve the customer's goals.

See how this works?

Never get desperate....

That would happen every now and then. You can't avoid that.

I would first have an exit pop up that in a way pushes their hot buttons, which is the reason why they even got into the sales process, because most likely, your product/service speaks to them in a way but they're just no sure yet or confident enough to buy. If they still exit, it would be good to have an immediate email followup that reminds them of the benefits you're providing as well as sharing some testimonials. As mentioned however, don't get too desperate. If they don't buy, then they don't buy. Move on. There are tons of customers out there. Odds are, from them to get into the sales funnel, they opted into your list. Some people don't buy now, but they buy eventually.

Somewhere along the line you can offer a discount. When? I would run a test when it's most effective. You can even throw in a small bonus if they decide to buy like an ebook or video training, etc to entice them even more.

if ur user came from mobile device its normal, shopping carts have over 90% abbandon rate, thats why sites have different prices for the same product on different devices, eg desktop/mobile

It means nothing.

If you sell things online, you will experience cart abandonment every day.

People like the idea, press the button, then chicken out.

Or a bot clicks your button.

Or someone clicks just to see what the price is, because even though you mention it seven times in your copy, including right above the buy button, they didn't bother to read.

And clicking is a so much easier way to get the information.

Don't take it personally. Move on.

What this really tells me is you don't have enough traffic, because you're desperate for action from every single visitor. Get more traffic, to the point where it doesn't matter what an individual visitor does.

If you have more than a few sales, it might be worth to implement a technical solution, e.g. a pop-up offering a discount, a bonus or a message pointing out what the customer will miss out on when they leave now.

There are tons of customers that you will get - despite this one "loss". You have nothing to worry about. Keep marketing, and don't change anything that's already working for you.

This is like assuming you got 4,829 sales and you change your marketing plan because 1 bails at the last minute. Don't let it get you down cuz.

I disagree with the people saying to do nothing. And it's not about how much traffic you have or how many customers have bought. There are many major retailers who implement cart abandonment features. I get emails all the time from major retailers when I've added an item to cart and didn't buy. It's just smart business. It's part of optimizing your sales funnel and increasing your profit.

A customer that has gotten to the cart is the most interested customer you are ever going to get. It would be stupid to stop selling them at that point. You'll send multiple emails to people whom you don't know are specifically interested in buying a product to try to sell them on it but when you know someone has enough interest to have gotten to the cart, you just stop selling? That doesn't make any sense. Those large companies that email me, that have plenty of customers, traffic, and make millions and billions a year, know the value of getting those customers.

You need to have a pixel that tracks cart abandonment and a autoresponder series (few emails) that will
be in place to get them to go back and continue the sale.

Once you have it in place, its there. Little work for a lot of money that could be attained.

Send the customer a reminder that their is an item in their cart. Wait a few days. Send them a reminder with a discount.

I can't count on two hands the number of prospects that said yes to my price and offer that then bailed out on me.... its bizarre... Might be the niche im in.. but once you get that yes.... ;-)

There are so many reasons for cart abandonment that it does pay to followup.

It may depend on the product you sell and whether the prospect has entered all their contact information.

We find that in many cases where (I should qualify - we sell B2B) a prospect has abandoned the cart it is usually down to a few reasons.

The reasons may be different for your circumstances but we find a few commonalities.

1. The address fields are an abnormal length or contain an odd symbol that causes a gateway error when processing the payment.

2. The purchaser is trying to ship to an address that has issues...usually they are purchasing outside of work hours and trying to ship to someone else in the company and some payment verification issues arise

3. The purchaser cannot see the total price including shipping BEFORE they enter the checkout process.

4. They are trying to get a QUOTE to take to a senior decision maker who will later approve the purchase.

5. They don't understand the checkout process.

6. They don't fully trust you....or the payment processor

7. They press the "Complete Order" button twice. ( this is very common they may get a timeout or become impatient and press button again but this can invalidate the transaction)

8. They actually want to buy more.

9. They ran out of time.

10. They thought they actually bought.

These are not in any statistical order.

There are plenty more but that should help you start to answer the questions.

Usually with cart abandonment, even though we have automated processes - emails, we find the best solution is following up via phone.

The quicker you can follow-up the more likely you will answer the objection that caused the abandonment.

Speed for us is vital as often a prospect is shopping around and the fastest respondent usually wins the sale.

In many circumstances a response in under 20 minutes is required because the buyer's mindset is exactly that...to buy...when we wait...we lose.

I have an offer that gets at least one abandonment EVERY DAY.

So what.

At first it confused me...then it annoyed me...and after a week I learned to ignore it.

It just doesn't matter.

Are there buyers? Yup. Is there plenty of traffic? Yes. Should I get all bent out of shape because one or two people (or bots) click the button and then do something else? No sir. Compared to everything else I have going on, spending resources to get to the bottom of this behavior and trying to wrestle someone or something into conversion simply isn't worth it. I have more traffic and better conversion issues to work with.

Now if it had 10 or 20 Buy clicks then abandons per day...then it might be worthy of attention.

Retarget them bro! Use a special pixel for cart abandonment peeps and watch your conversions soar!

Yeah, my advice is to just move on.

I have done that many many many times for various reasons, but one recurring reason is just curiosity as to what the scheme or angle is. Often its faked info as I never had any intention of purchasing in the first place, but I was required to put something in to get past the front door.

If you get a LOT of these, relative to the sales, then you should look closer. Not sure what consititutes "a lot", and I suspect it would be somewhat product dependent. Probably get a lot more abandoned carts on a $8000 coaching service than on a "$1 info packet" for example.

Shopping cart abandonment is a common phenomenon to take place in ecommerce arena... customers usually have this tendency to change their mind at the last moment in case if something they feel is not right... following them up with emails is certainly a good practice to go for especially when you have better deals to offer them... just go with it man!

This thread hasn't been posted to in a year.

Frank

Look for more traffic my friend. You won't have to worry about abandonment...