How I Convert Abandoned Shopping Carts

Hi warriors,

I want to share a simple tip I use to convert abandoned shopping carts.

I stumbled across an info graphic yesterday about what makes up a good checkout process. While most of this stuff has been worked out by the shopping cart platforms we use, sometimes I still get abandoned carts. For those who may not know, an abandoned cart is when a customer goes to the trouble of placing an order on your site (including filling all their details in) but does not proceed with payment.

They obviously want the product but for some reason changed their mind. So here's what I do, and its dead simple.

First I load the account they created with a store credit worth $10. Then I email them asking if everything was okay with their order and tell them about the store credit. That's it, and it's worked with great success. I've even had people thank me for following up saying they really appreciated the effort. I have a canned response that comes across very personal so it takes hardly any time to do.

When I first started doing this I was giving them a coupon code for roughly the same discount, but after testing I found the store credit has a better psychological advantage. I know from personal experience that having a gift card or store credit is like actually having the money, so I go in store with a $20 giftcard and end up spending $100. If I had a 20% off coupon it doesn't feel like I have the money, so I'm less likely to go ahead and buy. The difference is potential to have it vs actually having it. I also found the amount of store credit doesn't need to be much. People appreciate even a $5 store credit that they weren't expecting to get.

Hope someone finds this useful!