A customer clicks on a Facebook ad, browses your site and finds a product they love. They add it to their cart and start the checkout process.
Sounds like the dream scenario, right?
But what happens when that shopper leaves your site without ever having completed the transaction?
What Is Shopping Cart Abandonment?
Shopping cart abandonment is when a shopper adds an item to their cart, but then leaves before completing checkout. This happens during 69.8% of online transactions and represents a large amount of lost revenue for ecommerce businesses – up to $18 billion, by some accounts.
Finding ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment is so critical for online retailers, because the hard part is already done. The customer has decided they love your product, and they’re ready to buy. They just need one final push to complete that transaction.
And that’s where a better shipping solution comes in.
How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment with Better Shipping and Fulfillment
In an online shopping world dominated by Amazon Prime, customers expect fast shipping. And they don’t expect to pay a lot for it.
According to the Baymard Institute, 49% percent of consumers abandon an online purchase because of high extra costs — including shipping costs — and another 19% abandon an online purchase because shipping was too slow.
It’s clear that customers care both about shipping times and shipping costs. One way to appeal to both of these concerns is to offer several shipping options to give the customer more control.
For example, a merchant could offer free shipping with a minimum purchase or offer faster shipping options as an upgrade from the slower shipping option offered by a competitor.
To reduce shipping costs overall, a company has three options: increase volume to receive a greater discount from carriers, downgrade to slower shipping services, or move products closer to the end customer.
The Flowspace Network Optimization algorithm can identify the optimal fulfillment centers within our distributed network for any brand, empowering them to provide the fastest, most cost-efficient shipping to their customers. This can help merchants provide a clear shipping promise to their customers and reduce shopping cart abandonment.
With a nationwide network of fulfillment centers, Flowspace can help you minimize the high shipping and fulfillment costs that lead to lost sales, lost customers, and lost profits. Contact Flowspace today for more information.
Written By:
Ben Eachus
Ben Eachus is co-founder and CEO of Flowspace, the software powering ecommerce fulfillment for brands. Ben was an early employee at The Honest Company, where he led supply chain operations and scaled the company’s distribution and fulfillment network during a period of rapid growth before its IPO. He previously managed fulfillment operations at McMaster Carr, a leading industrial supply distributor specializing in same-day delivery. Ben earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his MBA from UCLA Anderson. He is a native of New Jersey and currently lives in Southern California with his family.
