Even though the holiday season officially starts around late November, people begin their shopping preparation right from October. The preparation includes creating a list of gifts they want to get for their loved ones and adding those items to their wish list and carts. However, since it starts so early, there is a good chance that most people will forget about the items in their cart when the time comes. A good cart abandonment email can remind them to revisit their carts and complete their transactions.
Why are cart abandonment emails important during the holiday season?
In the year 2019, more than 75% of the customers abandoned their carts. But don’t let this stat discourage you, as still, 73% of the people are planning to have their items delivered to their doorstep. Cart abandonment emails act as a reminder for your target audience and help you achieve a conversion rate of 8.24%. You can further enhance the effectiveness of cart abandonment emails by using the segmentation and personalization strategy. Before you move on to adopting the best practices for your cart abandonment emails, you should know the reason for such a high cart abandonment rate during the season.
Reasons for cart abandonment during the holiday season
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Complex checkout process
A checkout process that asks for the additional personal information of the customer can discourage them from completing their transaction. Similarly, a long checkout process that spans over multiple pages can seem tedious for the customers. To avoid this, you can use fields in your pages that are compatible with Google’s autofill feature. It instantly reduces a lot of friction and makes the checkout process more seamless.
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Logistic issues
When people order during the holiday season, they expect their item to be delivered ahead of the occasion so they can inspect it before using it or gift-wrapping it. Therefore, if the eCommerce website cannot promise to deliver the items on time, customers are more likely to abandon their carts.
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Lack of multiple payment methods
People prefer online shopping as it is far more convenient than going out to find items, especially during a pandemic. It might be inconvenient for some customers if your website’s payment gateway lacks multiple methods of payment, which might force them to abandon their carts. To overcome this problem, you should offer other payment options like Apple Pay and Paypal, apart from the regular COD and debit/credit card options.
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High price
This may be one of the most common reasons why people might abandon their carts. The final price after tax and delivery charges might be more than what the customers initially budgeted for, leading them to abandon their carts. Cart abandonment emails with free delivery discount coupons are the most effective strategy to bring them back to complete their transactions.
Also read: How Does Targeted SEO Help To Boost Your Online Presence?
Best practices for cart abandonment email during the holiday season
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Time your emails
Sending your email just after the customer has abandoned their cart might seem like the logical step. However, research data suggests that sending emails within an hour has the highest conversion rate. If the value is higher, the customer might need more than a few hours to make the decision. In such scenarios, you can send them a series of emails at a regular interval to remind them of the items sitting in their carts.
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Leveraging deals at the right time
You should include discount offers or free shipping in cart abandonment emails to incentivize your customers to complete their transactions. But you should not reveal your hands too early as it might encourage the customers to abandon their carts more frequently. Therefore, only include discount coupons and offers in the last email of your cart abandonment email campaign.
Huckberry realized that its regular cart abandonment emails were not enough to encourage the customer to complete their transaction. Only then, they sent their final email containing a code for free shipping to incentivize the customer.
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Personalization strategy
Deploying a personalization strategy can increase the efficiency of your cart abandonment email campaign during the holiday season. Using segmentation, you can identify which of your customers are repeat abandoners and the loyal ones. You can send your emails accordingly. Email template developers can create dynamic templates that can accommodate such personalization tactics with ease.
Jack Wills incorporates this strategy in its cart abandonment email campaign. Apart from the personalization of the name, they also recommend other items based on the past behavior of the customer. Additionally, they have displayed the items in the email to remind the customer why they added them to their cart.
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Create a sense of urgency
You can also capitalize on the FOMO tendencies of your customers by sending them targeted cart abandonment emails. By creating urgency, you can push your customers to complete their purchases. For example, you can remind the customers that they need to place their orders a couple of weeks before Christmas to receive their items on time. You can also ask your email template developer to add a countdown timer to the email.
Homage uses a rather simple email to create a sense of urgency. They inform the customer that they have 48 hours to make their decision, or else their items will be removed from their carts. They have also added a CTA button that leads them directly to their carts to complete the transaction.
Conclusion
Card abandonments are inevitable during the rush of the holiday season as all your competitors will be coming up with similar discounts and offers. You will need to plan your email marketing strategy well in advance to deal with such scenarios. Follow the best practices mentioned above, and you are sure to convert a significant percentage of your abandoned carts.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.
