What happened? Where did the other 70 disappear to? 

It’s simple: They abandoned their carts. 

According to the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts before making a purchase. That’s an alarming rate. And it’s costing ecommerce brands serious money — trillions worth of merchandise is abandoned in online shopping carts each year, costing online sellers billions in revenue.

So, what about those 70 shoppers who abandoned their shopping carts on your site? Can you get them to come back? Can you get a bigger portion of your next 100 visitors to pay for the merchandise they’ve selected?

Yes and yes. You can take steps to re-engage prospects who’ve abandoned their carts, as well as to reduce your site’s abandonment rate for the future. Check out these 5 tips on how to avoid shopping cart abandonment.

1. Offer free or discounted shipping

About 49% of consumers say that extra costs at checkout are way too high. These costs can be related to shipping rates, taxes and other fees. When these costs are too high or not communicated earlier in the shopping experience, it can cause prospective buyers to abandon their carts. 

What can you do about these costs? About 67% of U.S. consumers expected free shipping during COVID-19 to offset slower shipping times, and 56% of Americans now expect online retailers to offer free shipping indefinitely. By offering free shipping, you have a higher chance of boosting your conversion rate. If you can’t offer free shipping, even a discount helps.

2. Be upfront about shipping costs

If discounted or free shipping is not feasible for your business, that’s OK. Just make sure you communicate that early in the process. Being transparent with your customers about shipping costs reduces the shock when they get to checkout — and reduces the amount of abandoned shopping carts. 

Make your buyers feel more comfortable by calculating costs before they head to checkout. This will boost customers’ collective confidence when shopping, and the transparency will generate trust and goodwill. 

3. Optimize the checkout process

Optimizing the checkout process could make the difference between customers checking out and abandoning their carts. 24% of consumers say they will abandon their cart if they have to create an account at checkout. Another 18% said that a long or complicated checkout process will inspire them to abandon their carts.

It’s more important than ever to update your company’s checkout process. Allow customers to check out as guests instead of forcing them to create an account. Asking customers to take extra steps that they see as unnecessary will spike your abandonment rate. 

4. Take advantage of cart-recovery emails

Cart recovery emails are one of the most effective ways to boost your conversion rate. These recovery emails get about a 45% open rate and a 21% click-through rate. Of the 21% who click-through to your site, half of them will make a purchase. Adding additional incentives like coupon codes or free shipping will further boost your sales while decreasing your abandonment rate. 

5. Create a seamless mobile experience

More than 85% of mobile shoppers abandon their carts due to a poor user interface, which is why it’s more important than ever to optimize your ecommerce mobile site. 

Optimization tactics could include improving site speed and trimming/tailoring messaging to perfectly fit smaller mobile screens. Mobile users want to be able to navigate your site quickly and easily. Let them do so by optimizing the mobile experience.

Reduce Cart Abandonment With ShipEngine

ShipEngine helps you create the transparency and shipping options that keep buyers on the path toward making purchases. You can use ShipEngine to build rate calculations into your checkout process. When you use ShipEngine’s pre-negotiated rates with the USPS, UPS and others, you can make discounted rates available to your shoppers. After a purchase, use ShipEngine to send your buyers branded tracking alerts. You can even use ShipEngine to add your logo to shipping labels.

Wondering how to avoid shopping cart abandonment? Know that you definitely can make more sales and capture more revenue — and know that we can help. Signup for a ShipEngine account to start exploring, or contact one of our shipping experts to discuss your company’s unique needs.

The post 5 Tips: How to Avoid Shopping Cart Abandonment appeared first on Shipstation API.

Is your brand taking advantage of these opportunities?

The first step to mastering social media ecommerce is choosing the right platform for selling your products. There’s a huge difference between the typical user of Facebook and the typical user of TikTok (just as there’s a big difference between the average Instagram user and the average Twitter user).

To help you choose the right platform (or platforms) for your ecommerce efforts, here are more details on the leading sites for selling on social media.

1. Facebook

Facebook wasn’t the first social media platform (SixDegrees.com, Friendster and Myspace can all make a valid claim to that title), but it has become the world’s most used and most durable social media site in the 21st century. As of April 2021, Facebook was home to more than 2.8 billion active users worldwide. That’s a huge market for your social media ecommerce efforts.

Facebook’s largest demographic of users are ages 25–35, which is an attractive range for online selling. But the ecommerce industry has experienced a spike in purchases from younger and younger crowds in recent years — and platforms that cater to those below 25 are likely to see the largest ecommerce growth.

2. Instagram

Instagram rolled out in-app purchasing in 2019. “Swiping up” has become an essential brand-building tool on Instagram, including the ability to sell your products. Best of all, Instagram’s average users fall into a slightly younger age range than Facebook — 18–35.

If the average ecommerce buyer continues to be younger in the coming months and years, the platforms (like Instagram) that serve a slightly younger audience are going to be more desirable for social media ecommerce.

3. TikTok

In January 2018, TikTok was home to about 54 million users around the world. By July 2020, that number had grown to 689 million. TikTok’s skyrocketing usage makes it one of today’s most desirable platforms for social media ecommerce.

And TikTok is also home to one of the youngest demographics you’ll find on social media. The average TikTok user falls into the 10–20 age range. Adding to the TikTok opportunity for social media ecommerce, young consumers are twice as likely to make purchases through TikTok than through other social media platforms.

Huge increases in usage and the purchasing potential of TikTok have created equally as large ecommerce expectations. ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, has stated a goal of handling more than $185 billion in ecommerce each year by 2022.

Which Platform is Right for Your Brand?

You and your team know your target audience better than anyone else. Where is your target audience most likely to spend its time on social media? The answer to that question should drive your choice of platform for testing social media ecommerce.

Once you find success selling on one social media platform, and if you think there’s opportunity on a different site, scale your efforts by testing elsewhere. For example, maybe your target audience spends most of its time on Facebook. After you’ve achieved ecommerce success on Facebook, start testing on Instagram to see if you can replicate your success.

Social media presents an attractive opportunity for brands of all kinds to grow their businesses and engage with new customers.

Don’t Forget About Shipping

Making a social media ecommerce purchase is just the beginning of the customer experience. As you receive orders, the speed and cost of your fulfillment plus the branded nature of your shipping can make a huge difference in delighting your customers and generating repeat business.

At ShipEngine, we offer the world’s leading shipping API — which can help you quickly and affordably fulfill orders that come in via social media, and create a customer experience that leads to brand loyalty. With ShipEngine, you can:

• Shop rates across 70-plus regional, national, international and LTL carriers.
• Validate addresses around the world.
• Print labels in real-time.
• Track packages to their destinations (and configure tracking alerts for your customers).
• Create branded experiences through tracking pages and logo labels.
• Plus more.

Are you ready to solve shipping for social media ecommerce and other online selling? ShipEngine can help. Get in touch with our team to learn more about what ShipEngine can do for your brand.

The post Social Media Ecommerce: Which Platform is Right for You? appeared first on Shipstation API.