Slipping Sales: Six Steps to Fix your Cart and Reduce Abandonment

Slipping Sales: Six Steps to Fix your Cart and Reduce Abandonment

by | Mar 29, 2021 | eCommerce, Technology

All eCommerce websites suffer from cart abandonment (when customers leave a website before completing their purchase), but no market segment suffers as much as apparel and accessories eCommerce sites. Online clothing & accessories sellers find their carts abandoned at an average rate of 40%—more than the rate of home, tech, and the fitness industry combined. 

We covered how to master the art of the cart abandonment email in a previous blog, but it’s important to identify why customers are abandoning their carts in the first place. Start by analyzing your web store’s checkout process, and ask shoppers why they abandoned their cart via a survey. You should also look closely at your social media comments and online reviews for valuable feedback.

There are a number of things you can do to get your customers to complete their transactions the first time they visit your web store. In this blog, you’ll learn how to minimize cart abandonment on your fashion eCommerce website and increase sales.

Don’t Have Too Many Steps to Checkout

In a study by Statista, 21% of shoppers abandoned their carts because the process took too long. With that in mind, one of your first orders of business should be ensuring your checkout process is quick and easy. One-step checkout is standard these days, and unless your web store is members only, you should always allow guest checkout. Use address auto-suggest and auto-completion to make it faster and easier for customers to input their details. Your forms should have large fields to ensure they’re mobile-friendly and specify the input format so that the proper keyboard appears on mobile when users tap into a field. More than half of shoppers make purchases using mobile devices, so it’s crucial that your web store is mobile-friendly.

Minimize Surprise Costs

Fifty-six percent of consumers surveyed by Statista abandoned their carts due to extra costs such as shipping or taxes, so it’s important to do whatever you can to avoid surprising your customers with fees later in the checkout process. Be transparent about costs and make it clear whether shipping or taxes are included in the price on the product page. If you offer free shipping, this should be communicated on all pages of your website. If you don’t offer free shipping, consider adding a shipping calculator before checkout, to allow shoppers to estimate costs early on. If you sell internationally, you should also make a note early in the checkout process that the customer may be liable for import duties and taxes. You could link to your FAQ page to provide further information about that, if appropriate.

Be Unpredictable With Your Deals

Cart abandonment is such a big concern that most online retailers now send discounts via email afterwards, to try and win back the customer. But savvy shoppers have become so accustomed to getting these deals that they’ll often deliberately delay their purchase in order to wait for the discount to be sent to them. Be mindful of not offering your deals too soon, or too often. Switch up the timing and value of your cart abandonment email offers so that you don’t do yourself a disservice.

Make Your Return Policy Clear

Online shopping is now the norm, but it can still feel risky to many. “Will it fit me?” “Will I like the fabric or color?” “What if it’s not what I’m expecting?” These are just some of the questions that come into shoppers’ heads. Give them peace of mind through your return policy. Communicate it clearly and often on your web store, and if you can, offer free returns. Whatever your return policy is, make sure it’s prominently displayed, easy to find and simple to understand and execute.

Have a Fast-loading Website

If your website is slow to load, shoppers may lose patience or lose trust that it’s stable and reliable. Either reaction could cost you the sale and see your shopper abandon their cart. Statista found that 17% of shoppers who abandoned their carts were concerned about security. Secure pages such as checkout pages are usually not cacheable, so try to ensure yours load quickly. Avoid third-party scripts and ensure shipping methods and payment forms load quickly. Also, add trust logos of all of your payment options and have a valid SSL certificate to increase faith that your website—and their data—is secure.

Provide a Variety of Delivery and Payment Options

Online shoppers have come to expect a range of options when it comes to delivery and payment. For some shoppers, when it comes to delivery, speed is more important than price, so offer a range of options to meet their needs. Your web store should also provide the option for express checkout using PayPal, Google Pay, or Apple Pay (along with standard credit card providers). A number of studies have found that younger shoppers don’t use credit cards, instead preferring “buy now, pay later” services such as Afterpay and Klarna. Enabling these options on your web store will open you up to a bigger audience and help you prevent cart abandonment.

Recover Lost Customers Via Facebook Remarketing

You can’t completely stop customers from leaving your website without making a purchase, but you can create special ads that target them and help you win them back. Facebook remarketing adds a tracking pixel to your website that allows you to capture visitor behavior and attach a cookie to each visitor. This information can be used to create custom Facebook ads that target visitors who leave your site without making a purchase. Highlight products that the individual viewed but didn’t buy, and consider offering a special discount to entice them to come back to your site and purchase.

Win Over Wary Shoppers With Social Proof

One of the most effective ways you can win over unsure shoppers is to show them proof of your other happy customers. This can come in the form of product reviews, testimonials, and third-party applications like Fomo, which alert shoppers when other people make a purchase on your website. Install capabilities on either your product pages or a dedicated reviews or testimonials page of your website so that your customers can share their thoughts, and be sure to ask them for feedback via email and social media.

These are just some of the ways you can avoid cart abandonment on your fashion eCommerce website. Talk to a member of our team to put these and more strategies in place on your web store.

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What Apparel and Accessories Brands Must Know About Establishing A Loyalty Program

What Apparel and Accessories Brands Must Know About Establishing A Loyalty Program

by | Mar 19, 2021 | Apparel, Technology

If your apparel or accessories eCommerce website is missing a loyalty program, then you’re missing out. Loyalty programs provide a unique opportunity for eCommerce stores to form deeper, closer relationships with their customers by rewarding their regulars. 

Read on to learn all about loyalty programs, their best practices and more, so that your online store can start reaping the benefits today.

What is an eCommerce store loyalty program?

A loyalty program for an eCommerce store is a customer retention tool meant to keep customers engaged and loyal to your store. This leads to loyal customers shopping on your site more often and buying in higher quantities. 

Many loyalty programs offer points for every dollar spent. Once enough points are accumulated, customers can either use those points to save money on their next purchase or redeem the points for a reward. In physical stores, loyalty programs usually come via a card you scan during checkout. For eCommerce stores, however, the merchant typically asks customers to sign in, which then allows their loyalty information to populate and update based on any new purchases.

How popular are loyalty programs?

According to a poll by Synchrony Financial, 80% of American adults belong to a loyalty program, the most popular being grocery stores and drugstores. However, apparel and accessories brand loyalty is on the rise: 65% of shoppers surveyed in the above poll say they value apparel loyalty programs.

What are the best practices of a loyalty program?

As you build your pharma eCommerce store’s loyalty program, keep these five tips in mind:

Use personalization. Today’s customers don’t want generic content. They appreciate customization that makes them feel personally engaged with a brand. Developing a specific loyalty program that shows your customers the kind of apparel and accessories they like, and provides personalized, relevant advice and offers goes a long way. Madewell allows its Insider club members to track their purchases—and therefore their points—and offers them free personalization of their denim and leather products via stamping and embroidery.

Focus Your Loyalty Program on Your Existing Customers, Not on Recruiting New Customers. When it comes to loyalty programs, 80% of income comes from the top 20% of loyal customers. That’s why it’s important to keep your existing customers satisfied with your reward program. Look at your research and analytics to see what products and offers resonate with this audience, and then keep these rewards coming.

Introduce a Progressive Web App (PWA) Instead of a Plastic Loyalty Card. The days of plastic loyalty cards are gone, as people increasingly store information on their phones rather than in their wallets. As a result, it’s a good idea to have your eCommerce store’s loyalty program digitally accessible. That way, customers can see their notifications, rewards, and more all in a quick tap on their phone. For more information, check out our blog post about bypassing mobile limitations with PWAs. 

Provide Opportunities for Customers to Add More to Their Carts. A good loyalty program should incentivize its members to add more to their carts than they originally intended. To do this, offer “double-point campaigns” (such as: “Add this to your cart today and you’ll receive double the points on your entire purchase!”) and other targeted offers. Nordstrom’s loyalty program “The Nordy Club” offers a Personal Double Points Day for its shoppers who reach “Insider status.”

Host Social Media Contests. The most successful loyalty programs encourage their members to interact with their brand on social media. Give your members points if they link their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Then, offer rewards in the form of points and freebies for participating in social media contests.

What are the benefits of a loyalty program?

There are three main benefits of creating a loyalty program for your supplements eCommerce site:

Increased Brand Awareness. Loyalty programs are straightforward ways to increase shoppers’ awareness of your apparel or accessories brand and store. Naturally, this awareness leads to attachment and loyalty. This helps eCommerce stores maintain and build customer relationships for the long haul.

Tracked Buying Habits. With loyalty programs, it’s easy to keep track of what your customers buy. This helps you better manage inventory, offer relevant sales and specials and enhance your CRM database.

More Brand Advocates. As people come back to your store more often and engage more, they become brand advocates among their network of family and friends. This word-of-mouth marketing is invaluable—it is sometimes shown to be trusted even more than a doctor’s advice. But don’t forget: Once these brand advocates are vocal about their loyalty to your store, they must feel appreciated. You can do this by providing exclusive offers just for them—such as H&M’s Loyalty Program members-only “shop now, pay later” offer.

How has COVID-19 changed loyalty programs?

Even before the global pandemic, consumer shopping behavior was happening more and more online — but COVID-19 has only accelerated this change. People are beginning to engage differently. They want to feel connected to their favorite brands and they want value that they can’t find elsewhere. For many companies, the answer to this is a stand-out loyalty program. Giving customers access to personalized information, offers and rewards goes a long way.

Ready to start — or enhance — your online store’s loyalty program?

At InteractOne, this is one of our specialties. As a senior-level Magento partner, we know Magento loyalty functionality. Plus, we partner with leading eCommerce loyalty program companies, such as Nosto and Yotpo.

To see what we can do for your supplement or vitamin eCommerce store’s loyalty program, contact us today.

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March 2021 Apparel Orange Report

March 2021 Apparel Orange Report

by | Mar 18, 2021 | Apparel

March 2021 Apparel ORANGE REPORT

The March 2021 Orange Report features our best & most recent blogs and guides on Magento, Big Commerce, eCommerce, and Digital Marketing from the world of Apparel and Accessories. 

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Smart Email Strategies to Increase Vitamin & Supplements Sales

Smart Email Strategies to Increase Vitamin & Supplements Sales

by | Mar 12, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Nutraceuticals/Supplements/Vitamins

When it comes to selling supplements, vitamins and nutraceuticals, email is king. In fact, when surveyed, most doctors across the country say that they prefer this type of communication over all other potential marketing channels. So why is email so popular in the supplements world, and how can you be sure that your emails are effective? Keep reading to learn all of this and more.

What’s the benefit of email for healthcare professionals?

You might be wondering why so many doctors prefer email over many other routes of communication. It all comes down to time. The benefit of email for healthcare professionals is that it can be done on their own time. Doctors are extraordinarily busy people, and making time to hear from a sales rep, download apps, or fetch their snail mail is unlikely to happen very often. However, emails can be opened quickly and easily when it’s convenient for them.

What’s the benefit of email for pharma marketers?

Sending a sales rep or snail mail can be sufficient in some cases, but these modes of communication make it hard to measure results and ROI. With email, however, getting results and measuring ROI is pretty simple and very effective.

When supplements eCommerce retailers have a good CRM program in place and use it to send an email, they instantly know who opened the email (or didn’t open it), when they opened it and what actions they took from it. Open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates are readily available, which makes subsequent marketing efforts even easier. After a few emails, supplements marketers can reliably see what information is most important for the recipients and then create more effective emails going forward.

An additional benefit of email is that the vast majority of your recipients will actually receive your message. Emails have a delivery rate of 90% or more, whereas even viral posts on social media typically only reach about 5% of your social audience.

Top email marketing strategies

A lot of research has been done about what’s best to do (and not do) with emails in order to increase pharma sales. Here are a few key takeaways.

Make the emails mobile friendly. A whopping 80% of healthcare professionals say that they mostly read emails on their phones, not their computers. As a result, emails need to be adapted to various devices and screens in a mobile-friendly format.

Make the emails personalized and targeted. Doing this creates a better experience for each recipient. After you discover which person clicks on which content, you can use that information to personalize subsequent email communications. Your recipients will feel heard and thus become more engaged with your company.

Include tips and offers they don’t get elsewhere. Having unique tips in your emails is powerful for your audience. The most successful things to include in pharma emails include tips for remembering to take your medicine on time, as well as exclusive offers they can use when they order in your online store.

Do subject line testing. Subject line testing has been shown to exponentially increase your open rates and customer loyalty. This may sound simple, but it’s vital! If your recipients don’t like or understand the subject line of your email, they won’t open it… and that ends the line of communication. Subject line testing is crucial, but studies show that most email campaigns don’t take advantage of A/B subject line testing. Missing out on this means missing out on a lot of potential engagement. In addition, it’s often a good idea to include a teaser for the tips that are included in the email in the subject line.

Consider the frequency and timing of your emails. In general, it’s best to begin sending emails every other week and then increase it to once a week. Then, you can send them more frequently once someone is opening your emails and engaging with them. However, in terms of timing, things aren’t so cut and dry. Test the timing of your emails to see when your audience engages the most. Just like it’s important to A/B test subject lines, it’s also important to A/B test the best times to send emails. You’ll learn a lot from this and then be able to increase your open rates as a result.

Tips for supplements-specific emails

There are best practices for emails, and then there are best practices for supplement emails. The supplement space carries many unique limitations that must be considered when creating and sending emails.

To start, a supplements email must be completely optimized before the medical and legal approval process can begin. Ignoring this rule limits your ability to make changes that can improve open rates, click-through rates, and ROI. In addition, making sure that your emails are optimized before submitting them to the medical and legal team has been shown to get the project done much faster.

Another example of a supplements-specific email tip is to fill the email with pertinent, relevant, supplements-related information. The more specific the information, the more useful it is for the recipient—and the greater the chance that the recipient will engage with your brand. For example, if your company knows when each recipient should refill their prescriptions, you can send a timely email when it’s time to do so. Your recipients will appreciate your attention to detail and dedication to their unique needs.

Conclusion

With email on the rise, creating effective emails has never been more important. And with healthcare professionals relying more and more on email for most of their communications, it’s vital that pharma retailers optimize emails as much as possible. Employing certain strategies can pay off in a big way when it comes to customer loyalty and engagement.

To find out how InteractOne can help with email marketing for your supplements eCommerce website, contact us today.

Get in Touch

Connect with one of our experts today to discuss your eCommerce needs!

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March 2021 Apparel Orange Report

March 2021 Vitamins and Supplements Orange Report

by | Mar 12, 2021 | Nutraceuticals/Supplements/Vitamins

March 2021 Vitamins and Supplements ORANGE REPORT

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SIGN UP FOR THE ORANGE REPORT

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