Cart Abandonment vs. Browse Abandonment: What’s the Difference

A lack of customer commitment on your site leading to browse abandonment and shopping cart abandonment can have a tremendous impact on your business.

The good news is there are effective methods to recover your lost sales and help you improve customer experience.

From implementing a browse abandonment message for online window shoppers to cart abandonment emails perfect for a potential customer with multiple products in their cart, we’ve got you covered. 

What is Browse Abandonment?

Anyone that comes to your site to look around and have a quick browsing session, is an opportunity for a sale. If they leave without placing any items in their cart, it’s a lost opportunity, which equates to a loss in revenue for your business.

Say, for example, you’re looking for a particular product such as new bedding. You head to a site to look around, see what your options are, gain an understanding of cost, yet never put anything in your cart and click off. You have therefore committed browse abandonment. Many site visitors have low buying intent but there are ways to incentive shoppers so they don’t become a browse abandoner. 

First, you must understand why your visitors are not completing the purchase cycle. There are several reasons people visit a site, yet leave without putting something in their cart.

• Looking for ideas
  • The web is a great place to get inspired without a required commitment.
• Comparison shopping 
  • Since many sites sell the same products, people want to know they’re getting the best deal possible.
• Product doesn’t meet needs
  • If someone has a specific product in mind and your site doesn’t have it, they will leave.
  • If motivation doesn’t strike, they will go somewhere else.
• Too expensive
  • When a browser sees the price, they may jump ship even though they like the product on your website.
• Not looking to purchase
  • Plenty of people look with no intention to buy, whether they’re bored, saw your digital marketing on social media, looking for a friend, or curious about the latest popular products and styles.
• Slow loading site
  • Slow-loading sites increase the abandonment rate by 75%. 
• Read a bad review
  • If a commitment is ready to be made about a browsed product, negative reviews will sway the purchasing decision and affect purchase intent. 

What is Cart Abandonment?

This goes a step beyond browsing because at this point, the items of interest have been placed in the cart, ready for purchase. For some reason, checkout is not completed and the items are left abandoned in the cart.

Similar to browse abandonment, there are plenty of reasons why this happens and it’s not just the consumer who’s to blame.

• Checkout process too long
  • People are busy and if something takes too long, they will move on to the next task on their to-do lists.
• Timed out
  • If your site doesn’t give the customer enough time to fill out the proper information and get a credit card, they will not want to repeat the time necessary to complete the purchase. 
• Issue with payment processing
  • Whether it’s an issue with a credit card or your site’s system is down, it’s easy to get frustrated and move on. 
• Are unsure of your purchase
  • Your visitor likes a product but just isn’t ready to make the commitment for some reason.
• Worried about price
  • If the total price isn’t calculated until the very end, it may be out of budget.
  • People tend to forget about the addition of taxes and shipping fees.
•  Registration requirements
  • If your company doesn’t have a guest checkout option, a required site registration may turn someone away due to time constraints and the lack of desire to receive advertisement emails. 
  • Due to the required registration prompts, 35% of online transactions are dropped.
• Secure Site
  • If your site doesn’t have a valid SSL certificate, visitors might not feel comfortable using their credit cards for fear of fraud. 
• Shipping is not fast enough
  • These days, customers want it yesterday and with two-day and same-day shipping options, they don’t have patience to wait, especially during COVID.

What are cart abandonment rates?

If we take a look at the statistics related to all of these reasons mentioned above, businesses like yours can figure out how to turn these browsers into customers. 

On average, 69.57% is the documented online abandoned cart rate, which is a calculation based on 41 various studies on eCommerce shopping cart abandonment from Baymard Institute.

From a monetary perspective, that roughly equates to $260 billion in eCommerce sales lost from people in the US and EU who didn’t complete the purchasing process. With the proper steps, this money is recoverable. 

Once you’re aware of your site visitor’s roadblocks to completing the purchasing process, you need to then look at yours. In a Forbes.com article, Adam Hindhaugh, creative & product director at Ve Global, a London-based marketing technology firm, says that cart abandonment is largely a result of marketers making flawed assumptions because once a customer lands onsite, there’s still plenty of work to be done.

There’s little reason to let potential sales slip away. Platforms like ManyChat are utilized to remind customers of their forgotten purchases and give that necessary gentle nudge. This is accomplished through various platforms, such as email, SMS, and Messenger.

Solutions for Browse Abandonment and Cart Abandonment

Check out what dynamic content for browse abandonment emails look like. 

What this coupon says is, “You liked what you saw and perhaps you felt the price was too high so here’s this discount to help you justify your purchase.” As a consumer, getting a deal on something that is full price is extremely attractive. You’ll notice there is an immediate incentive coupon to complete the purchase. 

In the example above, there is a sense of urgency created for the visitor to purchase. 

A high performing abandoned cart email sequence can recover up to 30 percent of your lost sales. A good abandoned cart sequence gives you insight into why online shoppers are bailing so you can improve your shopping experience.  

Using a platform like ManyChat can help you create a drip campaign to convert those abandoners. This allows you to reconnect with your customers and inspire them to follow up on a recent visit to your site. 

These abandonment campaigns can also be delivered through Chat Marketing using Messenger, which easily connects you with customers to remind them to purchase. You can choose the abandoned cart trigger in ManyChat to fire off a series of automated messages when someone leaves products in their cart as shown below.

A company should never rely on one form of communication so utilizing SMS along with email and Messenger will allow you to reach more customers efficiently and effectively. 

If you have a Shopify Store, you can easily connect it to ManyChat to create an Abandoned Cart Campaign using automated reminders sent via SMS or Messenger. This allows you to guide consumers back to your store by displaying images of the items left in their cart, suggesting suitable products, and even personalizing discounts.

ManyChat allows you to create coupon campaigns that will be automatically synced over to your Shopify store without ever having to leave ManyChat. Offering discounts can be a powerful marketing strategy for your Shopify store that will engage and motivate your subscribers.

Do’s and Don’ts of Browse Abandonment Outreach

Convincing someone who has chosen a specific product to think about is more challenging than someone who has just been browsing your site.

• Abandonment emails are not the only option for outreach as the popular myth states
  • Chat channels deliver 2 to 5 times the open and click rates compared to email
  • It’s best to manage conversations across several platforms including SMS, Messenger, and email all in one place like ManyChat.
• Include items your visitors were browsing for personalization
  • For all you know, they have been to many sites, so reminding them what they were viewing will be helpful
• Include similar items
  • The product they browsed may not be the product they were searching for, so including alternative options could lead to unexpected sales.
• Create a sense of urgency
  • If a product is popular and almost out of stock, alerting your visitor is a smart tactic.
  • People want what others have and knowing they may not be able to get it will put a fire under them. 
• Offer assistance
  • If a visitor hasn’t purchased from you before, they may not be familiar with your checkout process.
  • A frustrated consumer will click off and head to your competitor. 
• Don’t be too aggressive
  • If a visitor has recently purchased but this time chose not to, thank them with a coupon for their next purchase and make them feel appreciated.
  • If you harass a customer every time they go back to your site, it will be a turn-off.
  • Expecting a sale every time is not realistic.

Do’s and Don’ts of Cart Abandonment Outreach

You’re so close to that sale and the communication reminding your visitor to finish their purchase is one that can give you back important revenue. There are ways to aid in abandoned cart recovery, so don’t worry!

• Put the thought in your outreach content.
  • Make your messaging attractive with quality content that’s clever and effective.
  • Don’t be too pushy. 
  • Ensure your communications don’t come off as creepy.
• MediaPost.com suggests keeping subject lines simple when using emails. 
  • Did you see something you like? — 56.82% (7% higher than the benchmark average). 
  • Recommended just for you — 53.82%.
  • We saw you checking us out — 58.55%.
• Cater to your customer’s habits and go beyond email to reach them.
  • Over 2 billion consumers use SMS, Whatsapp, or Messenger every day to chat and they are 5 times more likely to respond to these chat channels than email.
• Offer a discount but don’t give it away.
  • Even a 10% discount is attractive to potential customers and makes them feel special.

Improving your customer’s shopping experience will help you build meaningful relationships and lead to more conversions.