How To Decrease Cart Abandonment With Website Personalisation

In today’s e-commerce industry, cart abandonment occurs at an alarming rate—almost 70% of online shoppers walk away from their cart without completing a purchase. Moreover, cart abandonment costs the economy anywhere from $2 to $4 TRILLION dollars per year. While the reasons for abandonment are many—high shipping costs, expired discount codes, lengthy delivery timelines, etc.—there’s no better way to decrease cart abandonment than with website personalisation. 

Consumers want and expect personalised experiences

Recent data shows 80% of consumers want personalised experiences from brands. Why? Because a 1:1 experience makes the buying journey seamless. Instead of browsing your inventory aimlessly, visitors can land on your website and find exactly what they’re looking for. And when you meet consumer needs and expectations in a more effective way, you increase the likelihood of a completed transaction.

5 Website personalisation strategies that reduce cart abandonment

While there are several ways to improve website personalisation, we believe the following five strategies are the best place to start.

1. Tap into known customer tastes with on-site recommendations
One of the biggest complaints consumers have is on-site overwhelm. Whether shopping for a summer dress or a new skincare routine, online shoppers regularly feel lost because there are too many products to choose from. This feeling of overwhelm cultivates frustration, and frustration often leads to cart abandonment. To combat this problem, invest in making smarter on-site product recommendations by tapping into known data about your customers. This data can be first-party or third-party, so long as it enables you to make recommendations that are more relevant and timely for the customer.

2. Leverage overlays at the first sign of potential abandonment
The moment a visitor moves to leave your site or interrupt the checkout process, deploy an overlay to remind them about the items still waiting in their cart. For price-sensitive consumers, provide an incentive such as a discount code or free shipping to get them to return to their cart and complete the purchase. By interacting with online visitors at this crucial moment in the customer journey, you can easily motivate them to finish their purchase.

3. Offer additional complementary products at checkout
Using known cart information, you can offer shoppers complimentary products at the point of checkout to create extra incentive to complete their purchase. Consider add-ons such as socks for a sneaker purchase or a setting spray for a makeup purchase. These items are not only “nice-to-haves” that excite and delight the shopper (which pushes them through the checkout process), but they’re highly relevant because they’re tied to the primary purchase.


4. Optimise landing pages and menu bars
No matter how many visitors come to your site, each unique landing page needs to create a perfect first impression of your brand. That means you must design personalised landing pages tied to user browsing history, geolocation, time of day, etc. Doing so will enhance the customer experience and increase the likelihood of a purchase. Similarly, reorganise your navigation bar based on affinity or category preferences to help shoppers find products more quickly and efficiently, which helps increase the likelihood of a transaction.

5. Continue personalised messaging on additional channels
It’s important to note that personalisation strategies to reduce cart abandonment shouldn’t end at your site. Oftentimes consumers get distracted or are browsing on mobile but want to complete the purchase on a desktop. An abandoned cart doesn’t always equate to a lost sale, which makes personalised email reminders an effective way to encourage cart abandoners to return to your site. Use messaging and creative specific to what the shopper was interested in, and remind them that their cart is ready for checkout. For an extra added incentive, consider including a promo code in your email nudge.