Cyber Monday – the Internet’s version of Black Friday – marks the start of the holiday online shopping season that runs from right after US Thanksgiving till Christmas. Many merchant shopping cart owners report that they record their highest sales figures between December 5th and December 15th every year. By now many of you, especially those who have read our article on store preparations for the holidays, will have your stores ready for the biggest shopping period of the year.
To help you get the most out of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the holiday shopping season, we have prepared yet another tip that could help you increase your sales without much effort. The best thing is that you can also make use of this tip year-round.
So what exactly do we recommend? Read on to find out…
You can be sure that this holiday season, as with all others, the InstanteStore ecommerce shopping cart merchant solution has got all our merchants covered. Our merchant shopping cart software is packed with features that you can take advantage of to help make your store a success. In fact, we have so many features in our integrated shopping cart that it can be pretty easy to overlook some hidden gems (more on this in future articles).
The first thing many merchants do when they log into the InstanteStore administrator control panel is check for new orders. Once those orders are processed, they go on to reply any inquiries they may have received. Once that’s done, its time to update the product catalog and maybe do some online marketing.
Not many bother to check the aborted orders list. This list is a potential gold mine. Aborted orders, also known as shopping cart abandonment, occurs when a visitor enters the checkout process but does not complete it (We will touch on the reasons for this in a future article).
Studies have shown that up to 75% of visitors go through a checkout process without completing it. But what’s worse is that most merchants don’t do anything about this. We hope that this article will convince you of the merits of addressing aborted orders.
Here’s a quick shopping cart tip: When interpreting ecommerce statistics, keep in mind that the glass should always be half full. If 75% of visitors don’t complete the checkout process, this simply means that these people are interested but need a bit more convincing. Statistics also tell us that merchants can recoup up to 50% of the cart abandonment figure.
Here’s what you need to do. You need to re-market your products to those who have abandoned their cart and you need to do this as soon as possible. InstanteStore has made this step easy by providing an automated feature (that you can access from the Feature Activation page) that scans your aborted orders daily and sends out e-mails to would-be customers who started orders, but didn’t complete them to try to persuade them to complete their orders. Merchants can customize the email and even include a link to the checkout page to make the whole process even more convenient for the customer.
But re-marketing does not end there. Most customers do not need incentives to follow through on the purchase but if there is no customer response after 24 hours, a follow-up email with small incentive will likely close the deal. Please refrain from giving huge discounts and free shipping at this point. Communication up to this point should not sound “sale-sy” or desperate. The email should be in the form of a reminder; inquiring if there was a problem with the checkout process, perhaps. Many merchants give away the farm at this stage. Remember, merchants should always have an Ace up their sleeve for a final sales push if need be.
We’d love to hear feedback from those who have tried this tip. Leave us a comment on your experiences.
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