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I like to perform a thorough price comparison and competitive analysis before I buy most things. Especially when shopping online, I tend to browse many online stores before finally choosing where to make my purchase.
Sometimes in the middle of shopping, I get sidetracked by my daughter. Sometimes I have to do some chores or run a quick errand. Sometimes, I get last minute jitters and abandon my shopping cart even after I’ve entered in all of my information.
How This One Store Got My Business
The other day, I spent over an hour online shopping for baby shoes not realizing how daunting of a task it was and how expensive these tiny kids shoes could be. Some of these little miniature baby shoes cost as much as my adult shoes!
Anyways over the course of my shopping experience, I must have hit at least 10 online stores, possibly more and eventually all of the baby boutiques I visited started to blend together. After losing patience and getting a bit fed up, I finally settled on a few pairs that I liked for my daughter. But as I reached for my credit card to complete the transaction, I heard my wife yelling from the next room.
“Wait!!!”, my wife bellowed as she burst in the room. “Let’s just go the mall and shop for them directly.”
Wonderful. It didn’t matter that I just devoted the last hour of my life to find these baby shoes. So off we went to my favorite place…the mall. It turned out that going there was a big waste of time as usual. All of the kids shoes were either not in my daughter’s size or they were too expensive. When I got back to my computer to resume my quest, I was pleasantly surprised to find a 10% coupon for children’s shoes in my inbox!
It turned out that one of the baby stores I visited several hours ago noticed that I had abandoned my shopping cart and sent me an email asking me to reconsider my purchase. Since I received a 10% off coupon, I immediately went back to the store and bought the shoes.
Had I not received that email, I probably would not have gone back to that store. Hell, I visited so many baby boutiques that day that I probably wouldn’t have even been able to find the store again regardless.
Recovering Lost Sales
So now I’m thinking of implementing this feature for our online store. Looking at my funnel statistics, I lose roughly 15% of my customers during checkout after they’ve entered in their information. Some of these customers probably balk at the shipping price whereas some of them probably get cold feet at the very end so they never complete the transaction.
Whatever the reason, these customers are all extremely close to checking out and probably just need a little nudge to complete their order. The real question in my mind is whether sending an email to a customer would be annoying. In my case, I was happy to receive a coupon so I went back to make the purchase, but I wonder whether a random email would annoy some shoppers.
The other thing I’m apprehensive about is that customers might purposely abandon their shopping cart in order to receive a coupon if I choose to go that route. In any case, I’d like to hear some of my readers thoughts on the topic.
Would you get annoyed if you received an email after abandoning your shopping cart? Would you be annoyed even with a discount coupon? Would you try and game the system to get the coupon?
Ideally, I would test this feature live in my store but it would probably take me several full days of coding in order to implement and debug the feature. Just curious to hear your thoughts before investing my time.
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Depends on the store and the individual customer experience.
I placed an order at a store that had a better “deal” but ended up not shipping my order, didn’t notify me it was back ordered and said it’d be another “few weeks” (after a few weeks). I ended up canceling my order and buying the exact same thing at a higher price from another place that had a 45 day shipping notice (overseas) merely because the last one handled it so poorly. A 10% coupon in my inbox wouldn’t lure me back.
Maybe only do the coupon for new customers – that way even if they game it, it’s only once. Or maybe offer 10% for new customers regardless.
I’ve always liked stores that offer a discount at a certain $ amount. Gets me to buy that one extra item that I normally wouldn’t.
@Jace @Ms Constantine @Alvaro
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve talked to a few other shop owners as well that send automatic coupons after 3-5 days from abandoning their cart. Personally, I think that 3-5 days is a bit long. It’s almost as though you have to regain the customer’s attention the same day or the next. In any case, I’ll probably work on this when I have a block of time. This one shopowner I spoke to manages to regain just about 9% of their customers using this method. It’s unclear how many of these people are just gaming the system but 9% is better than 0%
As long as a store didn’t hound me and only sent me one email with a coupon I’d go back if I was planning on buying that product anyway.
If I knew about the coupon before looking at the store I’d definitely try to game the system. Why not if it can save me money!
Recently I’d put my details into a store selling glasses online, I kept chickening out thinking the quality might be bad. Then they sent me a coupon for free frames if I pay the rest. It definitely changed my mind and I bought some right away.
I suggest to consider giving all past clients a 10% discount on one purchase per month. New clients a one time 11-15% discount, (then the become past clients). This would encourage new clients and reward loyalty of past clients.
Also, those gaming the system may not buy from your shop without the coupon. You could count that as a brand new customer you might not otherwise have.
@MsConstantine
So true. If I could regain just 20% of the abandoned customers, that would equal quite a bit of revenue.
I think sending ONE discount message on the same day or the next day is great. Waiting longer or sending multiple messages will tend to push people away.
And the worst you can do is follow Amazon’s example of filling my inbox with “since you bought X, we thought you might be interested in Y” messages. Frequently, they are right–and I print out the information and take it to the local Barnes and Noble store to buy the book–simply because I hate spam that much.
By the way, Steve, I’m getting some family members together to launch our own online store soon (but nothing to do with weddings).
@Walt
Happy to hear that you and your family are launching their online store! If you ever need any help, please do let me know. Yeah I really hate how Amazon sends me loads of email as well. Clearly it works though, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.
Last night I received a call from a local pizza shop that I ordered from only once in the last 2 years. It was the manager/owner and he offered me a free appetizer if I wanted to “come back” and try them again. I’ve tried a hundred pizza shops and I don’t recall if I liked his or not, but that free app will make me choose his the next time I order pizza.
Perhaps give your customers a nice discount after 6 months to invite them back, or a referral discount if one of their friends makes a purchase.
@Jace @Walt
Free stuff is definitely compelling. I was thinking of offering a free order of hot wings with purchase of some wedding linens:) Believe it or not, we have quite a few repeat customers. Most of these customers are event planners, wedding planners or people who do their own embroidery on the side. Offering brides a discount for their friends does sound interesting however. I’m positive that we get a lot of business from referrals as it stands.
Good point, Jace. An occasional, infrequent e-mail message can be a great way to pick up repeat business.
I think the thing with Amazon is that they send out so many. Even if I decided to buy every book they recommended, I couldn’t fund that many purchases. I’d have to move out of my house and live in my car.
I’ve also noticed that a lot of the hotel loyalty programs do the same thing. (Hint to the hotel chains: I’m too work-oriented to be able to enjoy a week in the Caribbean. By day two, I’d be trying to find reliable Internet, so I could do something constructive. You should know this already, since every hotel stay is for “work” purposes.)
I’m sure their software has a pretty detailed picture of my interests by now. How about e-mailing once every month or three with the one or two things that are most likely to interest me?
In Steve’s business, however, I doubt that most of his customers are repeats. So post-sale e-mail needs to be about “did we satisfy you?” and about “we’ll give your friends a discount if they order on your recommendation in the next three months”.
I’ve been thinking about the referral system for my own uses and I think an email is too flimsy, doesn’t compel the user to actually refer anyone. For my system I think I’m going to have some cards printed up (probably plastic like gift cards) that people can physically hand to someone and has a code on it (haven’t decided whether I want it to be one-time use or not). Include it with the shipped order and let them give it to one of their friends, it’s a physical reminder that’s more useful than a business card. Or better yet, have your business cards printed up with a referral code on the back, double exposure. =)
Its a good idea as long as its not abused. One email, that’s it. I noticed it once and i emailed them to ask if we could help. Ten minuets latter i noticed he purchased the product and completed the transaction. He emailed me back to say he was sorry he abandoned.
When i sent the email I was not sure if i did the right thing as i never send out an email unless it is expected. For some reason that day i though it was a fair game as the same person did it twice. They were obviously having a problem. It could have been our system or his pc, who knows.
Hi Steve,
Well,this is a feasible idea to give it a try.If you are not sure,test it out by doing a test market on some of your customers and see how is the response.
It is common to follow up on a sale offline when a customer did not purchase an item.The main reason is to find the negative behind not making a purchase,overcome it and close the sales.This provide a sale person a second chance to seal the deal.Free gifts or discounts are being use to move things along.
It is a sensitive issue.Emails send may not be read or be in the spam folder.Doing it incorrectly will causes the customers to have the impression that you are desperate for sales.
To overcome this,send out an email with a strong title to get them to read it.Overall,it is worthwhile to give it a try.Use this as a good opportunity to project your business image as value for money and broaden the customer base.
To your success