Study: Retailers Lose 73% Of Sales To Shopping Cart Abandonment

By Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_)  

Nearly 25 percent of top eCommerce companies are sending shopping cart recovery emails in an attempt to recapture lost revenue opportunities, a newly released report from Listrak revealed on October 17.

eCommerce remarketing efforts are gaining increased importance, according to the Pennsylvania-based marketing provider, as 73 percent of online sales are now abandoned before the customer completes the transaction.

The findings were part of Listrak’s fifth annual Shopping Cart Recovery Tactics report, a 40-page study that took an in-depth look at the Internet Retailer 1000 – a group composed of 500 top-tier and 500 second-tier eCommerce companies. The result was a wealth of new data that reinforces the importance of remarketing efforts to the online economy.

“A shopping cart recovery campaign can recapture those lost sales, adding revenue directly to an online retailer’s bottom line,” the report authors concluded.

Due in part to this success, retailers are sending remarketing messages to consumers earlier, with 65.8 percent of the top 500 companies sending a cart abandonment email within 24 hours, and more often in 2013.

For more data on how eCommerce companies are evolving their tactics and on how consumers are responding to these efforts, we break down Listrak’s report in this PYMNTS.com Data Point.

Retailers Send Increase Message Amount, Frequency In 2013

Listrak found that the number of Internet 1000 retailers sending remarketing messages increased 29 percent from 2012. Seventy-three percent of these retailers reported to sending two emails within the first three days of the cart abandonment, and one within the first 24 hours.

Further, retailers are now sending shopping cart abandonment emails more often: The number of retailers sending three messages to consumers increased 40 percent from 2012.

Retailers Become Savvy At Incentivizing Emails

Listrak also found that retailers are now using offers strategically to recapture abandoned carts. Roughly 30 percent of the top 500 retailers are including a special incentive in their first message, a figure that’s down 7.7 percent from 2012.

Second emails from these retailers included offers 50 percent of the time, while third messages revealed an incentive nearly 73 percent of the time. These figures were down 16.9 percent and up 2.4 percent from last year’s totals, respectively.

Retailers Miss Opportunity To Include Social Reviews

While retailers were becoming more nuanced in their delivery of incentives through shopping cart abandonment messages, Listrak also indicated retailers have room for improvement as far as their content.

The study found that only 12 percent of top 500 retailer remarketing emails include product recommendations. Among second 500 retailers, this figure declined to 3 percent. Even fewer – 3.4 percent – of top 500 retailers included ratings and reviews in these correspondences. Second 500 retailers, by comparison, seem to be adopting this selling tactic at a faster rate, with 4.7 percent using this tactic.

To obtain in-depth examples of how today’s top retailers are composing remarketing messages, download Listrak’s full report here.