Smart Texts Can Turn Abandoned Carts Into Conversions

Cart abandonment often occurs when consumers become frustrated while searching for certain items and price points. It’s costing billions in lost sales, but there are ways of preventing it.

A rising trend of ever more personalized experiences powered by digital solutions and data is proving the best defense against cart abandonment, and more of these solutions are coming online as eCommerce companies move to lessen abandonment with tools like real-time messaging.

On Wednesday (Aug. 31), artificial intelligence (AI)-powered eCommerce personalization platform Fast Simon announced that it is integrating with retail SMS messaging firm Attentive, combining the two solutions into a cart abandonment killer through deep personalization and direct messaging.

“Fast Simon’s AI eCommerce optimization and advanced data collection enrich Attentive’s top-class short messaging service (SMS) and email marketing,” Fast Simon said in the announcement. “With this integration, retailers can create search and browse abandonment journeys and tailor segments according to subscribers’ intent in their search and browsing activities.”

Attentive Director of Partnerships Greg Bauman said, “Reducing abandoned search journeys is a big goal for retailers. Fast Simon has created an optimized experience for Attentive merchants, using critical metrics to send shoppers timely, personalized messages through shopping and purchase behavior.”

Making shopping journeys more personalized and reactive to consumer desires can stop shoppers from bailing on carts, and can help them reengage with abandoned carts.

Data bears this out. According to the study “The Tailored Shopping Experience: Meeting Consumers’ Online Expectations,” a PYMNTS and Elastic Path collaboration from a survey of nearly 2,100 consumers, more than 1 in 5 online shoppers abandoned their carts because of other expectations related to a tailored online shopping experience, including difficulty finding the products they want and poor user experience.

Read more: The Tailored Shopping Experience: Meeting Consumers’ Online Expectations

“When consumers run into obstacles making their purchases, they may delay that purchase, or worse, they might not complete it,” the study noted. “A tailored online shopping experience, which might include desired shipping options or items selected based on the consumers’ preferred price point, can remove friction and potentially improve card abandonment rates.”

Closing in on Conversions

The Fast Simon-Attentive integration is an example of how platforms are using personalization with opt-in text messaging to deliver well-timed prompts that lead to more conversions.

The announcement noted that such targeting can help retailers boost engagement and customer loyalty by retargeting based on previous sessions, creating customer groups according to interest and personal details and delivering compelling content.

Others are also moving to reduce cart abandonments in a year when every conversion counts, placing a focus on streamlining the authentication process so checkouts go smoothly. For instance, Shopify has also partnered with Attentive, enabling shoppers to make purchases directly from text messages.

In a press release announcing that pact in early August, Carl Rivera, vice president of product and head of shop at Shopify, said, “Shop Pay is the best way to check out across the web and in social-commerce. We’re excited to now bring the same seamless payments to power text-to-buy solutions together with Attentive.”

See also: Attentive Partners With Shopify to Advance Buying by Text

Meanwhile, Checkout.com recently introduced enhancements to its authentication product to reduce cart abandonment as strong customer authentication (SCA) rules go into force in across Europe.

In an August blog post, Checkout.com Product Director Rami Josef pointed to consumer research finding that a quarter of European customers have abandoned transactions at least once because of the additional authentication requirements.

Related: Checkout.com Enhances Authentication Tool to Reduce Abandoned Carts

“To put it frankly: sales revenue is at stake,” Josef said.

The authentication upgrades give merchants control over their customers’ journeys, “offering the option of extending rules-based or dynamic machine learning (ML) authentication strategies. With an open ecosystem, the authentication tool can be used as a standalone solution with other payment processors or as part of Checkout.com’s product suite.”

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.