Online retailers are lagging behind when it comes to providing an effective response to abandoned shopping trolleys, according to research.
A study by RedEye found that only 7% of the UK’s largest ecommerce retailers use emails to follow up on abandoned baskets.
But, says the company, which specialises in behavioural email, customers who register with a company, add an item to their shopping basket and then leave without buying are hot prospects. It says 85% of customers regularly abandon online baskets.
Matthew Kelleher, commercial director at RedEye, said: “When we tested how online retailers respond to abandonment behaviour, only 7% sent any type of follow-up communication. The question is, what are the other 93% doing? Apparently nothing.”
The company researched the behaviour of more than 200 retail, insurance and gambling websites in November 2010. They included the top 100 online retailers, as listed by Hitwise, the top 92 insurance companies and the top 10 worldwide gambling sites.
As well as its findings on abandoned basket email, it also found that 47% of retailers do not send welcome emails to new subscribers or customers, and that retailers lag behind both insurers and gambling websites in their use of email marketing.
Only 27% of companies who sent a welcome email also sent any other follow-up, it found. And of the 27% of companies who followed up, the largest group were the 10.7% who sent an email two weeks after the initial welcome email.
To find out more and download the study click here.
