In a recent Internet Retailing webinar, Revenue rescue: saving sales when shoppers stray, Jim Davidson, head of research at Bronto Software , told us about the two ‘moments of truth’ when retailers are most likely to lose interest – and business – from visitors to their website. Here’s a bulletpoint overview of the main points that he covered.
Jim Davidson, head of research at Bronto Software, opened the webinar with an analysis of consumer trends in product page abandonment. The evolution of the connected consumer investigated the differences between our perception of how modern shoppers buy, and the reality.
• Consumers are now in control of the ecommerce experience, able to find the best deal, which is not always the lowest price.
• They expect a seamless experience.
• They expect to be marketed to if they leave an item in a basket or other behaviour on the website.
• Different ways to market to basket abandoners (find site, shop, put items in the basket and then abandon) and product page abandoners (find site, shop, then abandon).
• “There’s a lot of revenue to be made by reaching out to these folk, but also there’s huge influence and engagement by getting them back to the website and hopefully getting them one step further down the path.”
Strategies to target product page abandoners:
• Bronto’s UK study into product page abandonment shows 93% of retailers don’t send emailed reminders, while 3% send one, 3% send two, and 1% send three. “Consumers are ready for them as long as they’re done in the right way.”
• Product reminder timing: 33% send within 9 hours, 58% remind at some point between 22 hours and four days. With examples from Evans Cycles, Lenovo and eBuyer.com of how email messages vary when sent at different intervals.
• The message: tone of the subject line: Bronto research shows 33% emphasise customer service, 25% products and 25% discounts, while 17% were generic.
• Jim went on to analyse how effective these different approaches were. With examples from West Elm, MyProtein, Orvis.com, Overstock, J.Jill.
• 75% of messages analysed didn’t show the price of the product, but 35% did mention discounts or savings.
Key takeaways:
Shoppers are shopping in different ways, across different devices. Retailers learning to react to consumer control/behaviour.
It’s important to understand shoppers’ needs, identifying next actions rather than why they abandoned.
Don’t be afraid of product page reminders.
Jim’s presentation was followed by a Q&A session.
To find out more about the webinar, visit the Bronto webinar page.
The UK edition of part 1 of the Bronto Revenue Rescue Report on product page abandonment is now available.
