The people that don’t buy from you could be one of the most invaluable sources of data to improve your ROI and reduce cart abandonments.
This might sound strange, but lost customers are a great way to improve your purchase funnel and reduce lost abandonments in the future. Plus, if you can address what blocked the purchase in the first place, you have a good chance of getting the sale.
The secret? No, it’s not hiring lost customers to give you strategy ideas or developing some form of mind-reading device. But it’s actually not that far off: it’s cart abandonment surveys.
Abandoned carts: a constant cart-astrophe
Let’s face it: dealing with cart abandonments in ecommerce is an uphill battle. It’s a lot easier for a customer to abandon their online cart than it is for them to abandon a basket full of groceries at the supermarket.
That feeling of frustration when you see another abandoned cart is universal: 70.19% of carts were abandoned by customers in 2024. Online shoppers abandon carts. A lot.
It’s easy to think of these as a lost cause. Sometimes, ecommerce businesses will send a few half-hearted abandoned cart emails to try and win the customer back before moving on. But that’s just not addressing the root cause of why they abandoned their cart in the first place. Plus, by stopping there, you’re burying a great source of data.
More than a lost sale: understanding why customers abandon carts
Theoretically, the reasons why a customer abandons a cart are as infinite as the universe itself.
We’re not kidding — sometimes cart abandonment might have nothing to do with you. Maybe they forgot to take something out of the oven and got distracted. Maybe they got a phone call offering them the job they’ve been waiting to hear back from and closed in a hurry.
Mobile devices, in particular, see the highest cart abandonment rates due to people feeling more secure shopping on a computer or simply being on the go and getting distracted.
Often, using abandoned cart emails can be enough to win these customers back since these reasons were out of your control. But what about when the reasons customers are abandoning carts are in your control?
Shopify has compiled some of the most common reasons customers abandon carts online. These include:
- Extra costs – 47% of customers abandon their carts because of extra costs simply being too high. If costs like shipping, duties, and taxes aren’t clear, they can be an unwelcome surprise at checkout.
- Required account – Making accounts is annoying. While it’s useful if you plan to be a recurring shopper, first-time buyers are often deterred by the hassle of answering a survey about themselves just to make a purchase.
- Delivery is too slow – As of 2024, two-thirds of customers expect to receive their orders within 24 hours. While this is obviously not feasible for international orders, it shows an increasing focus on delivery speed. If the item doesn’t arrive in a reasonable time, customers may abandon their cart.
- Frustrating checkout process – 18% of cart abandonments are from the checkout process being too long or too convoluted. Online shopping should be quick and easy, so customers tend to seek alternatives when it’s not.
As you likely noticed, these reasons are specific to individual sites. For some, the checkout process may be the only problem. For others, they may have an amazing checkout process, but the shipping speed is too slow.
By abandoning their cart, a customer with clear intent to purchase decided not to. Wouldn’t it be great to know what that was to see if you can fix it? Not only would that give you a chance to win them back, it could also prevent future cart abandonments.
Cart abandonment surveys fill that all-important knowledge gap at a crucial point in the purchase funnel.
Go with the flow: adding surveys to your cart abandonment flow
So, how do you implement cart abandonment surveys? I think you KNO the answer!
KNO has created an abandoned cart survey template based on the top 3-5 objections we see across our 4,000+ brands. The template includes multiple flows based on how the customer answers. It’s incredibly easy to set up in the app and provides the versatility to gather important and actionable feedback.
That data gets synced to tools like Klaviyo, so after a customer shares their cart abandonment reason, you can overcome the objection and win them back. It’s simple: a customer didn’t buy for a reason. If you fix that reason, you can win them back.
Regarding how to send out the survey, I’ve broken it down for you:
1. Add the survey to your cart abandonment flow
Your first goal should still be winning the customer back, especially if the reason they abandoned their cart was outside of your control.
Initially, add the survey as a secondary CTA via a link in your first abandoned cart email. By the second or third email, the survey link should become your primary CTA. Something like “We’d love your thoughts! Take this short survey, and we’ll treat you to a reward!” can be a great way to prompt them to respond.
2. Personalize your follow-ups with insights
Thanks to KNO’s integrations with tools like Klaviyo, survey responses can automatically feed into segmented campaigns. This allows you to provide different solutions and offerings to different customers depending on why they abandoned their cart.
3. Don’t abandon the process too soon
Not every cart is lost forever. Extend your timeline with future touchpoints like a friendly email one month later reminding them their original concern is no longer a blocker.
Insight to impact: how to action the data
Some reasons for cart abandonment can be addressed quickly. Others may take a little more time to sort out.
How do you keep track of all this to action things effectively in the short and long-term?
With a strong customer feedback management system.
Collecting the feedback is easy — your customers do all the work! Your job is to turn the feedback into actionable insights by:
- Categorizing responses – sort all feedback into categories.
- Spotting recurring themes – look for patterns and commonalities within the categories.
- Visualizing the data – turn feedback visual to help make data more digestible and determine priorities.
From there, you can determine the best course of action to address the abandoned cart and win the customer back. For example:
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- If shipping is too high – offer free or reduced shipping in your next email.
- If the item is out of stock – send a notification when it’s back, paired with a discount for waiting.
- If the price is too high – offer a discount to make the price more appealing.
- If a discount or coupon isn’t working – offer an even steeper discount to make up for the frustration.
- If they have an issue with a product – provide a solution to their issue or recommend an alternative product that meets their needs.
- If they were just browsing – add them to a longer-term nurture flow to re-engage later.
Think of it like a boxing match… You need to go on the defensive and counter whatever is thrown at you.
For common concerns you might not be able to tackle in the short-term, you can take more broad strategies to alleviate the issue moving forward. These could include:
- If the checkout process is confusing – look to streamlining information entry alongside one-click checkout options like Shop Pay, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.
- If shipping is too slow – add clear shipping policies to your site and look into adding faster options.
- If customers are surprised by extra costs – bake the costs into the product price or include the costs clearly on the product page.
Remember: no cart is lost forever! While some things may take a little longer to address, you can still follow up with customers on longer-term items once their feedback has been implemented.
Get in the KNO: address abandoned carts and prevent them moving forward
Let’s face it: you’ll always deal with abandoned carts. Every year $18 billion in revenue is lost to cart abandonment, so this problem isn’t going away.
While there may be infinite reasons why a customer abandons a cart that are completely out of your control, why not take control of the reasons that are?
If you want to get started, we created an abandoned cart survey template in KNO to guide you through these setups seamlessly. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out — we’re always happy to help.