Recovering Lost Sales: Reducing Cart Abandonment with Viber Business Messages

In the world of e-commerce, one of the biggest challenges retailers face is cart abandonment. Imagine a scenario: you've spent hours curating a beautiful online store, optimizing your product descriptions, and crafting irresistible offers. A customer comes along, fills their virtual cart with items, and then, just as they're about to check out, something distracts them. Maybe their phone rings, or they get a notification on another app. Whatever the reason, they abandon their cart, denying you potential sales. Many e-commerce brands will find this scenario all too familiar.

The phenomenon of cart abandonment is a menace to businesses worldwide. According to Forrester Research, it costs brands up to $18 billion in lost sales revenue annually. That's a staggering amount of potential revenue slipping through the cracks.

Cart abandonment rates are not static; they fluctuate based on factors such as device used, geographic location, and specific industry. However, as aggregated data from Dynamic Yield shows, the average rate rose to 72.97% (as of April 2024), across all devices and regions.

Assessing from a regional standpoint, the APAC region outdid others with the highest proportion of abandoned carts at 79.94%, followed by EMEA at 72.8%, and then the Americas at 71.76%.

These rates can rise even further for particular device types, industries, or types of products. For instance, as Dynamic Yield’s data shows, mobile has been responsible for 76.06% of shopping cart abandonment across all industries and regions.

There are differences by industry, too: for example, Luxury & Jewelry saw the highest cart abandonment rate (79.04% in April of 2024 and on average 80.22% over the past twelve months), compared to Pet Care & Veterinary Services where it’s been the lowest in the last year, at 57.43%.

This issue is alarmingly prevalent when it comes to mobile commerce, especially during a time when e-commerce brands are witnessing the increased shift to mobile shopping, with 78% of global retail site traffic being attributed to smartphones, mobile accounts for more than two-thirds of all online shopping transactions as over 72% of e-commerce sales happen on mobile devices.

There is a solution to combat cart abandonment with the help of Viber Business Messages. In this article, we will explore various methods that can help retailers recover lost sales and engage with their customers effectively. 

Cart Abandonment in Focus

To effectively address the cart abandonment issue, businesses must understand the reasons shoppers abandon purchases — and implement effective sales-rescue strategies. Here are some top reasons why consumers abandon carts:

1. Distractions: Customers can be easily sidetracked by everyday occurrences like calls, messages, or other events.

2. Cost-related issues: Higher total costs due to shipping fees or any other additional charges might deter a person from completing the purchase.

3. Indecisiveness: Customers may have doubts and second thoughts about making a purchase, especially if they're uncertain about the product's quality, suitability, or functionality.

4. Lack of time-based incentives: If offers aren't time-bound, buyers might add items to the cart intending to finalize the process later but end up forgetting all about it.

5. Lack of personalized offers: Customers are always looking for deals that cater to their specific needs. If the offer isn't tailored enough, they may drop out.

6. Lack of trust: Many customers have concerns about data privacy and safety and feel reluctant to provide their personal and financial details to unfamiliar websites.

7. Lackluster visuals: Unappealing visual presentations of the products or the offers can lead to cart abandonment. 

8. Complex checkout process: A lengthy or complicated checkout process can cause customer friction and discourage shoppers from completing their purchases.

While it sounds challenging, all of these issues can be addressed with a smart strategy that combats cart abandonment. Getting it done right would allow your business to:

• Recover lost sales: combating cart abandonments allows businesses to recover potential lost sales by convincing customers to make it through the transaction. This can significantly impact revenue and profitability.
• Build customer loyalty: Implementing effective remarketing methods shows customers that the company values their business and wants to help them complete their purchase. This can build trust, loyalty, and long-term customer relationships.
• Improve customer satisfaction: By addressing cart abandonment causes, businesses can improve the overall customer experience. Simplifying the checkout process, offering multiple payment options, and providing clear product information can help buyers feel more confident about their purchase decisions — which improves both customer satisfaction and your bottom line.
• Increase customer lifetime value: smart remarketing tactics and personalized offers not only help recover lost sales but also increase the potential for repeat purchases. By re-engaging customers who have abandoned their carts, businesses can increase their customer lifetime value (CLTV) and generate additional revenue in the long term.
• Gain competitive advantage: Companies that effectively address cart abandonment gain a competitive advantage in the market. By offering a seamless and personalized shopping experience, they can draw customers away from competitors and secure a larger market share.

Rakuten Viber's Arsenal: Tactics to Beat Cart Abandonment

Let's explore some tactics that can help you beat cart abandonment using Rakuten Viber. 

1. Using Viber Rich Business Messaging for reminders: One effective tactic is sending reminders to customers about their abandoned shopping carts. Thanks to rich media available withViber Rich Business Messaging, you can create eye-catching and visually appealing messages that capture their attention and remind them why they wanted the product to begin with. Use images, video to showcase the products left in their carts and provide a link to complete the purchase easily and quickly, before another distraction or concern can get in the way. The attractive visuals and persuasive content will motivate them to finish their shopping.

2. Offer personalized incentives to complete the purchase: Sometimes, all it takes is a little nudge to push shoppers toward completing their purchase. Rakuten Viber allows you to integrate CRM & CDP systems, so each offer you send via Viber Business Messages can be tailored to each specific customer. Use your owned customer data to segment your audience and deliver custom incentives that would actually tempt the customer: exclusive discounts on products they buy frequently, free shipping, or a personalized offer they are likely to want. With a smart cross-selling approach, you can laser-target your offers based on the customer’s history of purchases and everything else you know about them. A compelling incentive is both more effective and appreciated: it can make your customers feel valued and provide them with an extra push to complete their purchase.

3. Use instant messaging on Rakuten Viber to send time-sensitive updates and offers: Creating a sense of urgency can be a powerful motivator for customers to complete the purchase. Rakuten Viber's TTL feature enables you to send messages that must be delivered within a specified timeframe, so you can use them to send limited-time offers. Combined with good CTA buttons, the urgency compels buyers to take immediate action, reducing the chances of them abandoning their carts and boosting conversions. With limited-time personalized offers, you can create a feeling of exclusivity and encourage customers to act quickly to secure the deal.

4. Remarketing strategies:

 Another effective tactic to tackle cart abandonment is remarketing. With Rakuten Viber, you can leverage the owned, first-party data you’ve collected from customer interactions and create personalized remarketing campaigns. By retargeting customers who abandoned their carts with tailored offers and messages, you can remind them of their unfinished purchases and entice them to come back. Rakuten Viber Rich Business Messaging and Viber Advertising solutions

 can both be used to engage and reconnect with potential customers.

Case Study

Yespo, an omnichannel customer data platform catering to B2C businesses, integrated Rakuten Viber as part of its communication portfolio to extend its outreach. The platform deployed the combined power of Rakuten Viber's promotional and transactional business messages, aiding brands in delivering tailored offers, diminishing shopping cart abandonment, boosting revenues, and carrying out entire omnichannel cascade campaigns.

Many of Yespo's customers benefited from this integration with Rakuten Viber. For example, the international e-commerce marketplace Shafa used promotional Viber Business Messages containing links and dynamic content. Thanks to Rakuten Viber, it received 2.5x more orders at half the operational costs.

Another notable example is the Auchan supermarket chain in Ukraine: after Rakuten Viber was added to Yespo’s CDP, Rakuten Viber users generated revenue accounting for an impressive 20% of their total. 70% of this revenue was attributed to reducing cart abandonment through the use of promotional Viber Business Messages.

Rakuten Viber: Your Solution for Recovering Abandoned Carts

Reducing cart abandonment and boosting sales is much easier with Viber Rich Business Messages. By using personalized offers and reminders, time-sensitive updates, and remarketing tactics, businesses can engage customers, recover lost sales, and increase revenue. With a large user base and high engagement rates, Rakuten Viber provides a wide reach and the right tools for maximum impact. By optimizing campaigns using data-driven insights in real time, businesses can enhance their cart recovery tactics and achieve even better results.

Don't miss the chance to re-engage customers and maximize revenue. Contact our team today, and we’ll help you implement effective cart abandonment solutions with Rakuten Viber.