Basket abandonment is a problem all year round, but Black Friday makes it even harder to ignore.
Baymard’s latest benchmark puts the average ecommerce basket abandonment rate at 70.22%. During Black Friday promotions, Shopify reports that abandonment can rise to between 77% and 82%.
That’s a lot of buying intent disappearing at the final hurdle.
During Black Friday, shoppers are comparing offers, jumping between tabs and deciding quickly whether a deal is worth taking. Having a strong basket abandonment strategy in place gives you another chance to bring some of that revenue back.
1) Change your trigger timings
Black Friday buying decisions happen quickly, so your normal abandonment timings may be too slow.
Recent research found that 40% of retailers send their first abandoned basket email within an hour, with around 30 minutes proving a particularly strong starting point.
There isn’t one perfect timing for every brand, so test what works for your customers. But if your first reminder normally arrives several hours later, Black Friday is a good reason to review it.
This becomes even more important if you’re running flash deals or offers that expire during the day.
2) Revise your creative
It’s easy to overlook the creative you use in basket abandonment emails. After all, they’re set up to run in the background all year round.
So this is just a reminder to revisit your creative and ensure it’s in keeping with the rest of your Black Friday campaign. This could include a seasonally themed email template and messaging that is both timely and relevant.
Consider how your messaging can create genuine urgency, for example: “These items are going back up in price soon.
3) Add new elements
Get creative when revising your templates and consider additional elements that could improve them.
Countdown timers drive urgency and are a compelling visual to feature in the header of your email. Use it to emphasise that time is running out on that deal.
You might also consider offering additional value to get the sale over the line. This might be an extra percentage off or free delivery, a gift with purchase or another relevant incentive.
Another way to encourage purchases is to feature low stock alerts on items your recipient is interested in buying which you can identify from their browsing behaviour. This is especially effective at this time of year. However, only use low-stock messaging when it reflects genuine inventory data.
4) Make their shopping experience easier
An abandonment email can bring someone back, but it can’t fix a bad checkout.
Baymard found that 17% of shoppers have abandoned an order because the checkout process was too long or complicated. Before Black Friday traffic arrives, make sure you’ve removed as much unnecessary friction as possible.
- Additional costs (shipping, taxes, fees) – ensure your costs are visible and clear and aren’t just sprung on shoppers when they reach the checkout
- No guest checkout – don’t force your shoppers to create a profile in order to buy from you.
- Complex/long checkout process – revise your user journey and consider how you might simplify it.
- Unclear order summary – can shoppers easily access their basket and see all items, costs and delivery fees in one place?
- Website errors – test the checkout experience on multiple devices and in multiple browsers.
Don’t forget to test the entire journey on mobile. With mobile accounting for the majority of UK online holiday spending, your abandonment email, basket page and checkout all need to work smoothly on a small screen. A great recovery email is wasted if the customer comes back to a frustrating checkout.
Takeaway
Black Friday will always create abandoned baskets. The goal isn’t to recover every one of them.
It’s to make sure customers who were genuinely close to buying get a timely, useful reason to come back, and that the checkout they return to doesn’t give them another reason to leave.
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