1 in 4 Top Retailers Now Sending Cart Abandonment Emails, Most Within the First Day

October 17, 2013

This article is included in these additional categories:

Digital | Email | Retail & E-Commerce

Listrak-Shopping-Cart-Abandonment-Email-Adoption-Trends-2011-2013-Oct2013Almost one-quarter of Internet Retailer 1000 companies send shopping cart recovery emails, a 29% increase from the 19% doing so last year, finds Listrak in its latest shopping cart abandonment study [download page]. Adoption of this practice is growing faster among the Second 500 retailers, of which 25.5% send cart recovery emails, up 35.6% from last year. By comparison, a slightly smaller 23.5% of the top 500 retailers are sending such emails, up 21% year-over-year. Retailers are reaching back to cart abandoners sooner, and using more than one message, per the study.

Almost two-thirds – 65.8% – of the top 500 companies who sent at least one cart abandonment email sent their first message within 24 hours of abandonment, up 12% from last year. Among Second 500 retailers sending cart recovery emails, 80.3% sent the first within 24 hours of abandonment, up 6.6% from the previous study.

This year, retailers are using more emails to try and entice shoppers to complete their purchases. Among top 500 emailers, 51.3% sent a single message, down 18% from last year, while 20.5% sent 2 messages and 25.6% sent 3. Multiple messages are even more common among the Second 500 emailers: just 38.6% sent a single message, down 38% last year.

Interestingly, both groups appear to be holding back on including offers in their emails until the second and third attempts. Fewer than one-third of emailers included an offer in their first email – but that figure rose to roughly three-quarters for the third message.

While top retailers are clearly gravitating towards more use of cart abandonment emails, many are failing to adopt best practices in this area, per the researchers. The study outlines some areas where retailers could improve their tactics:

  • While about 1 in 5 Top 1000 retailers use a lightbox email acquisition tactic, only about 40% of those are using their lightbox email acquisition data for remarketing;
  • 90% of the top 500 retailers that sent at least one remarketing email also have product recommendations online, but only 12% of them use recommended products in their campaigns (those figures are 84% and 4%, respectively for the Second 500); and
  • 74% of the top 500 retailers that sent at least one remarketing email also have ratings and reviews online, but only 3% of them use ratings and reviews in their campaigns (those figures are 80% and 5%, respectively for the Second 500).

Data concerning consumers’ perceptions of shopping cart abandonment emails can be found here.

About the Data: Listrak’s research is based on the Top 1000 retailers ranked in Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide and Second 500 Guide. Listrak attempted to shop and abandon sites from all 1000 retailers. If an organization had more than one brand, only one site was shopped. The researchers noted which websites have a modal email acquisition pop-up and which use product recommendations and/or ratings and reviews onsite. For sites that had modal acquisition, Listrak signed up for the email list through the modal. Listrak added one item to each cart and added the following information to the checkout page ”“ first and last names, email address, address and phone number ”“ before abandoning the sale. The researchers then monitored the emails received for six weeks. They were unable to shop six sites.

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