RETAILING
Nick Cole, managing director of Go Inspire Solutions, advises on how retailers can reactivate abandoned online shopping baskets and increase sales.
inspiration, it comes as no surprise that 78 per cent of DIYers start their project research online before entering a physical store. However, despite the Internet driving DIY projects forward, brick and mortar stores remain the most popular channel among UK DIY shoppers when it comes
W to
purchasing materials.* When they do choose to buy online, factors such as a lack of advice to support a purchase or high delivery costs for bulky items cause a high number of abandoned online baskets. **
Lost revenue UK retailers across the board are collectively losing out on £18 billion in revenue every year because of baskets being abandoned online; in fact, 70 per cent of online shopping baskets are abandoned.*** A main issue is that many retailers lack insight into the browsing behaviour of customers and are therefore unable to determine at what point of the online experience baskets are abandoned, and which customer segments are most likely not to complete their purchase. The DIY sector is no exception to this. DIY retailers must accommodate the needs of shoppers by providing consistent customer experience, not only within their physical facilities, but also online. Expanding on their range of offers by providing online chatbots to offer advice, improving their home delivery services and improving online
show-rooming,
for instance, will aid in obtaining loyal and happy shoppers. Keeping in mind that there is no clear-cut age range amongst DIY customers, retailers seeking to excel among the competition must be aware that an omnichannel approach is
www.diyweek.net
of high value.**** Though many retailers are hesitant to incorporate traditional mail into their marketing strategies, it bears many benefits as demonstrated by the control
test
conducted by the media-neutral Go Inspire Group. The control test aimed to compare email and postal mail response and conversion rates with the objective of reactivating abandoned baskets. In order to do so, Go Inspire Group collaborated with a major retailer with a customer base of 200,000 over the course of three months. Time was the key element to success; within a week of product abandonment, customers that did not respond to emails were
contacted
automated highly personalised postal mailing, presenting a visual reminder of the abandoned products, enticing customers to complete their online purchases. By drawing on the available online behavioural customer data and using a technique known as ‘hybrid mail´ – the aggregation of many organisations’ small daily mail volumes into a high-volume whole, while keeping costs low – many
customers could be contacted in a highly personalised way.
Developing strategies The results revealed that the average order value for reactivated abandoned
baskets from postal through
respondents was just as high as that from the initial reactivation emails. Respondents to the postal mail had not been responsive to previous email activity and as a result, the combination of both reactivation activities (mail and email) resulted in more than double the commercial result of reactivation emails alone, making it clear that traditional postal mail is not to be underestimated in this digital age.
The estimated value of sales that could be captured through the use of hybrid mail in the DIY sector amounts to an incremental value of £241.76 million . It is evident that DIY retailers must invest in developing strategies that allow them to gather online behavioural data so that they can cater to the wide range of preferences of
their customer base. When it comes to reactivating 20 MARCH 2020 DIY WEEK 11
abandoned online baskets, retailers must look beyond follow-up emails and online incentives, such as limited stock notifications or discount vouchers for future purchases, and acknowledge that traditional postal mail
* 365 Retail, Six out of 19 DIY and Gardening shoppers favour physical retail, August 2019, https://
www.365retail.co.uk/six-out-of-10- uk-diy-and-gardening-shoppers- continue-to-favor-physical-retail/
** Sagittarius Agency, How do DIY customers buy online and offline?, January 2020
*** Go Inspire Group, The
Abandoned Basket Reactivation Gap, September 2019
**** Venveo, 10 Characteristics of the DIY consumer, 2020, https://www.
venveo.com/blog/10-characteristics- of-the-diy-consumer
ith social media and other online platforms incr easingly serving as sources for DIY
REDESIGNING STRATEGIES FOR ABANDONED BASKET REACTIVATION
“UK retailers across the board are collectively losing out on £18 billion in revenue every year because of baskets being abandoned online”
still has a place in today’s marketing strategies.
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