How Retailers Are Communicating With Shopping Cart Abandoners

Findings from the e-tailing group's Annual Merchant Survey and a fourth-quarter study reveal a mixed bag of results in regard to cart abandonment tactics as a means of coaxing shoppers to come back to complete their purchases. Though shopping cart abandonment rates held steady, and 52 percent of the surveyed merchants said that a reminder email was sent to consumers who abandoned their cart, this runs somewhat contrary to the mystery shopping results, where a slight decline in the number of abandonment emails that were triggered was recorded: 20 percent for 2011 vs. 23 percent for 2010.