Empty shopping cart. How to avoid the most common mistake in e-commerce?

Does this message encourage a customer to continue shopping? To increase its attractiveness, start by determining whom it is displayed to. Then, think about a solution that, instead of only informing that the shopping cart is empty, will encourage the customer to make a purchase. How to make the user not leave the shop with nothing?

Your shopping cart is empty! Who will see this information?

Firstly, let’s consider who sees this information. After all, this is not the stage of a standard purchasing process. We can indicate 4 situations when the user visits the site of the cart, although this is empty:

• The user wants to view the items that they added to the basket during the last visit. Unfortunately, its content has already expired.
• The user added products to the cart, however, they were not logged in and the items are not visible on the user account.
• The user verified the contents of the basket, after which they removed all products from it.
• The user does not know what the online shopping process looks like.

In none of these cases, information about an empty basket has any other function than informational. We know something that works! Optimise the empty shopping cart page and help the customer find the product they need.

Adapt the message to a specific situation

When the customers visit the shopping cart page, they do it for a specific purpose. The automatic message is not useful for them in any way. Adapt it to a specific situation and help the user to find the right product faster. For example: Your shopping cart is empty. See recently viewed products. will be more effective than the empty basket alone.

The same applies to customers who do not know how to make an online purchase and found themselves on the cart page not quite consciously. They should then be instructed and shown the products selected for them in this place. They are only one click away from the purchase. A simple message and maximally simplified product search process.

However, the content itself is not enough. The visual elements that accompany it are necessary. The best recommendation system is the best solution that will help them make a choice. 

Help the customer find the product they need

The empty shopping cart page is one of the website’s places with huge sales potential which usually remains unused. Quarticon’s solution effectively and comprehensively optimises this space. How? Thanks to the strategy of personalised recommendations. Intelligent algorithms examine the behaviour of each user and then, based on the collected data, select products for their individual preferences. The user who visits the e-shop once again is recommended the recently viewed items.

If the customer is on the site for the first time, they are recommended the products selected for you, which:

1. correspond with the products viewed by them
2. cover current trends or promotions.

Recommendations are displayed in real time and the contents of the frames are dynamic. In practice, this means that if the customer has just removed the product from the basket, the offer prepared for them automatically changes. Recommendations trigger the shopping impulse and re-engage the customer in the purchasing process, thus increasing the chances of sale!