Home retailers who are serious about reducing cart abandonment need to empower consumers with tools, solutions and inspiration to create designs.

Cart abandonment is a thorn in the side of any home improvement retailer seeking to increase online revenues. Cart abandonment rates in the homeware / DIY category are among the highest of all e-commerce sectors, averaging 88.36 percent against an industry average of 84.24 percent in 2019.

This is a sobering statistic, and essentially means that only one out of every 10 potential customers is actually completing their intended purchase journey on the site. Given the high cost of acquiring a consumer into the purchase funnel, converting even a small proportion of these abandoned transactions can significantly improve revenues, profitability, and even long-term business viability.

In order to determine the best strategy to decrease cart abandonment, it is essential to understand why home improvement consumers are abandoning carts in the first place. The most common reasons are likely to be:

• Casual browsers, not ready to buy: Online shoppers frequently add items to a cart to keep track of them, even if they are not ready to make a purchase at the moment. Statista estimates that up to 40 percent of people could fall into this category. The good news is that given a compelling experience these shoppers will become more engaged and much more inclined to complete a purchase.
• A poor website experience: The fundamental trigger for cart abandonment often comes long before the checkout stage. If a home improvement shopper has a poor experience on a website, is unable to find the products or collections they need, is forced to implement processes like downloading software, or has a poor-performing experience with an interactive tool, the chances increase.
• Too much perceived risk in an online transaction: Home improvement purchases are typically high-value and high-involvement, with shoppers investing considerable time and thought, not to mention money, into creating their dream spaces. If the online environment leaves shoppers in any uncertainty as to how a product or layout will actually look, fit and feel in their homes, the likelihood is that they will not complete the purchase. If they can easily access a store, they might opt to complete the purchase there, but if this is restricted for any reason, that customer might become a lost sale.
• Complicated pricing and unexpected costs: Across e-commerce sectors, this is one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. In the home improvement category, outlay is often relatively high, and consumers are traditionally wary of being taken in by hidden costs or unexpected overheads. As a result, retailers need to provide complete pricing transparency and allow consumers to understand how much they are spending at every stage of their project.
• Technical / payment / shipping issues: Regardless of the quality of the products themselves, a website that is not instantly responsive and fast, or requires downloads and installations, will not have good completion rates.

Overcome cart abandonment with a 3d planning solution

Home retailers who are serious about reducing cart abandonment, paradoxically, need to start planning for purchase completion at a more strategic level. They need to empower consumers with tools, solutions and inspiration to create designs. They need to offer checks that inspire confidence in the chosen design. And lastly, they must provide a smooth, jitter-free user experience, and pricing transparency at every stage.

A 3D planning solution, such as HomeByMe for Home Retailers, enables home retailers to overcome many of these pain points in one shot.

Making it fun and engaging. With the HomeByMe for Home Retailers 3D planning solution, retailers can inspire customers and convert casual browsers into engaged designers using a high-quality online 3D design experience. The solution’s rich functionality and intuitive interface allows users to easily create completely personalized, highly detailed designs based on their exact room dimensions and preferences, even if they have no technical or design experience. Its auto-generated layout recommendations as soon as customers have provided their room dimensions allows retailers to showcase their latest collections or adapt to the latest trends within your customers’ own spaces, making home design creative – and fun!

Ensuring an experience with ‘no nasty surprises.’ The solution enhances the usability of retailers’ websites and shows off the entire catalog, with impressive 360-degree 3D views that consumers can move and rotate as they need. It is integrated with the inventory system to allow complete transparency in pricing and stock availability in real time. Integrated price lists, including promotions, offering full transparency with live cost calculations and ongoing totals, ensure that users know the cost and availability of every aspect of their design.

The solution provides high-resolution 3D image renders for a lifelike representation of the final room, reducing perceived risk and triggering purchase. It allows consumers to share their designs with friends and influencers for validation, or discuss them with in-store sales professionals, creating a true omnichannel experience.

Providing a seamless experience. Hosted in the cloud and completely white-labeled, the solution can be used straight from the website. Your customers do not need to download annoying executable files or any other type of software onto their devices, nor does it affect the performance of the website. Retailers can completely customize it to their own brand identity and integrate the entire catalog, providing consumers with an immersive experience from their trusted home retail brands.

Conclusion

Tackling the high cart abandonment rates in the home improvement sector necessitates a strategic approach to keep shoppers engaged, reduce perceived risk in the purchase process, and provide an engaging experience. By combining strategic solutions such as the HomeByMe for Home Retailers 3D planning solution with other, more topical, cart abandonment measures such as remarketing emails, reminders via SMS and push notifications, home retailers can significantly increase conversion rates.