What Is the Add-to-cart Rate
On a basic level, the add-to-cart rate is the ratio between the number of page views on a specific product divided by the number of add-to-carts on this product. Every online store should measure this metric and improve its product pages accordingly.
You can calculate this rate on different levels:
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Shop
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Collection
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Category
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Product
The most precise level is on a product basis. This will help you understand if the problem is general (for your shop, collection, or category) or if it's only on a specific product.
Why it's Important to Analyse Your Add-to-cart Rate
It's a good indicator of the quality of your traffic: if people add many products to their cart, it means they're interested in what you offer.
It allows you to identify potential issues with specific products: a low add-to-cart rate can be caused by different reasons, and it can help you understand the problem.
It's also a good indicator of the overall health of your store: if people add fewer products to their cart, it might be a sign that something is wrong (either with your traffic or with your store in general).
The purchases process for your paying customers can be long and complex; the goal here is to analyse the add-to-cart rate to increase your sales. After that, you will need to analyse your conversion rate, too. Other aspects need to be checked to increase your conversion rate such as: your checkout page, payment methods, number of clicks needed, etc.
What is a Good Add-to-cart Rate
Anything more than 8.3% would put you in the best 20% of stores benchmarked by Littledata.io. An add-to-cart rate of less than 2.6% would put you in the worst 20% of stores. Anything between is considered acceptable for your eCommerce site, even if there is always room for improvements.
Now we know the benchmark in regards to the add-to-cart rate, we can look at what strategies to put in place to improve it.
Strategies to Improve Your Add-to-cart Rate
We've laid out the following list of strategies you can use from today to improve your add-to-cart rate. Please note this list is not ranked by order of importance, and every bit can help improve your add-to-cart rate and, ultimately, your conversion rate and sales.
Overall Design
Multiple factors will influence this rate. The first one is the overall design of your website and how easy it is to find what you're searching for. You cannot guarantee this is the root cause without analysing customer behaviour on your website. A few tools allow you to record users' behaviour (after having their consent through cookies): tools like Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity or Mouseflow will enable you to see heatmaps and analyse customer behaviour.
Today, nearly 60% of internet traffic is from mobile devices. You must ensure your website displays correctly for mobile users to optimise the conversion process.
Targeting
One of the main reasons for a poor add-to-cart rate is often linked to the fact you are getting irrelevant traffic to your product page. This is often the case if you're running paid ads and haven't set up the targeting correctly. Your marketing efforts could go to waste for this simple reason.
The same goes for organic traffic: if you're ranking for the wrong keywords, people who land on your product page might not be interested in what you have to offer, and they will leave without adding anything to their cart.
To avoid this, ensure you're targeting the right keywords (if you're running paid ads) or that your website is optimised for the right keywords (if you want to rank organically). You can use tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner or Google Search Console to find the right keywords.
Product Title
The title and the description of your product are also essential: they need to be relevant, accurate, and persuasive. If they're not, people might add the product to their cart but will eventually leave your website without completing the purchase.
To write an optimised title, you can use a tool like Google Ads Keyword Planner: enter a few keywords related to your product, and the tool will give you some ideas for the title.
Product Images
The image is also essential: it needs to be high-quality, relevant, and persuasive. If it's not, people might add the product to their cart but will eventually leave your website without completing the purchase.
To ensure you're using high-quality images, you can use a tool like Canva: it allows you to create professional-looking photos even if you don't have any design experience.
Product Price
Your pricing strategy is also crucial; it needs to be competitive, relevant, and persuasive. If it's not, people might add the product to their cart but will eventually leave your website without completing the purchase.
To find out whether your prices are competitive, you can use a tool like Price Spy: enter the URL of your product, and the tool will show you the prices of similar products.
One of the strategies you can use to improve your add-to-cart rate is to offer coupons. This is a great way to entice people to add your product to their cart: if they know they're getting a discount, they'll be more likely to complete the purchase.
Free Shipping
Another strategy you can use to improve your add-to-cart rate is to offer free shipping. This is a great way to entice people to add your product to their cart: if they know they're not going to have to pay for shipping, they'll be more likely to complete the purchase.
A best practice is to incorporate the shipping costs into the product itself. Nowadays, while online shopping, most customers are used to getting free shipping and usually expect the shipping to be free.
You can also add a minimum order value for free shipping to increase your average order value.
Product Description
It's essential to have a well-written and persuasive product description. A well-written product description will convince people to buy your product, so it needs to be on point.
To write a great product description, you can use a tool like Google Ads Keyword Planner: enter a few keywords related to your product, and the tool will give you some ideas for the description.
The average eCommerce store often focuses on the product's features rather than the customer's benefits. It is highly recommended to use the second person in your product description (terms like "you" or "your" to make the customer feel more involved).
Product Reviews
Another way to improve your add-to-cart rate is by leveraging product reviews. This is a great way to show potential customers that your product is high-quality and that other people have been happy with their purchase.
In your eCommerce store, ask your first customer to write a review if you don't have reviews for a product. You can incentivise reviews by offering discounts on their next purchase.
Add-to-cart Button
Some add-to-cart buttons are not visible, or the customer would need to scroll to see them. We recommend adding the add-to-cart button on the first fold of the customer's screen. The customer should not have to scroll down to add to their cart. We want to make it as accessible and visible as possible.
The colour of the button also matters. A few tests showed that the colour red is the least desirable colour. We, therefore, recommend avoiding having a red button.
Product demo
Nowadays, videos are becoming a new trend. If your product requires additional explanations and demonstration, we recommend adding a video of its usage to your product page. This will make the product more appealing and improve your add-to-cart rate.
Shipping & return details
After analysing hundreds of stores, one of the most significant flaws we noticed on product pages is the lack of details regarding shipping and returns.
Before purchasing, the average paying customer will ask themselves the following questions:
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When am I going to receive the product?
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What if I'm not happy with it? How can I return it?
Therefore, you must add estimated delivery date and a snippet of your return policy on your product page. Having 15-day or 30-day free returns is usually the norm.
Contact details
Some customers may have questions about a specific product. This would also indicate that the product descriptions need more details. During the buying process, an excellent way to increase trust would be to display your support team's contact details. You can use the following methods to have customers reach out to you if they need more clarification:
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Chatbot: We recommend having a chatbot on your product page. It would be best if you didn't display the chatbot immediately, as it might confuse the customer. You can add the chatbot after 2 minutes, for example. This way, the customer will have some time to analyse your product, and if they are still on the product page after this time, it might be a good indicator they might need a bit of help to add to their cart.
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Display phone number or email address: You can add a snippet: "A question about this product? Give us a ring at X or email us at X, and we will be happy to help!". This will build confidence and help the customer feel safe.
After responding to the customer, please take note of their questions and incorporate these details into your product page. This way, you would cover all possible questions about your product as you go.
Conclusion
As we stated, many factors influence a customer's decision to add a specific product to their cart. If you have an eCommerce store focusing on high sustainability and ethical standards, At The Good Boutique, we're an eCommerce platform that can help you achieve your goals and increase your sales.
Increase your add-to-cart rate and sell on The Good Boutique today.
