Increase Shopper Checkouts During Live Sales

  In this article, you'll learn:

• Strategies for incentivizing shoppers to check out during live sales.
• Ways to educate shoppers on the importance of checking out during live sales.

About Increasing Checkouts During Live Sales

Nothing beats the excitement of shopping a live sale, but when the e-commerce industry reports that abandoned cart rates range from 69% to 88%, that excitement can become a significant pain point for shops.

When a shopper carts an item, they put a temporary claim on it, impacting the item's inventory levels and other shoppers' chances to purchase it. In turn, this impacts a shop's ability to make sales, especially if that initial shopper decides not to buy the item.

However, there are ways that shops can encourage their shoppers to check out during a live sale and increase the shop's conversion rate. This article walks through several of these strategies. While you don't need to implement every option, we recommend you consider those options that make sense for your shop and your audience.

How Increasing Checkouts During Live Sales Benefits Your Shop

Incentivize Shoppers to Complete Checkout

CommentSold offers shops several options that make it easy to give shoppers well-timed incentives to complete their checkout process. While shops can easily enable the below options, an option's success will also rely on a shop's willingness to talk up or make the option known to their shoppers.

Reward Customers

• Run "paid cart" giveaways. As you pause between items or break to encourage shoppers to check out, pick one or two customers who have already checked out and award them with account credit. Make sure to shout out to these customers so that other shoppers know the reward is real.
• Enable or increase live sale bonus loyalty credit. Shops can offer bonus loyalty credit for purchases made during a live sale. Make sure shoppers know the bonus percentage and give examples: "Today's live sale loyalty bonus is 10%! Got a cart approaching $100? That's almost $10 FREE credit you can use on your next purchase with our shop!" You can change the amount at any time and/or offer it at specific live sale events (e.g., big promotions, new arrivals, final sales, etc.)
• Offer mystery live sale bonus loyalty credit. If you have a behind-the-scenes team, have them periodically change the live sale bonus credit throughout the live sale (e.g., 5% up to 25% down to 15%, etc.). Let shoppers know the highest percentage you'll offer during the sale, and any time a customer hits that jackpot, shout them out so the rest of your shoppers can see the offer is real. 

Offer Discounted Shipping Options

• Offer Free Shipping for Live Sales. Shipping costs can make or break a purchase for some customers. Eliminate that hesitation by offering free shipping for purchases made during the live sale. You can enable the Timed Free Shipping setting and set how long of a window, after adding an item to their cart, that a shopper has to check out with free shipping. You can even set purchase minimums to encourage larger sales. If you decide to offer free shipping during a live sale, remember to remind your shoppers throughout the sale. You might have late joiners who miss the announcement if you only say it at the beginning of the sale.

Discount Items During the Live Sale

• Offer special item discounts that are only valid during a live sale. Take advantage of CommentSold's Schedule Sale feature to put items on sale during your live sale. You can promote them as "door-busters" and remind your shoppers that these items will return to their regular pricing after the live sale. This ups the urgency and can drive shoppers to complete their checkout process to secure that sale pricing.

Educate Shoppers on Benefits of Checkout

Education can go a long way in helping shoppers understand the importance of completing their orders during a live sale. 

While, as a shop, you're aware of the negative impact of abandoned carts on your business, when speaking to your shoppers, we recommend you keep your education talking points positive and shopper-oriented.

Here are two examples:

Instead of "Abandoned items tie up inventory and keep items away from shoppers who really want to purchase the item," consider "We want to make sure that those of you who love an item get that item, so if you're on the fence, add the item to your Favorites instead of your cart!"

Instead of "When shoppers abandon items, it makes it difficult for us to know what styles and items you love, which impacts our ability to restock items or discover new products," consider "We love discovering new products to share with you. You can help us by only carting items you plan to buy. That helps our team know what products y'all love and what new things we should be on the lookout for!"

You can also educate shoppers on how to remove an item from their shopping cart if they decide they don't want to buy it or if they accidentally carted the wrong size or color.

Additionally, you'll want to make sure you're educating your shoppers on alternatives to carting items:

• If you're going live on your app, enable Favorites so shoppers can add items to a wishlist rather than their cart.
• If items tend to sell out fast, enable Waitlist Authorization so shoppers can preauthorize the purchase of an item they really want when it comes back in stock. Make sure shoppers know how to add an item to their waitlist and how they can preauthorize the waitlist purchase. 

Learn More

• Don’t Get Ghosted by Customers: 3 Ways to Reduce Abandoned Shopping Carts. Understand why shoppers abandon shopping carts and ways to incentivize them to check out.
• How Cart Expirations Are Winning Stores More Sales. Learn how checkout windows and cart expirations can help convert carted items to paid sales.
• How to Reduce Cart Abandonment and Get Paid. Learn additional strategies to help reduce abandoned carts and convert sales.