How to avoid the curse of the “Zombie Shopping Cart”

11 October 2020- 14 min read

User cases Subscription platform

YOU ARE SLOWLY COMING to your senses: “What’s going on?”  

Your head is buzzing… and you struggle to see things clearly.   

Gradually your surroundings emerge before you: 

Right there – only a few meters away – is a full shopping cart… abandoned… standing alone between the stores aislesYOUR STORE 

 

But that’s not even the most disturbing thing…  

 

… ‘cause you have seen this before  first in Sweden, then Netherlands, Germany, France and Austria. Like an awful recurring deja vu experience going on repeat…  

 

You shake your head. Shocked. Then suddenly you see it all clear while you stare at the disaster on your screen – where number of visitors and statistics speak their clear language:  

 

Like a scene from a zombie movie, the shopping trip on your website appears to have been interrupted suddenly and the shopping cart abandoned – without warning 

 

One moment: Lively customer activity and e-commerce. And then … dead silence. Nothing.  

 

Your customers put your goods in their carts, however something scares them away before they reach check-out   no matter what new country and market you open for e-commerce…  

 

What goes wrong? What are you missing?  

 

You think back:  

 

Your e-commerce business gained great success back home. And it still does:  

Here in this country you sell lots of products online – both physical and digital. To new and existing customers – or to subscribers who pay for your service on a regular basis.  

That was why you found it obvious to expand the market – to “go international” to other European countries.  

 

And you accounted for everything… or you thought:  

 

 You are in control of national cultural differences – and are making sure that this is reflected in your web shop and on the website that is designed to approach the population of each country.  

 The language is, of course, professionally translated - so your online store communicates in fluent Spanish, German, English and Finnish.  

 Your sales funnel has been perfected; everything is SEO optimized; you offer the right products to the target audience; text and layout player; you have welcoming pictures; the navigation is intuitive and simple - so ... 

 

 Why does the sale not go all the way through to check-out? 

 

When it seems flawless in Denmark…? 

 

… Yes, you have ensured that all customers can pay with both Mastercard and VISA.  

 

So how… “STOP!” 

 

Yeah, sorry – but stop right there:  

 

You've reached the heart of the matter 

 

Of course, you are correct that the two payment cards are international and widely recognized.  

 

HOWEVER, when you zoom in on individual European countries, you discover something crucial  something which currently stops your sales: 

 

For example, look at the Swedes. 

Sure enough, they also use VISA and Mastercard… but the vast majority of Swedes prefer to use KLARNA when paying online. 

 

In the Netherlands you find that the situation is the same - except that their favourite form of payment is called iDeal. 

 

The Germans prefer PayPal and Maestro. 

 

Austria? BACS. 

 

France? SLIMPAY. 

 

Etc. 

 

But what do they have in common? 

 

That you do NOT offer the individual country's preferred form of payment. 

 

And that costs you one customer after another. 

 

While you are now staring down at yet another abandoned zombie looking shopping cart in your web shop, you wonder that there is no ... 

 

.... one software platform that supports all payment cards and preferences across all markets - in all countries. 

 

We understand that. 

 

We were also wondering - and that's why we offer exactly that solution. 

 

Let us – together -  get your success story distributed - successfully - to the international market. To avoid abandoned zombie shopping carts or "Abandoned Cart Syndrome" 

1-Jan-06-2021-09-53-13-68-AM

 

About the Author

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Jakob Soderberg

Jakob Soderberg

Jakob is former Head of Marketing at Upodi. Jacob knows a lot about a lot of things. Including (not excluding) fundraising, subscription based business models, IPA's and IPO's plantbased foods and barefoot running.

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