Few Retailers Respond to Abandoned Carts on Cyber Monday

In my second guest column for ClickZ this holiday season (here’s the first), I take a deeper dive into the cart abandonment email research that’s highlighted in our Email Insights & Trends from Thanksgiving, Black Friday & Cyber Monday #Infographic.

On Cyber Monday, ExactTarget clicked through the promotional emails sent that day by more than 90 major online retailers and filled our shopping carts with more than $100 of merchandise. Then we walked away, closing our browser after each shopping session.

Only 21% of those retailers sent a triggered email in response within 3 days. Emails that follow up on shopping carts that are abandoned by subscribers often mean the difference between a completed sale and a lost sale on this high-value shopping day. So the low adoption of shopping cart abandonment emails presents retailers with a wonderful win-win opportunity to serve shoppers better with service and product information and increase their sales.

Our research also uncovered several opportunities to implement these triggered emails better, which I discuss in the column.

>> Read my column on ClickZ.com