A Baymard Institute study finds that the average shopping cart abandonment rate for ecommerce stores is about 70%. Yup: 70% of shoppers who visit your store add products to their carts but don’t place an order. What does that mean in terms of revenue?

• Reducing cart abandonment by 33% is equivalent to growing your customer base by 23% 
• Completely eliminating cart abandonment (while not feasible) would in theory triple most online stores’ revenue

Reducing cart abandonment may not be easy, but it’s a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring tons of new customers. Fortunately, most ecommerce websites aren’t yet optimized to keep cart abandonment rates as low as possible. After reviewing the most common reasons why customers choose to abandon their cart, we'll explore 12 such proven strategies that you can use to reduce cart abandonment and increase your store's conversion rate.

What is ecommerce shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment occurs when a customer places an item from an online store into their cart, but navigates away from the website before completing its checkout flow. It's a phenomenon that costs online retailers a lot of potential customers, given that the average cart abandonment rate is 70%. The metric varies across industries, with the automotive industry reporting the highest shopping cart abandonment rate (89.11%), according to Statista.

12 ways to reduce cart abandonment for your ecommerce store

1. Provide the final cost upfront, including taxes and shipping
2. Include a status tracker for enhanced UI during checkout
3. Use a thumbnail image of the product throughout the checkout process
4. Make navigation between the main website and shopping cart seamless
5. Offer as many payment options as possible
6. Invest in a customer support platform with live chat
7. Create an enticing checkout button or call to action
8. Include a guest checkout option
9. Optimize website page speed and UI elements
10. Incorporate a generous refund/return policy
11. Consider marketing efforts such as retargeting
12. Display exit-intent pop-ups

Reducing online shopping cart abandonment is one of the most effective ways for ecommerce sites to increase their revenue, and there are plenty of ways to achieve this goal. If you would like to boost your store's conversion rate and start bringing more customers across the finish line, then here are 12 effective strategies to consider:

1) Provide the final cost upfront, including taxes and shipping

Considering that unexpectedly high shipping costs are the number one reason online shoppers abandon their cart, it's essential to let customers know upfront exactly how much they will have to pay. Of course, this is somewhat complicated because you usually can't calculate shipping costs and taxes until after a customer enters their address. However, setting up your checkout process in a way that calculates final shipping charges as early as possible is key to preventing customers from being discouraged by extra charges.

How to do this

One option for providing customers with a final cost upfront is to charge a flat rate for shipping and taxes regardless of where the customer is located. This allows you to display final costs on your product pages rather than making your customers wait until checkout to see what shipping fees and taxes will be. While this might have a higher upfront cost, reducing cart abandonment could more than make up for the investment.

Another option is to design your cart page or checkout page so that customers can input their address immediately, allowing your system to calculate shipping costs and taxes right away.

2) Include a status tracker for enhanced UI during checkout

Even if you create a quick and easy checkout process, your customers won't know it's quick and easy until they are finished with it. One way around this is to use a status tracker that displays how far along a customer is in your checkout process. Installing a status tracker on your checkout page reassures customers that your checkout experience is fast and simple by showing them exactly how many steps they have left.

How to do this

A checkout app that includes a status tracker is the simplest way to keep customers updated on their checkout progress. Depending on the ecommerce platform that you use and your coding skills, you may also be able to create a checkout page status tracker yourself.

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3) Use a thumbnail image of the product throughout the checkout process

There is a certain degree of disconnect between online shoppers and the products they purchase that doesn't go away until the product arrives at their door. However, displaying a thumbnail image of the product that a customer is purchasing serves to remind them of why they added the product to their cart in the first place. This encourages them to see the process through to completion, helping reduce the chance of cart abandonment.

How to do this

Once again, optimizing your checkout page in this manner is done most simply by using a checkout app that allows you to add product thumbnails to your checkout page. Or, if you can't find an app that works for you, a little coding will do the trick as well.

Gorgias customer, Glamnetic, includes product image thumbnails in the cart and checkout page. Plus, they include a countdown to encourage customers to purchase in the next 10 minutes to further incentivize completed purchases.

‎Read more: 3 tips to improve your product photography

4) Make navigation between the main website and shopping cart seamless

Once customers have added a product to their cart, navigating to their cart from the main website should be as easy as possible. The last thing you want is for customers to have to go searching for your checkout page, so be sure to design your checkout process so that navigation between the main website and shopping cart is seamless.

How to do this

Creating popups that direct customers to the checkout screen once they add a product to their cart is one effective way to make it easy for them to find your checkout page. Another option is to utilize "buy now" buttons that automatically take customers to the checkout page once they select a product.

5) Offer as many payment options as possible

Offering your customers plenty of payment methods to choose from can help reduce cart abandonment in two key ways. For one, it ensures that customers can find a payment method that works for them. For example, if you only accept credit cards and a customer is used to paying online with their PayPal account, they are likely to abandon their cart. In other cases, a customer may not feel comfortable entering their credit card information on your site and will only complete their purchase if alternative payment options are available. By offering numerous payment methods, you can ensure that you accommodate your customers' preferences no matter what those preferences happen to be.

How to do this

Choosing a payment processing solution that can accept various payment methods is the simplest way to offer your customers this level of flexibility. For example, with PayPal, ecommerce stores can accept credit card payments, debit card payments, payments via a PayPal account, and payments via PayPal credit cards.

‎6) Invest in a customer support platform with live chat

Ecommerce customer service that can catch customers at critical moments is key to reducing online shopping cart abandonment. Suppose a customer has a question about your product that needs an answer before they feel comfortable completing their purchase. In this case, it's vital to answer their question quickly — before they navigate away from your website. 

With a customer support platform such as Gorgias, you can install live chat widgets on your website that enable customers to instantly connect with a support agent, ensuring that they receive the timely support needed to nudge them toward completing their purchase.

Having live chat support ready is especially important when high average order value (AOV) customers are on the fence. Check out our customer story on CROSSNET, a Gorgias customer that once secured a whopping $450,000 through a live chat conversation:

How to do this

Gorgias makes it easy to offer live chat support, letting you provide pre-purchase support directly from your website. To see for yourself how Gorgias can help you reduce cart abandonment via pre-purchase live chat support, sign up for a demo of Gorgias today!

7) Create an enticing checkout button or call to action

Once customers add a product to their cart, you want to make the checkout button noticeable and enticing. Creating attractive checkout buttons complete with compelling CTAs will help encourage customers to take the next step once they've added a product to their cart. You may also wish to add a "buy now" button to allow customers to navigate straight to the checkout page after selecting a product.

How to do this

There are several great apps available that help with checkout button optimization. One Click Checkout is a Shopify app that allows you to create "buy now" buttons and popups that encourage customers to visit the checkout page after adding products to their cart.

8) Include a guest checkout option

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Requiring customers to create an account before they can complete their purchase will make your checkout process too much of a hassle in the eyes of many customers. Instead, offer a guest checkout option. This allows customers to complete their checkout without creating an account, making your checkout process simpler for those in a rush. At the same time, customers that do wish to create an account still have the option to do so.

How to do this

Most ecommerce platforms and checkout apps will give you the option to offer guest checkout, making this a relatively straightforward strategy to execute.

9) Optimize website page speed and UI elements

Most customers aren't likely to have much patience if your checkout page is too slow to load or does not load correctly, making it essential to optimize your site's page speed and the UI elements of your checkout process.

How to do this

There are a lot of tools that allow you to optimize page load speeds, including a great tool created by Google called PageSpeed Insights. Ensuring that you are using an ecommerce platform or checkout solution that offers an optimized UI and fast loading times is also crucial.

10) Incorporate a generous refund/return policy

Customers are much more likely to feel good about purchasing a product from an online store when they are confident that they'll be able to return the product if it doesn't meet their expectations. While offering a generous refund/return policy may be a little difficult to stomach, the resulting increase in conversions is almost sure to be more than worth the expense!

How to do this

Start by writing a refund/return policy that customers will find reassuring, then be sure to display this policy prominently on your product pages, checkout page, or both.

Parachute includes a clear label to show off their free and carbon-neutral shipping and returns:

‎Also, to make returns and exchanges even easier for your customers and agents, consider a dedicated app. Our favorites are Loop, Returnly, and ReturnLogic: they’re some of the most comprehensive and affordable apps on the market, plus they integrate with Gorgias for a more centralized returns process. 

Related: Return policy template generator

11) Consider marketing efforts such as retargeting

Retargeting customers who abandon their cart via cart abandonment emails is one proven way to reduce cart abandonment. Sometimes customers just forget about their order, and all it takes to get them back to your checkout page is a simple reminder. Best of all, many email marketing solutions enable you to create automated abandoned cart campaigns, enabling you to retarget customers with little to no manual effort.

How to do this

Many email marketing tools like Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign make it easy to create automated abandoned cart recovery campaigns. Utilizing one of these solutions is by far the easiest way to get started retargeting customers who abandon their cart.

As far as the copy, check out the cheeky email our friends and Braxley Bands send to customers who leave items in their cart: 

‎They also follow this email up with a text message that offers a 15% off discount.

12) Display exit-intent pop-ups

Our analysis of 300 Shopify store owners showed 50% of online stores use website pop-ups to engage visitors. This isn’t surprising since pop-ups can yield a conversion rate of between 3% and 11%, compared to standard rates around 2%.

An exit intent pop-up captures customers with items in their shopping cart, usually to offer more information or a coupon code to convince them to place the order. As long as you respect the user experience (and don’t create an obnoxious, hard-to-escape pop-up), you will likely see lower cart abandonment rates with a pop-up.

How to do this

Your ecommerce platform will have pop-up tools like SmartPopup or Pixelpop available for integration. If you use Shopify, check out our list of Shopify pop-ups for a complete rundown of the best tools.

Why does shopping cart abandonment happen?

There are a variety of reasons why online shoppers choose to abandon their carts. The most common offenders are as follows:

‎Complicated checkout process

The "Law of Least Effort" is an important part of the customer experience for online businesses, especially when it comes to the checkout process. The more complicated something is, the less likely it is that people will do it. If your checkout process is overly lengthy and complex to the point that it's much easier to just abandon the cart and shop on Amazon, then that's probably what most of your customers will do.

Surprising added shipping costs

According to research from the Baymard Institute, extra, unexpected costs (such as shipping costs or taxes) is the number one reason why customers choose to abandon their cart. This demonstrates how critical it is to keep these costs as low as possible and display them at the very start of the checkout process.

Want to reduce shipping costs? Read our guide on how to offer free shipping.

Requiring customers to create an account before purchasing

Requiring customers to create an account before they can complete their purchase falls under the category of making your checkout process too complex. While it's certainly beneficial to offer customers the option to create an account at checkout, it's also a good idea to offer guest checkout for those who don't want to take the extra steps to set up an account.

Customers don't feel safe with payment options

Even today, when online shopping is a normal part of almost everyone's life, most customers are still rightfully wary about where they enter their credit card information. It's important to build trust with your customers by offering payment methods they already know and trust, such as PayPal and Apple Pay. This is especially true if your website lacks trust seals (like Norton secured) and social proof (like reviews and testimonials) to prove your legitimacy.

Competitor has products that are cheaper or ship faster

Many customers continue to do product research even after adding a product to their cart. Naturally, if they can find the same product cheaper somewhere else or find an online store that offers faster shipping, the chances that they'll return to your store are slim.

Confusing or insufficient refund/return policies

Customers like the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they can easily return or exchange their product if it doesn't meet their expectations upon arrival. Without this assurance, they are much more likely to abandon their cart. Because 30% of all products ordered from online retailers are returned, an easy-to-understand and customer-friendly return policy is key to helping an online store build trust with its potential customers.

No discount codes or promo codes offering deals

Some customers add products to their cart with the expectation that they will be offered a promo code or deal at some point in the checkout process. When they don't receive any such deal, they abandon their shopping cart.

Ecomm website has performance issues

If your checkout page freezes, is slow to load, or suffers from other performance issues, customers are more likely to navigate away from the malfunctioning page and never return. These may sound like minor inconveniences to you, but may be costing you customers in the long run.

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Provide world-class customer service to help reduce cart abandonment with Gorgias

Along with offering a wealth of other business-boosting benefits, great customer service is key to optimizing an online store's conversion rate and preventing abandoned carts. With Gorgias, you can get started with live chat to provide your customers with pre-purchase support that will generate more conversions. 

Check out our case study of three stores that increased sales with live chat for more examples of the revenue-boosting power of a great customer experience. 

Or, to try our customer service platform free for seven days, sign up for Gorgias today!

Your job doesn’t end once a customer makes a purchase.

Of course, the marketing work you do pre-purchase plays an important role in establishing a well-rounded shopping experience, but there's a world of tactics to employ after your customer hits the “buy” button that can help you entice first time shoppers to make a second purchase.

Remember that without designing an inclusive experience that encourages customer retention, you may struggle to create a solid growth path for your business. If you want to keep new customers coming, reengage past shoppers, and reduce returns, here are six tips for delivering an outstanding post-checkout experience. 

6 Ways to create a better post-checkout experience for your customers

1. Offer amazing customer support
2. Make the most out of your confirmation email
3. Make delivery dates and next steps clear 
4. Stay in touch later with remarketing
5. Enhance the “unboxing” experience
6. Ask for reviews and follow up after the item arrives

1) Offer amazing customer support

First and foremost, let’s make sure you’re offering great customer support before we explore other options for improving your post-checkout experience. While you might already be doing everything you reasonably can to ensure your customers don’t experience disruptions or problems after a purchase, sometimes hiccups happen. It’s not so much about avoiding problems entirely but rather how you deal with them when they occur. 

Sometimes your shoppers will reach out to you after a purchase with questions about their item’s delivery or how to return something. (This is much easier with the right returns management and order management software.) And they may be frustrated or impatient. Make it easier for them (and ultimately better for you) by offering ways to contact you on the channels they prefer. Also, offer proactive customer service in the form of FAQ pages and clear return policies to confusion (and save your agents time).

For instance, if your analytics tell you that your audience is most active on Facebook, make sure your page makes it clear how to reach your support team. You can do this by including the relevant links in the About section and of course, be turning on a chatbot function. 

Caption: Dollar Shave Club offers multiple options for contacting their support team in their page’s About section

But even so, customers may make contact simply by posting on your page or commenting on your posts. Employ a catch all approach by integrating your Facebook page to your Gorgias helpdesk and you’ll be able to automatically publish personalized answers in the comment threads.

And if you don’t have one, get live chat on your site! Gorgias can also help with that by allowing you to seamlessly integrate a live chat into your website, with also a list of customizable rules. The live chat button will show consistently on all pages of your site, both on mobile and desktop. 

Your customers don’t need to hunt down a special contact page or dig up an email address. They always know exactly where to go when they need help. Also, using live chat is useful to create a personalized, human-centric, accessible, and fast shopping experience, which the value of can’t be discounted!

2) Make the most out of your confirmation email

While the confirmation email should always include basic information (think an order summary and delivery timeline), you can add a few extras to empower your customer to make the most out of their experience with your brand. 

If you’re working with a recommendation engine and already produce editorial content, this would be a great opportunity to attach one or two relevant blog articles to the lower third of your confirmation email. Not only serving as a helpful encouragement to spend more time on your site, but sending relevant content helps to reinforce the idea that you are an expert in your field. 

Caption: The order confirmation email from Warby Parker includes tips on how to be sure you’ve picked the perfect frames for you 

You may also wish to consider including a promo code as a thank you for ordering - it can be a small expense that ensures a customer returns. 

3) Make delivery dates and next steps clear 

Once your customer purchases an item from your site, you would benefit from having a system in place that allows them to review their item’s delivery status. This could be as simple as a “vanity” order confirmation page that appears once the purchase is confirmed. Show a simple timeline that displays where they are at in the delivery timeline starting with an origin destination and ending with their home address.

Even if they didn’t register on your site and never return to this page, showing them such an order tracking timeline leaves a good impression on your customer by reinforcing the concept that what they’ve purchased really exists and is on its way. 

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4) Stay in touch later with remarketing 

You may have been under the misconception that setting up remarketing ads was reserved exclusively for your bounced traffic. While that’s certainly an effective way to recapture lost traffic, you can also use them to remind previous customers about your products when it makes sense to do so for you. 

For example, let’s say you’re a cosmetic company and you’ve just launched a new moisturizer. By setting up a remarketing ad that targets those customers who purchased a similar product from you three months ago, you’re finding them again just as they may be in need of restocking. This helps place customers who may have otherwise forgotten about your brand back into your marketing funnel with the goal of getting them to buy from you again.

5) Enhance the “unboxing” experience

Let’s embrace the fact that we’re living in the age of social media by applying it to your shipping experience. Make your orders feel like the gift that they are by packing your product in a customized box and filling the empty space inside with fun, yet recyclable fillers like crinkle paper or business cards, personalized notes with instructions on how to leave a review or something simple but enjoyable like brand stickers. When relevant, you may also want to consider including a sample of an upcoming item into your box, or a flyer advertising its existence. 

When you create an “unboxing experience” you’ll not only trigger those loyalty-building positive emotions in your customer’s brain but you’re also encouraging them to post about your brand on their social feeds - free advertisement to a similar audience of future customers!

6) Ask for reviews and follow up after the item arrives

Reviews are one of the most effective ways to increase sales and encourage new customers to shop with you. You need them to grow your business. But not everyone, even happy shoppers, are hardwired to follow up a purchase with a review. In this instance we like to follow the simple manta: ask and you shall receive. 

Asking for reviews doesn't have to seem desperate (even though we all desperately want them). Start by building a review request into your post-checkout email workflow that automatically delivers a request to review the purchased product after delivery occurs. Play around with the sound of your email and don’t be afraid to employ a curious but humble tone that expresses your genuine desire to know that they enjoyed what they bought or how they like to see it improved in the future.

We hope you find these six tips useful when it comes to making the most out of your post-checkout experience. As always be patient and in time, you’ll reap the rewards of a job well done. Keep an eye on your retention rate to measure your post-checkout success.

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You may know Zendesk as the first (and the biggest) customer service software. It’s usually evaluated against Freshdesk, Gorgias, Help Scout, and other ticketing systems (also called helpdesks). 

But, is it the right customer service tool for you? The answer depends largely on your type and size of business: 

• Zendesk makes software for everything from sales to customer relationship management and employee experience
• Zendesk markets to businesses of all sizes, from small and medium businesses to huge enterprise businesses
• Zendesk makes tools for every industry, from healthcare to government

For some customers, the sheer size and scale of Zendesk could be hugely appealing. For others, it may indicate a lack of focus and specialization. 

As you choose a customer service platform for your business, take a closer look at Zendesk, its features and functions, and whether it will create the best customer experience for your business (at the best price).

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What is Zendesk and what does Zendesk do?

Zendesk is one of the oldest cloud-based customer service platforms sold on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. It offers an enormous array of tools, including a helpdesk, email marketing, live chat, sales, employee engagement, and customer engagement software. 

Zendesk's key features

Zendesk recently streamlined its product offerings, combining them into three separate tiers, each with its own pricing structure. You can choose three Zendesk Support plans, three Zendesk Sell plans, and five Zendesk Suite plans — a total of eleven pricing tiers and packages. Each of the pricing tiers and packages has its own collection of products and services, which can get confusing. 

Below, we highlight some of the main customer service features Zendesk offers. Certain features are only available for Suite customers and Professional or Enterprise level customers, so double check before you sign a contract.

Helpdesk (Zendesk Support)

Some people call Zendesk “the godfather of helpdesk tools” because they have been around for a long time. In that time, they have built tons of features onto their ticketing system:

• Convert phone, chat, email, and social media requests into tickets
• Centralize tickets from disconnected channels into one place
• Manage and work on support tickets
• Create personal ticket views
• Support conditional and custom ticket fields
• View the activity log and the name of the agent handling it
• Support reporting and dashboards

Let’s zoom in on a few features for your customer support needs.

Live chat

Zendesk has two types of live chat: Zendesk Live Chat (legacy) and Zendesk Messaging.

Zendesk Messaging is a larger app that, on top of live chat on your website, lets you have conversations on messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The tool centralizes all of these conversations so the agent can quickly switch channels. However, centralized chat is only available through their Messaging app, a separate tool that connects to Zendesk’s Agent Workspace, which involves some additional billing to set up. 

Zendesk Live Chat, on the other hand, is a legacy product that only lets you have conversations on the website. In other words, it doesn’t centralize messages from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or other messaging apps.

Once you have figured out which solution is right for you (and navigated some nickel-and-diming), Zendesk allows you to add chat to your website and talk with customers across messaging apps in real-time:

• Reach out to a customer with a chat to guide them to the checkout process (if you pay extra for Sunshine Conversations)
• Collect contact information with pre-chat forms
• Use chatbots to reroute customer conversations (which can lead to a dodgy customer experience)
• Create dashboards for to monitor the team’s performance on live chat

Knowledge base

Like many other helpdesk solutions, Zendesk offers you features to build a scalable support system, primarily through FAQs and community forums. 

With the basic plan, you can create, organize, and share help center articles in one language. You can also embed support articles, which they call embeddables, as web widgets.

More advanced customer self-service features and support for over 40 languages are only available for customers of higher pricing tiers. And the community forums feature is only available for the Pro and Enterprise customers.

Ticketing system

A support and helpdesk solution needs to have a way to collect support tickets, and Zendesk's support ticket system takes a pretty traditional approach to ticketing. In general, their ticketing aims to:

• Collect helpdesk requests from email, social media messaging, chat, and other locations into one spot
• Easily track conversations in one central inbox to streamline your support workflow
• Respond to customer issues quickly

Some helpdesks group tickets into broader conversations; for example, we at Gorgias consider each customer interaction over three days in one channel as a single “billable ticket,” which we believe better reflects the nature of customer service in ecommerce. 

However, some businesses may prefer using a tool that sticks to the old-school method.

Reporting and analytics

Zendesk offers Zendesk Explore, which is an arm of their product that gives you a base for collecting, measuring, and analyzing data about your customers and their customer experience:

• Get pre-built reports about performance (updated daily)
• Enjoy automation of analytics and reporting
• Use analytics to improve the customer experience
• Customize your dashboards (for Pro and Enterprise customers)

Community forums

Zendesk Gather, which is available for Suite Professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus plans, is Zendesk’s community forum solution. You can build online communities that relate to your company or your products, which can help with your branding and give you additional feedback:

• Create spaces where your customers can talk to each other
• Gather honest feedback from customers
• Allow customer interactions with each other to troubleshoot each other's issues to reduce helpdesk workload

Sales CRM (Zendesk Sell)

Zendesk Sell is the tool's CRM system. It helps improve your sales team's productivity and visibility by storing the full customer account, in context, in one central location:

• Reduce the steps needed to pull up customer information
• Improve customer communication with the sales team
• Increase overall productivity of your sales team

Zendesk pros and cons

Like most apps, Zendesk has both pros and cons. As you decide if it's the right tool for you, you’ll need to weigh both to make an informed decision. Below, we’ll cover some of the most significant pros and cons of using Zendesk.

Pros of Zendesk

• An all-in-one lead generation and customer service platform
• Chat, phone, email, and social media all in one place
• Provides a lot of customization options
• Extensive, powerful reporting and analytics
• Robust integration with third-party applications and systems
• Supports multiple languages
• Can track customer history across different mediums or departments
• Easy to set up teams on the platform

Cons of Zendesk

• Potentially high price tag with complicated pricing plans
• Doesn’t provide robust integration with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce
• Best support features are only available at higher pricing tiers
• Not the right ticket management system for ecommerce and small businesses
• Requires a significant amount of time and effort to get familiar with the software
• User interface is not intuitive or customizable

When is Zendesk right for your business?

Zendesk currently has over 170,000 paid customers, operates in 160 countries around the world, and has a 4.3 out of 5 stars rating on G2, which helps businesses find helpdesk software choices. It clearly works well for many companies.

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Zendesk may be right for your business if you have:

1) Complex product offerings and a very large team

Zendesk is a behemoth, which is right for behemoth companies. Specifically, companies with 500+ employees and complex product offerings.

One of the biggest benefits of Zendesk for such large teams is that it comes bundled with so many features and backed by so much staff. When Zendesk leverages its entire toolset and consulting, it can service companies that wouldn’t get adequate support from a smaller, more dedicated helpdesk. Think airlines, hospitals, and other enterprises. 

If you are large enough to have seven-figure budgets for customer support and expect to work with Zendesk consultants to migrate onto the system, Zendesk may be the right choice for you.

2) A desire for customizable reporting (for Professional and Enterprise customers)

At its core, Zendesk is an enterprise product designed for enterprise organizations that require detailed, advanced reporting and analytics. With the Zendesk Explore add-on, you can have a dedicated product solely for reporting and analytics.

And if you want to pay for more insight, Zendesk consultants will work with your developers and reporting team to streamline insights, build customer configurations, and push analytics to enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools like Oracle and Salesforce.

3) Your business requires enterprise integrations

Zendesk has over 1,000 integrations. It integrates with enterprise-level programs like Oracle, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce. Most tools helpdesk provide integrations suited for customer service teams at online stores and small businesses, but few connect to the kinds of mammoth software needed for banks, airlines, and other businesses with high regulation.

Is Zendesk a suitable helpdesk for ecommerce stores?

As mentioned earlier, Zendesk scores very well on Capterra, which indicates many customers are very happy with the service. But many of those customers are not ecommerce businesses. Based on reviews on other platforms, Zendesk may be too much for some ecommerce businesses.

Shopify is one ecommerce platform that is integrated with Zendesk. There are many Shopify helpdesk apps that help ecommerce businesses manage the communication they receive from customers, including Zendesk.

If you take a look at the reviews for Zendesk on the Shopify App Store, you'll find that ecommerce store owners rate the app as 3.6 out of 5 stars, on average. Of the 134 reviews, 39 were rated 1 star.

Some of the reasons for low ratings included:

• Difficulty understanding and changing billing options
• Poor customer satisfaction from the support team
• Not user-friendly
• Difficulty setting up a new storefront with an existing account
• Bugs that affect the ability to install with Shopify
• Have to integrate Zendesk Support in the Shopify store and install Shopify into Zendesk, which is complex 
• Must already have a Zendesk account set up to use the app in Shopify, which that causes many to look for Zendesk alternatives
• Inability to disable the chat widget

Zendesk pricing options

One of the concerns many users have about Zendesk’s customer support software is its complex pricing tiers. And while complex plans could indicate a host of options to best suit your needs, they could also make it difficult to understand what each plan includes (leading to a surprising lack of features down the line.)

It’s difficult to sum up Zendesk’s pricing since there are so many plans and packages, but you can see the cost (billed monthly) for the eight support-related plans below, plus the price of main add-ons below that:

If you can't see the pricing on images above, check out the information below:

Plan options listed below with pricing:

• Zendesk Support Team: $25/agent per month
• Zendesk Support Team: $25/agent per month
• Zendesk Support Professional: $59/agent per month
• Zendesk Support Enterprise: $125/agent per month
• Zendesk Suite Team: $59/agent per month
• Zendesk Suite Growth: $99/agent per month
• Zendesk Suite Professional: $125/agent per month
• Zendesk Suite Enterprise: $199/agent per month
• Zendesk Suite Enterprise (Custom): $215+/agent per month 

Add-on features listed below (listed for each pricing plan) with pricing:

• Zendesk Chat (Team): $19/month
• Zendesk Chat (Professional): $35/month
• Zendesk Chat (Enterprise): $70/month
• Zendesk Talk (voice support, available for all plans): $2/month per number, plus additional fees per minute, voicemail, transcription, and recording
• Zendesk Guide (Professional): $19/month
• Zendesk Guide (Enterprise): $34/month

Foundational support plans (ticket systems)

Zendesk Foundational Support plans include just the helpdesk software and ticket systems. It has three pricing tiers:

• Zendesk Support Team: For $25 a month per agent, you can get an integrated ticketing system, business roles, and customer interaction history
• Zendesk Support Professional: For $59 a month per agent you get all of the features of the Foundational plan, as well as the option to add business hours, customer satisfaction surveys, multilingual support, service level agreement management, and automatic redaction
• Zendesk Support Enterprise: This $125 per agent a month plan adds conversation routing, custom team roles and permissions, customizable agent workspaces, sandbox test environment, and third-party data storage

Zendesk Suite plans (including features offered)

If you want all of the products Zendesk offers, you'll want a Zendesk Suite plan. Here are the pricing tiers:

• Zendesk Suite Team: For $59 a month per agent, you will receive most of Zendesk's products
• Zendesk Suite Growth: For $99 a month per agent you will add customized ticket layouts, AI-powered knowledge management, a self-service customer portal, SLA management, and multilingual support
• Zendesk Suite Professional: For $125 a month per agent, you get access to more self-service capabilities (like community forums), additional customization features, and more storage bandwidth
• Zendesk Suite Enterprise: For $199+ a month per agent, you get every base product Zendesk offers, plus HIPAA compliance, and events connector for Amazon Web Services, and several other advanced features 

Zendesk for sales plans

We didn’t go into much detail for Zendesk Sell, since we’re evaluating Zendesk’s features as a customer service platform. But if you're looking for a product to manage just your sales team, here's how much you’ll pay for Zendesk for Sales:

• Zendesk Sell Team: For $25 a month per user, you get one custom sales pipeline of up to three paid users, and a fully-featured mobile CRM platform with prebuilt apps and integrations
• Zendesk Sell Professional: For $59 a month per user, you get the features of the bottom tier along with the option for custom apps and interactions, unlimited paid users, email tools, analytics, and custom field building
• Zendesk Sell Enterprise: For $125 per user, you'll receive all of Zendesk's sales tools and the option to add two sales pipelines, more analytics, task automation, and customized notifications

What ex-Zendesk customers say about Gorgias

"What has been really great (and different from Zendesk) is that Gorgias has allowed us to grow tremendously. It allows as many seats as needed. That is really great to be able to flex up the roles of agents as needed.

Cody Szymanski, CX Manager, Shinesty

Zendesk’s designs focus on the needs of enterprise clients of all industries, rather than ecommerce businesses. This means many should-be core features for online stores come at an extra cost. If you're running an ecommerce business, you might find yourself resonating with what some ex-Zendesk customers have to say about Gorgias, an ideal alternative to Zendesk.

• Jonathan Kennedy says, "Zendesk is overkill for 95% of Shopify merchants. I think Gorgias has come in and set a high standard."
• Primewines says, "This is it! Have used Zendesk and tried others, but we really need a system that is simple, robust, and integrates well with Shopify. Nothing comes close to Gorgias."
• Ryan Jones says, "Big fan of Gorgias after shifting from Zendesk. We felt like Zendesk was a bit of overkill for us — being such a large, enterprise solution — we weren't using enough of it to really warrant it."

Take a look at a handful of reviews that mention Zendesk and Gorgias:

Princess Polly saw a 40% increase in agent productivity after switching away from Zendesk

Princess Polly is one of the fastest-growing online women's fashion brands in the US and Australia. They used to use Zendesk until they switched to Gorgias: "After migrating to Gorgias, we saw a 40% increase in agent productivity,” says Alexandria Collis, Director of Operations at Princess Polly. “It's an amazing tooI. I was able to see an opportunity, grab it by the reins and take control of our ticketing system without working through some of those silos which we experienced with our old helpdesk."

The switch to Gorgias wasn’t just great for agents; the tool helped Princess Polly improve the customer experience they offered. “Gorgias knows the best ways to address customer issues and build the right tool to help meet those needs,” Alexandra says. “I'd recommend Gorgias to anyone that is highly focused on the overall customer experience. Really the experience from the start to finish, and then beyond."

Read Princess Polly’s customer story to learn more about their swap from Zendesk to Gorgias.

Learn more about Gorgias: The #1 Alternative to Zendesk

Like we said, Zendesk is a powerful product that offers certain enterprise-level features and integrations no other tool in the category can match. But for many ecommerce brands that want dedicated support for their exact type of business, it can be overwhelming and pricey.

Want to see our focus on ecommerce in action? Check out our public feature roadmap. You can see that we’re always improving Gorgias (based on feedback from ecommerce customers). We spend our time making Gorgias the best tool for online stores — that’s it.

‍Learn why Gorgias is an excellent alternative to Zendesk for ecommerce businesses, including a side-by-side feature breakdown between Zendesk and Gorgias.

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Anyone who recognizes that ecommerce customers have high expectations these days also recognizes that fast shipping is part of what keeps those customers happy. We’ve seen non-essential items on Amazon be delayed because of COVID-19, and that’s cause quite a bit of grumbling from both customers and ecommerce businesses. While guaranteeing fast shipping to your customers is definitely a good thing--16% of people have abandoned a shopping cart if the estimated delivery time is too slow--it’s a double-edged sword. Your customers will love getting their order in one or two business days, but it can also be cripplingly expensive. 

The solution is complicated. If shipping faster costs more, do you pass the cost along to your customers? Do you let it eat into your profit margin? Believe it or not, there are other options. Is it possible to  have your cake and eat it too? Yes, but you’ll need a crash course in logistics if you’re going to find affordable ecommerce shipping. Let’s dive in! 

1. Implement zone skipping 

If you’ve ever had to ship your inventory cross-country and had the accompanying jaw-drop when you discovered how expensive that was going to be, you’ve encountered shipping zones before. The further you ship your products, the more it’s going to cost -- obviously -- so how do you get around it?

The answer is zone skipping. To skip zones, you need to store your inventory strategically so that you can choose which location to ship from (and pick the closest one). For example, if you get an order from a customer in Los Angeles and you have inventory stored in Miami and Las Vegas, you’ll want to send them that product from Vegas to save a bunch of money on shipping (and ensure that the order gets to them speedily).

Whether you store and manage your own inventory or rely on a national fulfillment network of warehouses, zone skipping is a smart money saving solution. For example, you’ll probably keep some inventory in a warehouse in Miami, have a location in Pennsylvania to hit the northeast, maybe one in St. Louis for the midwest, and one in Las Vegas to cover the west coast. 

2. Consider dimensional weight

Shipping carriers don’t just measure the weight of your packages in pounds and ounces anymore - if this is news to you, this could be a major opportunity to decrease your costs. When a carrier determines the cost of shipping, they charge you the greater of the two weights - dimensional and actual. Actual weight is just what it sounds like, but dimensional weight measures the size of your package. The bigger it is, the more it costs to ship, even if it’s as light as a feather. It makes affordable ecommerce shipping tough for businesses with large or bulky packages, because they always get charged the dimensional weight.

The good news is if your dimensional weight is greater than your actual weight, you can decrease the size of the package to save money. The more you can minimize the volume of your package the more you can save. Think about how to streamline your packaging experience, whether it’s removing unnecessary infill, using boxes that are more specifically fit for your inventory, or getting rid of any bulky extras that you’re throwing in. Making any one of those changes, even if it seems small, can add up to be huge over time.

3. Determine whether to ship flat-rate or not 

For something that claims to simplify the costs of shipping, it is a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance. However, offering flat rate shipping has the potential to save you money, so let’s go over what kinds of businesses can save big with flat rates.

Each carrier has its own flat rate shipping system, so it’s well worth your time to check out a full explainer of flat rate shipping. However, it boils down to a few specific instances in which flat shipping could help you save big. 

The first is if your products are small, but heavy - this means you’re getting hefty shipping charges due to the actual weight of the product, and shipping in a flat rate box that doesn’t charge by weight could save you a lot. The second is if you ship from coast to coast frequently - for example, if you have a warehouse on the east coast but a lot of your orders come from the west coast. When you ship with UPS or USPS, the flat rate shipping charge doesn’t change depending on distance, so you’d likely save big there. It could also be a good choice if you need to charge your customers a flat rate, or if you fulfill your orders yourself (and then you could take advantage of the convenience).

If you don’t fall into the above categories, though, stay away from flat shipping. It will likely cost you more in the end.

4. Offer bulk rate shipping discounts 

Buy more, pay less. That’s the dream, right? It is when you can manage to get a bulk rate discount from your shipping carrier. If you’re selling a high volume of products and you haven’t looked into getting a bulk discount, you need to get on that ASAP. However, it can be kind of confusing to figure out how to get that discount, as it’s not exactly something that the shipping carriers freely advertise.

There are a few ways you can try to get discounts for more affordable ecommerce shipping from carriers. If you’re a small business and you’re fulfilling everything yourself, you’re most likely to get bulk rates by using a platform like ShipStation or Shippo. They’ll let you compare prices and figure out the cheapest way to ship your items as quickly as possible, and they’re able to take advantage of bulk rate discounts by negotiating with carriers on behalf of all of their clients. Shopify offers a very similar service through their own platform, called Shopify Shipping.

However, unless you’re an enterprise-scale company, the chances are good that the best rates are going to come if you partner with a 3PL fulfillment company. They typically ship a huge volume of packages and are thus able to negotiate a discounted rate - without you having to do as much work.

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5. Beef up your last mile options

The last mile - metaphorically speaking, anyway - is the last step between the warehouse and the customer. This last step can sometimes take the longest. If you’ve ever tracked a package on its way to your house, you may have noticed the significant gap of time between it being out for delivery and actually being delivered. That’s because this step is complicated and relies on a lot of different cogs spinning together as one machine. It can depend on the third party you work with, how busy they are, where their facility is located, what courier they use, and many other factors that are completely out of your control.

As you can imagine, cutting down on the time and cost spent in the last mile is critical. But how can you do it?

First, don’t be afraid to A/B test different courier services to see which one does better. Something like a drone delivery service, while very cool, is probably way too expensive. But trying different companies can help you find that sweet spot between costly and quick. While Fedex and UPS frequently outsource to USPS for the last mile because of their coverage, other options have popped up in the last few years. Just like Uber Eats or Lyft, drivers contract with companies and use their car to complete deliveries - in this case, getting your package to the customer’s door.

You can also consider a pick-up option, which cuts out that last mile entirely. Make the customer come to you! If you have brick-and-mortar stores, setting up in-store pickup is an easy choice. If not, you may even want to consider participating in something like the UPS Access Point program.

6. Encourage larger average order sizes

In general, the more items you can ship in the same box, the more you can save on shipping. And when you’re saving on shipping, you can give some of those savings back by offering upgraded fast shipping or free shipping. But how?

A common way to encourage larger order sizes is to offer free shipping once they hit a certain minimum (like $50). However, you can try a new take on that, which is to offer upgraded shipping once they hit the minimum, which will reward them for ordering more by getting it to them faster. To set your minimum, look at your average order amount and set it a bit higher than that, which should bring your overall average order amount up over time. To do a trial run, try doing a customer appreciation campaign with upgraded shipping at your new minimum to gauge the popularity.

Another option is to sell in kits or in bulk when you can. By packaging best-selling or complementary products together you can easily increase the size of the order (and it’s an easy upsell for your customer as well). Ultimately, the more items you can fit in one shipment, the cheaper it will be to get it there quickly. This is a great way to balance affordable ecommerce shipping with fast shipping speeds.

7. Minimize the weight of your product and/or packaging

Hot take: no one cares about your inserts. Not-so-hot take: the unboxing experience is a crucial part of the impression you make on your customer. Both are true; how?

It’s true that unboxing is a big part of your image, and it takes on a life of its own on social media. The problem is that when companies think of unboxing, they think the more the better - and that’s not necessarily true. Practically, those materials take up valuable space and weight in the box, leading to marginal increases in shipping cost that become significant at scale. They also take longer to assemble, and all of the inserts you throw in will be tossed in the recycling bin (or the garbage) eventually, even if they do bring in an extra lead or two. It’s not worth it.

What is worth it is designing smart. Your unboxing experience doesn’t have to be over the top and filled to the brim with extras - a smart, thoughtful experience is just as meaningful for your customers, and packaging trends are moving that way as well. Consider talking to a package design company to see how you can really wow with design and ditch the inserts, or think about how using less can actually be more effective (like moving towards a more environmentally-friendly image). 

8. Restrict where you offer fast shipping

Lastly, fast shipping does not have to be an all-or-nothing game. With the U.S. being the size that it is, at a certain point, you’re going to have to make some exceptions to where you can get to quickly. Just ask anyone in Alaska or Hawaii-- they’ll be the first to tell you that it takes ages for shipments to arrive. Finding fast and affordable ecommerce shipping for the entire U.S. is going to be pretty difficult, especially if you’re not working for a 3PL, so you’re going to have to make some sacrifices. Sorry Alaska and Hawaii.

To make conditional fast shipping work for you, you can set parameters that will allow you to offer fast shipping where it is reasonable and affordable to you. This could be within major urban zones, or areas within a certain radius of the warehouse(s) that store your inventory. You can consider shipping to more remote areas, or places a certain distance outside of your core shipping radius, to be like shipping outside the lower 48. Even if you can’t offer fast shipping to all of your customers, you can at least increase your conversion rate where you do offer it without breaking the bank.

Related: Our list of the 12 best shipping softwares for ecommerce.

Final thoughts

Fast shipping and low costs are a balancing act. With customers expecting everything faster than ever (and freer than ever) it can feel overwhelming to try to make everyone happy. In reality, you’re going to be best served by cutting your own shipping costs as much as you can, and taking advantage of any deals you can get by using special services. Hope that cake tastes good!

And if you want to learn more about ecommerce shipping, check out our list of essential best practices.

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Almost 50% of consumers depend on ecommerce influencers to guide their purchasing decisions.

Partnering up with an influencer your target audience resonates with can help you attract new customers, cultivate your community, and grow your sales.

We've discussed the benefits of social media for customer service, but in this blog we'll discuss using social media influencers to expand your brand's reach. Here’s what you’ll learn in this guide:

• What influencer partnerships are all about and how can you use them
• Why companies similar to yours choose influencer marketing
• How to find the right influencers and get started on your first campaign

What is influencer marketing for ecommerce?

Influencer marketing is the process of working with social media influencers to advertise your ecommerce products on their social channels to their followers. Usually, you'll work with influencers whose followers are within your target audience.

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How to leverage influencer marketing

You know how it works, how to use it, but you’re still not sure how to create an influencer marketing campaign. Don’t worry, it’s not that complicated. 

Here’s what you need to know about launching an influencer campaign.

1. Create a marketing persona

You can’t pick a partner if you don’t know who you want to attract. That’s why creating a “marketing persona” needs to be the first thing you do. Determining what age, gender, and interests of your average customer can help you a lot. 

Let’s say you’re selling women's clothing. You do your homework and find out that most of your visitors are ladies in their 40s from North America and Canada. This knowledge narrows your search down. You need an English-speaking influencer that appeals to middle-aged women. 

That can get things going. 

2. Select social platforms

Once you get to know your audience, you’ll easily find out what are some of their social media platforms on the Internet. Consider platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

If you’re looking for a universal solution, then you should reach out to Instagram influencers, since the platform has one of the most diverse user-bases. According to Social Media Today, Instagram is the most active influencer platform. 

3. Look for the right influencer for your store

You of course want a partner with a good reach. Contacting a person with less than 1,000 followers doesn’t make any sense, correct? That person can’t be even called an influencer. But you shouldn’t get stuck on every metric.

Engagement is what you’re looking for.

Sometimes, smaller is better. You might be surprised to know that micro-influencers are far more effective than big ones. In fact, an average micro-influencer gets 7X more engagement than a far-reaching one.

4. Reach out to multiple influencers

As soon as you nail what type of audience you’re targeting and what kind of person would suit your store best, you need to start getting in contact with influencers. However, you can’t just reach out to one and hope you get a response right away.

You need to contact a few social media personalities at the same time. Using a platform such as FameBit, or #Paid you’ll be able to contact several influencers, sort them by followers, age, and other metrics that can be helpful for your marketing campaign. 

5. Evaluate your potential partners

As we keep saying, you need to find someone that your buyers will find relatable. Relatability is twice as important as popularity if you want to attract the right kind of people. 

Talk to the influencers, see what their values are, do they align with your values, and see whether or not they’d shop at your store if you didn’t reach out to them. 

6. Set the objectives for your partnership

Like any other form of marketing, your influencer strategy can and has to be measured. You can’t expect to have a successful strategy without some tweaks along the way. And you can’t really make any corrections to your strategy if you don't know how it’s performing in the first place. 

According to research from the Digital Marketing Institute, these are the biggest KPIs for measuring your effectiveness:

• Reach and Awareness
• Audience Growth
• Referral Traffic
• Conversion Rate
• User Engagement

Your KPI choice depends on your needs and ambitions. Sit down with the rest of your team, discuss in which direction you want to take things, and only then select important KPIs. 

7. Select a platform to measure your campaign

For three-quarters of business owners, measuring ROI is the biggest challenge of an influencer marketing campaign. Nonetheless, measuring success should be one of the most important parts of your campaign. 

You need to have the right tools if you want to get the job done right. NeoRech can help you track referrals and monitor the effectiveness of every single influencer you have, while TapInfluence can help you measure your ROI more effectively. 

8. Launch your first influencer campaign

Once you have your influencers in place, your KPIs all set, and all of the measuring tools in place, you can give your partners permission to start the campaign. 

For the first couple of days, the surge of visitors might not be huge. However, after a month or so, you can expect to see some serious results from the campaign. 

9. Ask for testimonials 

This is a perfect opportunity to get some content for your website. You can always ask for a couple of testimonials from the people you’re working with and place the quote alongside their pictures on your website. 

Now your visitors can see who works with you.

Every person that visits your website will know that the influencer vouches for your store, products, and organization. That testimonial will allow you to build your brand, establish credibility, and boost trust among your consumer base.

10. Make the partnership mutually beneficial

Last but not least, try to make the partnership mutually beneficial for both parties. By that we mean, consider offering the influencer some discount codes or some of your products. 

The influencer can and will send a good number of users your way. That shouldn’t be a one-and-done deal. More than a third of influencers like to work with brands long-term. If the first campaign turns out as planned, why not do it a few more times? 

Why businesses rely on influencer marketing

A business can’t rely only on influencers to increase sales. You should look at this as an enhancement tool for your current marketing strategy.

It’s a great, cost-effective way of improving marketing efforts. Nearly 90% of marketers feel that influencer marketing has a better ROI than other, more traditional marketing channels. 

Let’s look at a few more ways influencer marketing can help your store…

They have real sway with their followers

While a niche influencer may not be able to reach millions of people, they can still have a lot of influence over a small group of users. Niche influencers attract are comprised out of users who share the same interests, buy the same products, and visit the same stores. 

Therefore, by working with an influential person, you’ll be able to reach that small amount of people and turn them into regular customers. You just need to find a person that caters to your target audience. For example, if you go into a random gym in your area, you’ll probably find someone wearing Gymshark clothing. The company is huge. At the moment, it’s valued at about $200 million.

And how did the company manage to find the right influencers? By knowing their target audience. 

Their gym clothing was aimed at millennials. As soon as Gymshark launched a line of women’s clothing, they sought out young fitness influencers like Nikki Blackketter to team up with them. Soon after, their “Flex Leggings” became a huge hit among millennials. 

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They're really relatable 

As we established, while celebrities may be influencers, they’re usually seen as spokespeople for certain brands and companies. Why is that? That’s because celebrities live completely different lives than 99% of us. 

Simply put, the average person can’t relate to most celebrities. Relatability is everything if you want your campaign to generate real results. Almost 90% of Gen Z-ers and Millennials follow influencers because they’re relatable. 

They can help niche or taboo businesses 

If you’re selling niche products that aren’t considered mainstream, you may have trouble finding success with mainstream advertising. For instance, anything that Google deems “dangerous advertising” is heavily prohibited. 

Everything CBD and marijuana-related products to martial arts equipment and hunting gear all fall into that category. Stores that sell similar products can get a healthy amount of visitors and brand exposure from influencers. 

Partner up to get your profits up

If you want to partner up with an ecommerce influencer to grow your online store, you should start by thinking about how that partnership can help your store increase sales and help your brand become more known. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Influencer marketing works perfectly on people who dislike traditional marketing
• Social platforms allow influencers to make the most out of their connection with users
• Continuously investing in influencer marketing can be beneficial for both parties 

And remember: even though influencer marketing is still new and always adapting, it’s just a regular marketing strategy that needs to be monitored and measured. For that, you need the best tools. Speaking of which, check out our post on the best social media integrations for Shopify.

If you are starting out with an influencer campaign, especially on Instagram you may see a spike in engagement on your Instagram feed. If those users are commenting on your posts - especially your products, don’t just ignore them, welcome them to your community.

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Your customers are the backbone of your business. Ask any successful entrepreneur and they’ll agree that your number one priority should be to nurture satisfaction with your shoppers. Show them some love and run a customer appreciation campaign. 

What is customer appreciation? 

A win-win for your shoppers and your brand, a customer appreciation campaign or a shopper appreciation campaign is a promotion that a company runs to celebrate its customers. It can include discounts, small gifts or freebies, contests, and more. The point is to delight your customers. 

You can run a shopper appreciation campaign annually, quarterly, monthly -- there are no set rules. But, one constant with all successful shopper appreciation promotions is that they show customers recognition and gratitude for shopping with the brand beyond a simple ‘thank you.’ 

A promotion like this will help you retain shoppers and increase eCommerce conversions. 

Customer appreciation ideas to show gratitude and retain loyal customers

Let’s explore some ideas to kick off your next customer appreciation campaign.

1. Run a flash sale
2. Feature customers in social media posts
3. Make it an annual event
4. Share brand promotions with your personal network
5. Send handwritten notes
6. Send free swag
7. Follow up with your brand advocates
8. Donate to a cause 
9. Send a gift card
10. Reward customers with a loyalty program
11. Offer a price cut

1) Run a flash sale

This idea goes against what I mentioned earlier about letting shoppers know what you’re planning in advance (to generate hype). But, if you have limited resources and you think it’s time to show customers you truly care, a flash sale is a viable option. 

Above is an example from Hand-Picked, an online jewelry and gift retailer. For just four hours, everything in their store was on sale at a 40% discount. They announced the sale on social media for their followers, which created an atmosphere of exclusivity and urgency -- very appealing.

2) Feature your shoppers on social media posts

People love it when you love them. Show your customers appreciation by sharing their images on social media to your followers. Attention like this makes shoppers feel like they do when their new friend shares a photo of them -- like they’re someone to be proud of. 

Rianna Phillips is an accessories seller with a flair for glam. In the above example, they share a photo of their customer, @imb_amande, “looking effortlessly chic.” In this case, they’ve placed their product (a pretty, pink phone case) in a real-life glamorous-looking scenario while showing their gratitude for the purchase; this tactic appeals to the customer(s) you promote and onlookers who might want to try the product.     

3) Make it an annual event

One way to encourage customer loyalty is to make sure your shoppers have something to look forward to. Plan your promotions in advance and make sure your shoppers know that they can consistently expect exciting deals from your brand. 

[Image source: Plum Deluxe]

Above, you see a landing page that Plum Deluxe keeps up on their website all year long. A recent tweet with a product photo let their followers know that time was almost up to get in on the discounts for what has been their full month of gratitude. Follow their lead and keep your shoppers interested in you long-term. 

4) Share brand promotions with your personal network

Sometimes it’s beneficial to share your professional promotions with your personal connections. When you say thank you to your shoppers is one of the better times to do so. You don’t want to pitch your products and services to your friends and family because that’s annoying. But, there are ways to make brand shares tasteful. 

Amethyst Babe is an online boutique body product retailer. Behind the scenes, @theillestpisces runs the show. With her personal followers, she retweets her branded promotional tweet. Now, everyone knows, if they order, they will receive a surprise gift with their purchase. Which of your store’s posts should you be sharing with your personal network? 

5) Send handwritten notes

Thank you notes are a classic way of letting someone know you appreciate them. You send them to your friends and family. Why not send them to your customers? Consumers absolutely love handwritten cards because they give the shopping experience a tremendously personal touch. 

Casper is a mattress company that sends handwritten thank you notes with their deliveries. They keep them simple and welcome customers to their “family.” You can take this idea and run with it for nearly any product offering. If you couldn’t possibly write enough notes yourself, look into a printing alternative. 

6) Send free swag

Branded merch is a win for both parties because your shoppers will appreciate the gesture. And, if they choose to sport your gift, they’ll be marketing your company to their friends and family in the real world. It’s like a thank you note that serves as a commercial for your brand. 

Above, you see some free Beatles pins that are going into some packages as surprise gifts for Pizzawednesday’s weekend Etsy orders. What better way to get people excited about your products than send them a little extra? What unique swag could you use to delight your shoppers? 

7) Follow up with your brand advocates

When your customers check in with you on social media or they tag you in their posts, make sure to follow up. Engaging with advocates, both big and small, gives you an opportunity to make someone happy. Plus, it’s just good PR. Don’t just aim for influencers, either.

Every brand mention is a chance for you to deliver an exceptional experience to your customers. Love Always Claire understands the value in simply acknowledging shoppers when they have something nice to say. You never know what good can happen for your business if you ignore your patrons. 

8) Donate to a cause 

On behalf of your most loyal customers and brand advocates, consider making a donation to a cause. This is one of the best forms of PR you can get. You’ll have a fanatic on your team who wants to share what you’ve done with the rest of the world, and you’ll make people feel great. 

On behalf of the Burst Southeast Team, Burst Oral Care donated $2,500 to the Wounded Warrior Project, for example. During your promotion, you can choose a charity to donate to or run a contest wherein the winner chooses which organization gets your donation. Just make it fun and relevant. Because of its nature, this tactic is always a success. 

9) Send a gift card

Another classic way to express your gratitude, a gift card can be an excellent promotional tactic. Depending on your budget, you can send a gift card for your online store or send your shoppers out to lunch or for a coffee. For the most impact, you’re best to execute this tactic as a surprise. 

For example, when a customer couldn’t find what they were looking for in their local store, Argos sent them a gift voucher to use online. In this case, they were making up for a mistake, but you don’t have to mess things up before you deliver a delightful experience. Try taking a look at your ten top-purchasing customers from the past year and send them a gift card. 

10) Reward customers with a loyalty program

A loyalty and rewards program is one of the best ways for an online store to create customer retention. And, it’s an excellent way to show your appreciation for the purchases made. in the eyes of your customers, make sure your rewards are worth talking about. If you do, they will share their story with the world. 

Above, Luisaviaroma created a hit with a “private sale” for special shoppers. They sent a huge discount to a select few on their luxury fashion, making at least one customer feel like the star of the show.  And, that is how a brand effectively shows their appreciation. 

11) Offer a price cut 

Sometimes a simple discount can get people excited and chatting. And, it doesn’t necessarily have to be 75% off to cause a stir. Find out how much you can afford to shave off your prices and start handing out savings to your loyal shoppers. It’s a simple offer and it works. 

Marshall Artist, modern tailoring online, offered a 15% discount for new shoppers and it got people talking. When customers were able to connect over their purchases, it created a sense of community in the Tweetosphere. And, people were connecting over the business in a positive light. You can mimic this tactic by offering percentage and dollar amounts off your prices for specific actions. 

Customer appreciation campaign best practices

Your customer base is inspired to shop when they feel like they’re getting something of value. To most consumers, there’s nothing more valuable than feeling appreciated. Follow these best practices when creating a campaign to acknowledge your gratitude. 

1) Start promoting in advance

Before your campaign commences, it is crucial to give potential shoppers a sneak peek of what’s to come. You need people to know that something big is about to happen so they can get ready to engage. Anticipation is at the heart of a successful campaign. 

So, run a pre-launch email series and let social media followers know what’s happening. You can also add a countdown bar to the top of your website or online store; try using it as a lead-generation tool by collecting email addresses of shoppers who want a notification when your promotion officially starts.

By letting people know what’s up in advance, you ensure more traffic to your store on the day of launch. 

2) Make it all about your customers, not your brand

If you want shoppers to promote you, you need to promote your shoppers. Don’t focus too much on your product or service. Instead, feature customers as the VIP of your party. You’re not exactly saying, ‘happy birthday,’ but you want customers to feel like you are -- you’re celebrating and it should be fun. I’ll bet you can come up with something just as clever while staying relevant to your products and services. Then, bring it to social media. 

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great platforms to get shoppers engaged with your brand. So, call your customers to action on these social channels and thank them for joining in. 

3) Make every shopper feel important

To your customers, the engagement they have with your brand is one-on-one. So, keep this in mind when you connect with people. Don’t talk to shoppers as if you’re speaking to a crowd. Especially since your interactions primarily take place online, remember to keep the experience hyper-personalized. 

Encourage your customer support team to enthusiastically address each customer who engages with you on social media, email, live chat, and by phone. Then, try to enhance the experience by letting everyone know about the promotion you’re currently running.

4) Carry the vibes into the future

The fun shouldn’t stop here. In fact, you should use your promotion as a springboard for creating an exceptional brand experience all year long. Shoppers appreciate consistency. So, show them that you can consistently make them feel like a vital part of your business every single day. 

[Image Source: Sunski]

Use your customer appreciation campaign as an opportunity to launch a new, ongoing campaign. Here are some of the best types of long-term campaigns to start during a shopper appreciation week or day promotion: 

• User-Generated Content (UGC) Campaign -  Start a hashtag promotion on Instagram, ask for product reviews, or ask your shoppers to submit certain photos of your products for a contest. Incentivize customer action with a discount or gift. Then, keep it going to continue generating interest in your brand each day of the year. 
• Referral Program - It might be time to start asking for referrals. If so, you can use customer appreciation week as a starting point. Maybe you could offer additional bonuses during launch, but make sure your satisfied shoppers want to continue telling other people about your products. 
• Loyalty or Rewards Program - A loyalty program can go hand-in-hand with your new referral program. And, it doesn’t have to end with your shopper appreciation day or week. 
• Discount - Now might be the time to start giving shoppers a new shipping discount on sales over a certain price. Or, maybe you want to start offering markdowns on bulk orders in certain categories. The possibilities are endless.

Ultimately, you want to use your campaign to kickstart a new company lifestyle, not just a few sales. If you’re interested in making the processes easier on yourself, check out some of our favorite Shopify apps, which include platforms for ongoing loyalty, rewards, and other campaigns. 

5 Customer appreciation scripts to inspire your support team

Right now, customer appreciation scripts might be what your team needs to help set the mood when connecting with customers. During your campaign, share these scripts with your team to get them ready for the big push. They can use them as general guidelines to follow when communicating with shoppers. 

Script #1. Simple greeting

Hello there, I’m happy to help with whatever it is you need. Before we get started, did you know that we’re celebrating shopper appreciation week? To say thank you for your patronage, I’d like to offer you some exclusive perks. Some of them are super cool. Are you interested in hearing more? 

Script #2. Pitch a newsletter signup

Hi! I see that you haven’t signed up for our newsletter yet [Make sure this is true.]. As a way to say thank you, we post regular articles that can help you understand how to better understand your [Insert Product or Product Category] and other relevant [Insert Main Blog Theme] tips and advice. 

Right now, we’re offering [Insert Gift or Discount Offering] to anyone who signs up with their email address. Would you like me to subscribe you to our newsletter and show you how to redeem your reward? 

Script #3. Propose a contest entry

Hey there, thank you for reaching out/ stopping in! As a way to give back to you and our other shoppers, we’re running a contest right now. All you have to do is [Insert Customer Action(s)], and you’ll have a chance to win [Insert Prize]. And, just for playing, you’ll get [Insert Gift or Discount Offering]. Would you like to play? 

Script #4. Solve a general problem

[After the problem is solved...] I’m so happy I could help you, today! I sincerely appreciate your patronage. Before I let you go, I want to say ‘thank you,’ and let you know about a promotion we’re running to show that we appreciate you for being a part of our family. 

Today/ This week only, we’re offering [Insert Gift or Discount Offering] to anyone who [Insert Customer Action(s)]. Would you like me to send you more information?   

Script #5. Solve a problem for an unhappy customer

[After the problem is solved...] Whew, I know that was frustrating for you. I want to say that I’m grateful for your patience while we sorted through that mess. Your business is important to us.

 As a thank you, I’d like to offer you [Insert Gift or Discount Offering]. If you’re interested, all you would need to do is [Insert Customer Action(s)]. Would you like to proceed? 

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The above scripts can be modified to suit your customer needs, brand voice, the skill level of your customer support team, and the nature of your promotion. The examples should be used as a starting point to get everyone’s wheels turning and the creative juices flowing. You might also like these customer service quotes to help keep your support agents motivated throughout the year. 

Final thoughts

When it comes to shopper appreciation, the bottom line is to make sure you find a way to show your gratitude to the people who matter most. You want to satisfy your customers and you wan to increase your sales. In the end, what matters most is the relationships you build. So, if you focus on that, you will certainly be successful. 

Remember to be authentic, transparent, and open in all of your ecommerce marketing campaigns. If you’re not, your brand will stick out like a sore thumb. There’s nothing people hate more in this day and age than a phony, especially when it comes to where they spend their money. What tactics have you used to show your appreciation for the people who visit your online store?

Your customer service is the lifeblood of your business. And, live chat is a central communication channel for your online shoppers. Live chat can make or break your business. When leveraged properly, Shopify live chat can have a tremendous positive impact on sales. You just need to make sure you’re not turning prospects away. 

This article covers a few points.

1. Why live chat is crucial for your online revenue
2. Shopify live chat support mistakes you need to avoid at all costs
3. Actionable advice to solve these common issues  

Now, learn why your growth depends on your live chat processes. 

Why is using live chat on your Shopify store important?

If you don’t yet have live chat or you haven’t experienced the potential of optimizing your communication processes on this channel, you may wonder what the big deal is. Yeah, your customers want to talk to you at all hours, but is it really that important? 

Let’s look at a few facts about live chat so you can think about it.   

• 38% of online consumers are more likely to make a purchase if a retailer offers live chat support (Crazy Egg). 
• Site visitors who engage with your live chat are worth 4.5X more than those who do not (ICMI). 
• Live chat has the highest satisfaction level of any other customer support communication channel at 92% (Inc). 

Now, here’s what might happen if you leave your shoppers dissatisfied. 

• It can take 12 satisfying customer experiences to make up for a single dissatisfying one (Invesp).
• 95% of customers tell others about their poor experiences with a brand and 87% share positive experiences (Customer Thermometer). 

Are you convinced? If so, it’s time to make sure you get it right. Avoid these live chat mistakes and ensure that you’re getting the most out of one of the most powerful communication channels for online stores. 

Avoid these live chat mistakes on your Shopify store

Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. Here are the mistakes you need to avoid when implementing live chat on your Shopify store. And, below each problem is a simple and actionable fix. 

1. No automation  

When you don’t implement automation, you’re forced to have multiple support agents online at all times or miss the point of live chat altogether. Your customers prefer this communication channel because they want the convenience of self-service. And, without some level of automation, customers might as well send an email because it will take just as long to receive a response. 

The quick fix: Learn your chat platform’s macros or automation processes

Live chat platforms are designed to enhance the workload of your support team. So, naturally, the brand you work with will have a knowledge base with detailed instructions about platform use. Make sure your support agents learn how to implement macros or automations.

2. Too much automation

Before you get too excited and try to automate your entire live chat workflow, stop and think for a moment. It is possible to fully-automate your live chat communications. However, with automation, you can’t always get the answers right. Irrelevant responses to customer queries can trigger immediate dissatisfaction.

The quick fix: Refer to the Pareto principle

In marketing, sales, writing, and even customer service, the Pareto principle, better known as the 80/20 rule can come in handy. This principle states that 80% of the effects for many actions come from 20% of the effort. Spin this just a bit for an easy solution. 

Find out where most of your effort is being spent (maybe 20% of the customer support workload) and use live chat macros to answer the most common customer questions first. Then, the rest of your support agents’ work time to reply to the unique and personal queries (perhaps about 80% of the customer support workload).   

See Also: Love Your Melon Has Automated 25% of Shopify Support Tickets

3. Excessive wait times

While it may not always be possible, especially from the perspective of a brand, up to 79% of consumers want immediate responses and expect answers within 10 minutes. If you’re making your shoppers wait longer than this, you may be losing sales.

One of the biggest benefits of live chat for customer support is its speed .You need to find a solution to accelerate your responses.  

The quick fix: Enlist assistance from other departments

Much of the time, excessive wait times are due to the fact that customer support staff must reach out to external departments and wait for answers before replying to the customer. Try what Nomad did to decrease first-response time by 78% and implement an all-hands support strategy. 

Require each department to directly respond to a number of tickets every day. And, there’s no need to go overboard -- just a few tickets a day from sales, marketing, and/or product teams can have a dramatic positive impact on response and resolution times. 

4. Ineffective language use

Do your agents sound like robots? Are your chat communications overly-formal? If so, you run the risk of turning people away. Consumers appreciate AI, but if they can have better conversations with Siri or Alexa that they do your customer support team, your conversations could use some work. 

The quick fix: Parrot your customers 

Compile some data from your chat sessions and look for patterns. Do you see any recurring words or phrases in your customer communications? If so, add them to your macros and your agents’ vocabulary. When you speak the same language with shoppers, they’re more likely to trust you. 

5. Unskilled or untrained support agents

Customer service agents never get as much credit as they deserve. Without a small army of satisfaction soldiers, you will lose the eCommerce war. So, the work needs to be taken seriously. If you hire low-skilled agents who can’t answer your shoppers’ questions, you will end up with low-quality support operations. Eventually, this mistake can kill your business. 

The quick fix: hire and train well 

Unfortunately, for this problem, there isn’t a “quick” fix. However, if you put in significant energy in the beginning, you may be able to kick up your heels later. Onboard well. 

Fist of all, learn the core skills that your support agents need like active listening and product knowledge. Then, hire like you know what you’re doing. Make sure to ask the right interview questions. And, when onboarding, create stellar customer service training materials. The resources you invest when you bring on new agents will pay for themselves fast. 

6. Emoji overload

Once in a while, if you throw an emoji out there in a live chat conversation with a customer, it can be fun. Emojis can help adjust the mood and keep a message lighthearted. Forbes says that emojis can be worth 1,000 words. But, don’t go overboard. Too many smiley faces and penguins will come across annoying and unprofessional. 

The quick fix: Just stop 🛑 

If it seems like your agents may be on emoji overdrive, just ask them to stop. Remove the use of smileys and strong arms from your operations entirely. It’s better to have no emojis at all than to have too many. Now, if this hasn’t become a problem internally, then don’t worry about it. Skilled agents typically know what’s appropriate and what’s not. 

7. Extreme focus on quantity

In eCommerce and business in general, decision-makers spend end a lot of time looking at numbers. In customer service, you strive for the fastest first-response and resolution times. While this is best practice, don’t let quantity overshadow quality. Some teams become so focused on their numbers that they lose sight of their actual customer satisfaction. Don’t let this be your team. 

The quick fix: Audit your operations 

Instead of playing a numbers game and obsessing about the clock, focus on quality. Customer satisfaction should be the number one goal of every support team and every business, for that matter. Periodically, run an audit on your operations and make sure your satisfaction levels are balanced with your speed. 

8. No data collection

A few weeks ago, I called out to online store owners on Twitter to ask for their experience using live chat to increase sales. I wanted to level the playing field and reach beyond our internal data to find others who had the same experience. And, while each respondent knew that live chat had a positive impact on their Shopify sales, they couldn’t provide real numbers. Instead, they shared anecdotes and vague descriptions and stories. There are two key problems with no data collection for live chat. 

1. When you have no performance data and statistics, you can’t determine the exact areas where you need to improve your processes.
2. A lack of customer data leads to a decrease in customer satisfaction. 

90% of consumers value when an agent knows their account history and current activity within a company. 

The quick fix: Use a full-featured live chat plaform 

If your live chat platform is designed to collect data from your agents and your customers, you can get all of the information you need to collect helpful internal statistics.

Keep track of tickets created, replied, closed, messages, time to resolution. Sort your data by agent or event. Use real numbers from your internal processes to power your customer support strategy. 

With the right reporting system, you can inform your future decisions about hiring, automation, processes, and more. 

9. Missing optimal chat times

Do you know when your website traffic spends most of their time on your website? And, are you making certain that your agents are online during peak times? If not, you will naturally see low response and resolution times. Plus, the people who reach out when nobody is online may never return to your site. 

The quick fix: discover your peak times & make sure you’re staffed 

Use a tool like Google Analytics to generate hour of day and day of week reports. When you have determined the most active times for your website visitors, check to make sure you’re staffed during these times. And, if you see that there are active traffic times that you don’t have anyone available, make adjustments to your staff schedules. 

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10. Ignoring sales opportunities 

Customer support is an avenue for your team to keep shoppers happy. And, happy shoppers evolve into satisfied, long-term customers. But, you may be missing opportunities to upsell your website traffic on current promotions and increase sales even more.  

The quick fix: Share your current promotions with shoppers

When you’re running a promotion, contest, or sale, make sure your support agents are aware. At the beginning or end of every live chat conversation (you’ll have to test to see what works best for your audience), give customers a link to a page with the information or briefly tell them about the promotion. 

11. Disconnected processes

A major problem for many support agents that can kill satisfaction is processes that are disconnected. Your staff can be forced to open multiple tabs to keep a conversation going -- email, social media, live chat, web store. This can take up precious time and also give customers the feeling that your company doesn’t know who they are or what their status is. 

The quick fix: Make sure your live chat is integrated with Shopify and your other communication channels

Gorgias's live chat platform connects with your Shopify data so that you can streamline the resolution on orders, shipping, tracking, and return tickets. Furthermore, it integrates with your email, phone, and social media messaging platforms so that you have access to all customer data, no matter which channel they reach out on. 

Final thoughts

Now you know exactly what not to do and how to fix what you’re doing wrong with live chat on your Shopify store. Apply this advice today and watch your support team nurture more satisfaction with shoppers. If you need a Shopify full-featured live chat platform that provides the data you need to scale your customer support operations and the integrations that can streamline your operations, find out what we have to offer. 

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Transactional emails are usually sent when a customer has placed an order like shipping confirmation emails and order confirmation emails. But they could also include reminders for abandoned cart checkouts, lost password requests, or suggestions for future purchases.

A study by Experian found that transactional order emails average $0.75 per open compared to $0.13 for bulk mailings on orders. But how can simple notifications increase customer lifetime value? How can they drive repeat purchases?

Tips for upgrading transactional emails to boost sales

Try these three tips to use transactional emails to grow your ecommerce business.

1. Leverage product recommendations to upsell customers
2. Ask for reviews to build trust
3. Drive repeat purchases with discount codes

1) Leverage product recommendations to upsell customers

One way you can maximize the power of product recommendations is to add them in your transactional emails. How effective are product recommendations in maximizing your profits? Intelliverse found that 45% of consumers are more likely to shop on a site that offers personalized recommendations and  56% of online customers are more likely to return to a site that offers product recommendations.
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For example, Costco’s order confirmation email has product recommendations that are based on top categories. It’s nothing special, but it can drive repeat purchases.

Another tip is to send personalized product recommendations based on a consumer’s purchase history or behavior. This way, you’ll be upselling products that customers will likely be interested in. For example, Amazon’s order confirmation email includes recommendations based on a customer’s past purchase.

Adding personalized product recommendations in your transactional emails make a lot of sense because they have high open rates. In fact, transactional emails have open rates that are 3x to 4x higher than the regular marketing email. That’s because customers often check transactional emails to confirm the success of their transactions.

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2) Ask for reviews to build trust

Another type of transactional email you can use is the feedback email which is sent a few days or weeks after the customer has received or used the product. Why are product reviews important to your retail store? Reviews determine whether people will buy your product. Additionally, while writing reviews don’t directly lead to repeat purchases, they’re pretty effective at getting other customers to buy a product.

Numerous studies consistently found that star ratings and reviews have a big impact on sales. In fact, BrightLocal found that 44% prefer products with reviews within the past month and Reevo found that reviews can result in an 18% increase in sales.

And contrary to popular belief, negative reviews might do you some good. Capterra found that 52% of buyers trust a product more when they see a fewer negative reviews. After all, there’s no perfect product. You can ask for reviews by sending a simple feedback email like J. Crew:

Writing a review seems easy, but it does take some time and effort. That said, you should thank customers because any kind of feedback is useful for your Shopify store. Here’s an example of how J. Crew thanks their customers:

You don’t always have to ask for long reviews, sometimes a star rating might do.

For example, JCPenney asks for a star rating a few days after the customer has received the product. They also give customers the option to write a long review through clicking the “Write a Review” button.

They also incentive customers by giving them a chance to win $1000.

You can also provide other incentives like discounts and coupons in exchange for the review. After all, people are more motivated when they get something in return.

Related: Our guide to email marketing automation for ecommerce.

3) Drive repeat purchases with discount codes

Selling to your current customers is a lot easier and cheaper than converting a first-time customer. A study by Harvard Business Review found that acquiring new customers is about five to 25 times more expensive than selling to the ones you already have.

Of course, old customers are more likely to buy your product because they have experiences with your product or service. If they like what they purchased, there’s a good chance they’ll buy from your store again.

In contrast, first-time customers are a lot harder to convince. You need to get them through the marketing funnel and send ads, emails and other marketing content to convince them to buy from your store.

That said—how do you increase repeat purchases in your retail store? A popular trick is to send next purchase discount codes. Offer a small limited-time discount if they make another purchase.

Start customizing your transactional emails

The strategies in this post are an easy way to generate additional sales and revenue with some minor tweak. While Shopify doesn’t allow you to directly customize their transactional emails, you can start with an email template and then use a tool like Spently. Use their drag and drop functionality to add product recommendations, unique discounts and referral codes to your transactional emails.

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