Category: Guide

The average abandoned cart rate is 70% throughout all industries, and it is a major concern.

But there’s nothing to be worried about.

why?

here’s the answer :

Abandoned carts are not a problem, rather they are an OPPORTUNITY.

Even if you can not stop the remaining 50% from abandoning your cart, you can take effective steps to get a lot of them back. 

And the ones who will be back will be more loyal and dedicated to you than a direct buyer.

In this guide, you will be looking at proven steps to follow and recover abandoned cart prospects most effectively.

After you have finished reading this guide, you will be able to:

• Set up a proper abandoned cart recovery campaign.
• Get back at least 30% of all your abandoned cart clients (HIGH CHANCE OF GETTING MORE)

You will be learning:

• Different situation-based pop-ups (Structure and text examples)
• Proper guide to abandoned cart emails
• Unique tips to follow for better results
• Best abandonment recovery tools to help with abandoned cart campaigns

Let’s start.

Why Shopping Cart Abandonment Happens

Before learning how you can recover your abandoned cart, first know about the reason and check if you have any on your site :

Technical Issues:

24% of customers cite “Website Crashed” and 15% cite “Website Timed Out” as reasons for not completing a purchase.

Slow-loading websites and poor performance can turn your targeted shoppers away.

Mobile Incompatibility:

With approximately 4 billion mobile phone owners and 25% using them as their sole method of internet access.

if your websites aren’t mobile-optimized lead to higher abandonment rates.

Complicated Checkout Process:

87% of online shoppers would abandon their carts if the checkout process is too difficult. A lengthy, complex checkout flow can deter customers from completing their purchases.

Poor User Experience:

More than a third (35%) of customers are turned off by just one bad experience. An unintuitive interface or lack of mobile optimization can drive potential buyers away.

So you can there are many reasons for the abandoned cart issues.

While you apply strategies to recover your abandoned cart, you must keep tracking on your abandoned cart.

You can use plugins like Cart Lift to get comprehensive cart recovery performance Insights.

Effective Actions To Recover Abandoned Cart Immediately

We’ve well-researched and come up with 3 ways to recover these abandoned cart issues :

• Last moment Pop-up Strategy.
• Retargeting Ads.
• Abandoned Cart e-mail campaigns.

Let us look at each of them in detail.

1. Last Moment Pop-up Strategy

Pop-ups are a great marketing tool if you can use them with proper tactics.

It is one of the first steps you can take to recover a person from abandoning the cart.

Here’s the idea, the moment a person will attempt to leave the site (either by crossing the tab or by inputting another site on the browser), a pop-up will appear with a last push to the prospect to make the purchase.

How can you set it?

For example, let’s say a lady added a Black Purse to the cart worth $45. But all of a sudden, she attempted to close the site without going to the checkout.

At this point, you may set up a pop-up with the following message:

You forgot to complete the purchase of your product(s):
    ⭑ Black Purse

[Proceed To Checkout]

This will give the lady a reminder that she was interested in a purse and probably forgot to complete the purchase.

Similar to this, you can set pop-ups for various causes. Let us look at the types of pop-ups to use for different purposes:

1.1 Reminder Pop-up

This is the same case as the example above.

So, if a prospect added a product to the cart, but never went to the checkout page, then you can set up a pop-up reminder about the cart when the prospect attempts to leave the page.

How can you set it?

Here, we will assume that the prospect either forgot about the cart or was about to exit the page by mistake. A pop-up reminder is a good option in this case.

Here’s how it may look:

1.2 Pop-Up at Checkout Exit

Suppose a prospect is at the checkout page.

However, instead of finalizing the purchase or crossing out the products from the cart list, he attempted to cross out the tab.

Immediately you can give a pop-up stating as following:

Your checkout process is not complete!!
    
Your product(s) might be Out of Stock soon if you don't purchase it now!!

[Proceed To Checkout]

Here’s how it may look:

This will make the prospect think twice, and more often than later, they stay back to complete the purchase.

1.3 Discount Offer Pop-up At Checkout Exit

Now, in the last case, you can rather take an alternative step and offer a discount such as:

Your checkout process is not complete!!
    
Complete your purchase now and get an extra 10% discount!!

[Proceed To Checkout]

Here’s a sample:

This works best when a person is interested in a product that is already under an offer, for example, if you have a product on sale.

1.4 Pop-up With Offer Deadline

The offer deadline approach is when you have some sort of promotions or discount campaigns running on the site, either on the whole site or for specific products.

How can you set it?

For example, let’s say you are running a discount campaign for the 1st week of the holidays with a 10% site-wide discount. 

Now, if a person attempts to leave the site during the checkout process, you can initiate a pop-up as follows:

You are about to leave without completing your purchase.
    
The 10% holiday discount is about to end soon!!!
(if possible display a timer or end date)

Do not miss out on this!!

[Proceed To Checkout]

Here’s a sample of how it may look:

Let us look at another example.

Let’s say you have a handbag on sale, which is reduced from $35 to $20.

If a person was about to buy it but decided to leave the site from the checkout page, then you can issue a pop-up as follows:

Are you sure you do not want to purchase your product?
    
Special Handbag   at $20 (not $35)

Do not miss out on this sale!!

Sale will be over soon!!
(if possible display a timer or the end date)

[Proceed To Checkout]

Here’s a sample of how it may look:

1.5 Urgency Trigger Pop-up

Certain products are very popular and often get sold quickly. And there might be a case where you may have a very few of them available on stock.

In this case, you can use an “urgency” pop-up to indicate a lack of stock.

For example, let’s say you have a Lady’s Hat that is very popular but only 2 are left in stock.

Now, if a person was about to purchase it but attempted to leave the site from the checkout page, then you can use a pop-up as follows:

You did not complete the purchase for:
    
      ⭑ Ladies Fancy Hat

Do not miss out on this sale!!

Please note: Only two item(s) left for the above product.
It might run out of stock if you do not purchase it today!!

[Purchase Now]

Here’s a sample:

**You can often combine a discount offer with these pop-ups to get better results.

2. Retargeting Ads

Another form of chasing abandoned cart prospects is Retargeting Ads.

Let’s say a person added 3 products to the cart but never completed the purchase process. Then you can set up a re-targeting ads campaign so that the person sees those products as re-targeted ads when he/she browses the internet.

For example, let’s assume a man added a “Premium quality red bow-tie” to the cart before abandoning it. If you have re-targeting Ads set up for Google Ads, then while browsing, any sites that show Google Ads, will often display this product as an Ad banner. 

The same goes for Facebook, where the person will see the product as banner Ads on the right site.

So basically, you will be chasing a prospect through Ad banners to try and give a reminder about the product that he/she had a prior interest in.

How can you set it?

To set this up, you will need to add a Google Adwords snippet and Facebook pixel snippet to your website cart page. We will discuss this in detail in a later article.

3. Abandoned Cart Recovery E-mail Campaigns 

The most popular approach for recovering abandoned cart prospects is to initiate an abandoned cart recovery e-mail campaign.

This can be effectively put to practice when you have the e-mail addresses of prospects who abandoned the cart.

You can easily do it by asking the prospect to subscribe or register before going to the checkout page. Some popular sites also ask for registration to view the cart.

Once you have their e-mails, the next thing to do is to create a complete campaign with proper strategy.

Here are the steps to follow to set up an abandoned cart campaign:

Step 1 – Planning Out A Proper Recovery E-mail Campaign

The first thing to do is to set up a campaign plan.

Based on your online shop, you can choose to take several approaches in deciding the best time frames to send e-mails for the recovery campaign and the number of e-mails to be sent.

Sending a proper email to the ideal person, at the right time, will ensure maximum results.

The fact is, you will be spending your time and money to set up an abandoned cart recovery campaign and you wouldn’t want it all go to waste.

So having a proper strategy is always the best option.

◈ Understanding The Hours To Send Recovery E-mails

Let us look at the hours you should send the recovery e-mails.

 i. The One-Hour Concept (The First Step of The Plan)

Think about the prospect who just abandoned the cart on your site a minute ago. What do you think could be the reason?

There could be 3 possible reasons:

• suddenly got busy,
• needs time to decide,
• is comparing the price on other sites.

In either case, if the prospect does not come back to your site within 1 hour, then chances are, he/she will forget about it and end up purchasing it from another site, or won’t purchase that product at all.

However, there definitely was an interest in your product, or else the prospect would not bother to add it to the cart.

Here’s your opportunity.

You should remind the prospect of the product so that the prospect doesn’t forget about his/her interest.

And the best time to do so is around 1-hour of abandoning the cart.

A survey run by Rejoiner concludes that abandoned cart emails are most successful when sent just 1 hour after the cart abandonment.

The SaleCycle analyzed the times of sending abandoned cart emails and the conversion ratio of some giant companies. They published an article with great insights on abandoned cart emails.

It was seen that abandoned cart emails were highly successful when sent 30 minutes after the cart was abandoned.

So, the idea is, not to send the e-mail too soon, i.e. sooner than 30mins, or too late, i.e. later than 1hour.

This step is crucial if you want maximum success.

**It is advised to send a maximum of 2 e-mails on a particular day, for any single purpose. Most people prefer sending only 1 e-mail on a given day, to avoid spamming.

The first e-mail is usually a simple reminder. For example:

Hi (Customer Name), how are you?

You forgot to complete your purchase for your product(s):

(product images and names)

You can still come back and buy the item(s) you want now.

[Go To Checkout Now]

So people who had a genuine interest, or were not sure what to decide, will in most cases go through with the purchase.

ii. The Same-day Urgency Approach  (The Situational Step)

If you have the opportunity to use the “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO) method, then you can use this approach.

After sending the 1st e-mail within one hour of cart abandonment, you can send a second e-mail on the same day, with an “urgency trigger”, about 3 to 6 hours after the cart abandonment.

An “Urgency trigger” is when you make a prospect feel the need to make an urgent decision.

You can easily achieve this in 3 ways:

• Creating a one-time offer for that particular day only, such as
  • A small discount.
  • Free shipping.
  • Combo offer.
  • Future discount voucher
• Highlighting the offer deadline, if it is the last day for a particular offer on the site or selected products
• Claiming a shortage of stock so that the prospect may feel the product will be sold out soon
  

For any of these cases, sending a second e-mail on the same day can be very fruitful.

You may even send the 1st e-mail with the urgency trigger, then send a second e-mail on the same day, with a deadline reminder for example:

The urgency trigger on the 1st e-mail may:

Only 8 Hours Left For Free Shipping Offer!!

Then the second email on the same day will be:

Only 2 Hours Left! Order Now And Get A Free Shipping!!

iii. The Follow-up Email (The 2nd Step Of The Plan)

There are many reasons why you should send abandoned cart emails on multiple days, but we will assume only one:

• People may miss your one-hour email unintentionally, due to:
  • not being able to access their e-mail account for the moment,
  • got really busy on that day,
  • didn’t have enough money in the account,
  • didn’t notice the e-mail among many others.

The ideal time to send the follow-up e-mail the very next day.

In this case, you can use a different subject line, or if you didn’t use the urgency trigger on the 1st e-mail, you can initiate it here.

Changing the subject line is more effective for people who opened your first email but did not convert.

You also have to decide what time of the day you want your follow-up e-mail to be sent.

CoSchedule ran research on 10 different studies by email service providers such as HubSpot, MailChimp, etc.

This is what they came up with:

As per this report, the best time to send the follow-up email is within an hour of 8 am, 4 am and 12 am.

Sending the e-mail between 8 am to 9 am is the best choice as that is when most people check their e-mails every day.

However, for people who marked you as a trusted e-mail and receive fewer e-mails from other companies comparatively, the best time to send the follow-up e-mails to them is between 4 am – 5 am. This will ensure that the prospect will see your e-mail among the first few e-mails.

iv. The Best Day of The Week Approach (The 3rd Step)

Now, if you have followed the previous e-mail steps and still got no results, then the last attempt to try to recover abandoned cart prospects is to reach him/her one last time, on the best day of the week.

The idea is to send a final e-mail with an attempt to recover within the next 7 days.

A study conducted by Omnisend says that:

• Thursday is the best day of the week to send promotional emails.
• Monday is the worst day of the week to send promotional emails.

Another detailed research by Klaviyo showed interesting results. According to them:

• The best open rate of e-mail is on Tuesday.
• Though Thursday is not among the best in terms of open rate, it is the best day to generate revenue from promotional e-mails.
• Saturday is the worst day in terms of revenue generation.

Based on these two reports, we can decide:

• Thursday would be the ideal day of the week to send the final abandoned cart recovery e-mail, as people make more financial decisions on that day.
• Tuesday would be the second-best day to send the e-mail due to getting a higher open rate.
• Monday and Saturday are always a big ‘no’ when sending any promotional e-mails.

Ideally, the one-hour e-mail and the next-day follow-up email are a must and do not depend on the day of the week. However, the final e-mail depends a lot on the day you send it out.

For example, suppose a prospect abandoned a cart at your store on a Sunday. So you sent an email after an hour, and sent the follow-up email the next morning, Monday.

Now, Monday is the busiest day of the week for anyone, and the chances are, that the person who abandoned the cart will not read your e-mail sent on Monday.

So the next logical thing to do is to send another e-mail on Thursday.

Thursday is the day when people are most relaxed, having the least weekly chores and a lot of free time to check e-mails. So they will be more obliged to make purchase decisions.

**What if a person abandons a cart on Thursday?

In this case, we will resort to the second-best choice, next Tuesday to schedule the final e-mail.

The 3rd e-mail (or 4th in a FOMO campaign) is usually straightforward in terms of the subject line and e-mail body.

For example:

Come back and finish your purchase!!

Here’s another example on FOMO,

The discount is running out. Purchase your products Now!

◈ Organizing The Campaign With A Flow Chart

Now that you know how many e-mails to send, the best time of the day, and the best days of the week to send emails for abandoned cart recovery, it’s time to create an initial plan.

Decide on the number of e-mails you wish to send and the type of approach you wish to take for the e-mails. Draw a basic flowchart of the e-mail campaign.

For example, you may decide to go for a 3-step email campaign where you will shoot out an e-mail about 1 hour after a person abandons a cart. Then you can set an automation to send a second reminder 24 hours later. And then third, a final reminder on next Thursday/Tuesday.

Or you can use the urgency trigger approach and plan a 4-step e-mail campaign. Here is a rough flow-chart for the 4-step campaign:

Initially, you can make a rough one, and then, while following the next few steps, you can make changes where necessary.

**You can set conditional e-mails based on whether the e-mail was opened or not, and whether the link inside was clicked or not.

Step 2 – Deciding The Abandoned Cart Email Subject Line 

The first thing a person will notice about your e-mail is the subject of the e-mail.

Depending on the subject, a person will decide whether to open an e-mail tor not.

The main purpose of a subject line is to make a prospect open your e-mail.

Around 35% recipient opens an e-mail based on the subject line alone.

If your prospect does not open the email, then it does not matter how well-written and attractive your e-mail is.

The subject line should make the prospect feel 2 crucial things: 

• This email is personalized for him/her only, showing that you care.
• The benefits they will get from opening this email.

The ideal length of a subject is below 60 characters; 82% of email marketing experts send emails with a subject line of 60 characters or less.

Here are some ideas you can use when writing a perfect abandoned cart email subject for your online shop:

i. Don’t Sound Desperate Or Pushy To Make A Sale

This sounds pretty easy, but you have no idea how many desperate e-mails I receive every day and ignore.

Try to keep the subject simple, yet a bit tempting. For anything that looks pushy, people tend to avoid them thinking they are advertisements.

For example, if you see an e-mail with a subject:

The discount of 10% is up for grabs!

The chance of you opening this e-mail is less than 20%.

However, in the case of a subject such as:

Did you get what you were looking for?

It will create a curiosity and make you question “What was I looking for?” You might end up opening the e-mail just to find out the answer.

For every stage of your e-mail campaign, you have to decide on a proper subject that will generate a higher open rate, but not sound too desperate.

ii. Product-Related Subject Lines

Using a subject related to a product, that the prospect was interested in earlier, can be very effective.

If the person is really interested, then he/she will definitely open an e-mail regarding that product later on.

For example, let us say a person added a pair of SkullCandy headphones to the cart.

You can set the subject line,

The SkullCandy headphones you wanted is still available.

As you can see, this subject line is really simple, to the point, and connects with the reader.

In case a person abandons the cart after adding an expensive product, you can send an e-mail with a slight discount.

For example:

You can get the SkullCandy headphones at 10% less!!

You might think this sounds bad, but actually, it is not. The reader will find it more relative since he/she recently wanted to buy a pair of headphones.

iii. FOMO Subject Lines

FOMO subject lines are often very productive if done right.

Here are a couple of examples of FOMO abandoned cart e-mail subject lines:

Time scarcity -
Hey [Name], the Discount On Your Cart is Expiring.

Product scarcity - 
You Left A [Product] In Your Cart, And It's Almost Out Of Stock.

The FOMO subject line works best if you have any special offers or discounts going on, and the person abandoned the cart with products that were eligible for the offer or discounts.

For example, if a person was about to buy a Cotton Shirt on sale, but left at the last moment, your e-mail subject may be:

The sale on your desired Cotton Shirt is almost over!

The FOMO approach is not so effective in the 1st e-mail, one-hour email. But it is very effective in the follow-up e-mail or a second, same-day e-mail.

iv. Personalized Subject Lines

Personalizing the subject line is always a good idea. But you have to know when the personalization becomes too much and you should stop.

Personalized email subject lines have 12% more open rates than generic subject lines, however, it requires you to have the prospects name.

Here are some personalized subject line examples:

Hey [Name], did you forget about this?

Hello [Name], are you still thinking about it?

Dear [Name], come back and complete your purchase

◈ Example of Subject Lines On Each Stage Of An Abandoned Cart Recovery Campaign

Let’s say a person abandoned a cart that had a Gaming Mouse. So you may set the subject lines as follows

1st Email -
The Gaming Mouse you wanted is still available

2nd Email -
Did you get the Gaming Mouse you were looking for?

3rd Email -
Come back and purchase your desired Gaming Mouse

1st Email -
The Gaming Mouse you wanted is still here on discount

2nd Email -
Get your Gaming Mouse now for extra 10% less!

3rd Email -
Do not miss out! Only 3 days left on Gaming Mouse discount!

4th Email -
Purchase your Gaming Mouse at 20% off. Last Chance!!

Step 3 – Prepare A Body For Each Stage of Your Plan 

Once you’ve planned the subject lines of your abandoned cart emails, It’s time to prepare an effective body for each abandoned cart email.

But first, let’s learn about some important elements for your abandoned cart recovery emails.

◈ A Few Important Factors Of Abandoned Cart Emails

Here are some important facts you should utilize on your abandoned cart emails.

i. Visual content

Keep in mind that your prospects have already seen so many boring and generic emails. Visual content will help you to stand out from others.

I will explain more about the visual contents and images in detail at a later segment of this guide.

ii. Personalization & Humor

While personalization is always considered great for connecting with your customers and making them trust you, humor will add spice to it.

Combining these two will amuse your prospects and make them read your entire email.

iii. Reviews & Testimonials

72% of your prospects won’t take any action until they read reviews about the product.

Tip: Display the review (stars) just below the products in the e-mail.

The reviews and testimonials let you create authority and trust for your products once after the shopper has ignored your email.

iv. Cart Link & Call To Action

A link to the abandoned cart is one of the most important elements in your abandoned cart email body.

So keep a highlighted button with CTA, that leads the prospect to their cart, in the lower middle section of your email.

Tip: Along with the name of the person who abandoned the cart, you can add a personalized product recommendation after the CTA button.

Now, let’s look at the email bodies for each stage of the abandoned cart email campaign:

◈ Example of E-mail Body For Each Stage Of The Abandoned Cart Recovery Campaign

i. The One-hour Email Body

Since you will be sending this e-mail within just one hour after the cart is abandoned, this email is better to be just a reminder for the prospect who initiated the abandoned cart.

Suppose, the abandoned cart included coffee beans and milk.

Here is how it may be organized:

Hey [Name], did you forget about this?

You have added the following to the cart:

(Coffee beans product preview), (Milk product preview)

We have saved your cart. You can come back and purchase your products now.

[Complete Your Order Now] --**This is the button with CTA

You may also like:
(1 Related Product Suggestion)

If you decide to run the FOMO campaign including the one-hour e-mail, then here’s how it should be organized:

Hey [Name], the coffee beans you wanted are almost out of stock!

(Coffee beans product preview) --**Include quantity

Get it before it get's sold out!!

[Complete Your Order Now] --**This is the button with CTA

You may also like:
(1 Related Product Suggestion)

You have to send a reminder email after 3 or 6 hours, to remind them of this urgency (which will be similar to the 1st e-mail, just the quantity will decrease).

ii. The Follow-up email body

The follow-up e-mail, which you’ll send the next day, aims to create a connection with the prospect and convince him/her to come back and complete the purchase.

This email should also focus on attracting the prospects who opened your first email and did not take any action.

Here is an example of how it should look like:

Hi [Name], did you buy the Coffee Beans you wanted?

We still have your desired one available, plus the other product(s) you added to the cart.

(Product previewof max 3 products,
if more products were abandoned.
add a text such as "+ 3 more products")

[Complete Your Order Now] --**This is the button with CTA

You may also like:
(1 Related Product Suggestion)

If it’s a FOMO approach, then here’s an example:

Hi [Name], did forget about your Coffee Beans?

Save $10 on Coffee Beans today.

(Coffee Beans product preview) --**Include price change

[Complete Your Order Now] --**This is the button with CTA

You may also like:
(1 Related Product Suggestion)

Tip: It is a good practice to suggest a related product to any product(s) that was in the cart that was abandoned.

3. The Best Day Of The Week E-mail Body (Last e-mail)

The last email is usually very straightforward. You can use a direct approach and ask them to complete the purchase. You may use urgency trigger in a very direct manner.

Hi [Name], get your Coffee Beans on A 15% discount.
Today's the last day of the offer.

(Coffee Beans product preview) --**show discount amount

[Order Now] --**This is the button with CTA

You can see, it is very straight forward and anyone who has a little interest in real will think about purchasing the product(s).

Step 4 – Visual Content For Your Abandoned Cart Email

People remember visual content more than written content, as it’s easier to perceive information from visual content and takes less time.

It’s also easier for your prospect to interact with visual content and the most desired thing you want from an abandoned cart email is to make your prospect interact with it.

There are many types of visual content you can use in your email:

• Product images.
• Illustrations.
• Screenshots (Reviews, Comments).

But you can go beyond these and use moving and out of box visual content like:

• GIFs.
• Videos.
• Memes.

Moving content like videos and GIFs will make reading the email fun and make it easier to interact with.

You can try even more creative visual content and apply innovative strategies to attract your prospect.

No matter what visual content you use, it should always:

• Reflect on your brand value.
• It must not be irrelevant to your product or customer.
• It contains something offensive.

So here is how you should structure your ideal abandoned cart email:

• Personalized greetings.
• A discount offer / FOMO method.
• Product image.
• Product details.
• Call To Action text and button.
• Other relevant images.
• Product review information.

It’s also handy to run A/B tests on your emails. This way, you can discover which approach and emails are working out best for you.

How to recover an abandoned shopping cart with Cart Lift

By now you’ve learned:

• How you can create different situation-based popup
• How effectively you can apply retargeting ads
• How you can prepare an abandoned cart email campaign
• When and how to execute these methods and steps for maximum ROI.

Now, you’ve come to the bonus section.

In this section, I’ll tell you about how you can recover your abandoned cart easily.

So you can:

• Spend the least amount of resources.
• Get the same results.

Here is an amazing abandoned cart recovery tool Cart Lift that you can use in your store:

Conclusion

Winning back a chunk of all the abandoned carts in your store is not hard to achieve.

However, you need to have an organized plan and use the methods efficiently to ensure maximum ROI.

If you can apply them accurately, and make smart changes in your plan for your store, based on the reports and analytic results, you can convert around 30% of your abandoned carts to successful purchases.

And if you want to apply these strategies easily with less time then simply rely on Cart Lift.

If you’re using WooCommerce, here is an informative guide on how you can create a product feed to promote your products on marketplaces.

If you have more ideas and suggestions for recovering abandoned carts, feel free to drop it in the comment box.

Learn WooCommerce Completely
Ultimate Guides For WooCommerce Mastery
Let’s Begin.

1.1 A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

Before you start using WooCommerce in a full-fledged manner, it is best to understand the use and features of it.

The following are descriptive guides to all the basic features of WooCommerce that you need to know to configure your online store.

With great screenshots and precise details and examples, these articles are the best guides for online store owners to get familiar with the plugin’s features as a beginner.

• A Beginner’s Guide to Using WooCommerce
  — by SpeckBoy

• A Guide to WooCommerce
  — by WireDelta

1.2 SETTING UP THE RIGHT WOOCOMMERCE PAGES

You need to set up proper pages to run a successful online store. WooCommerce allows you to create and customize all the mandatory pages such as cart page, checkout page, product page, etc. Here is a guide to help you set up all the necessary pages effectively.

• Setting up Pages in WooCommerce – A Complete Guide
  — by XAdapter

2.1 THE DEFAULT WOOCOMMERCE PRODUCTS TYPES

To be able to run an online store using WooCommerce, you need to know about the different product types. Many features and the interface vary based on the product type.

This is a small article that clearly explains all the default WooCommerce product types in detail, along with examples.

• Understanding Product Types in WooCommerce
  — by Hall

2.2 CREATING A CUSTOM PRODUCT TYPE

Often you have products that you can’t relate to the default WooCommerce product types. And there is no way to add custom product types within the plugin.

However, there is a way to set it up manually. Here is an article that gives a guide to add a custom product type using custom class. It includes the codes required and proper instructions to help you out.

• Create a Custom Product Type in Woocommerce
  — by Webkul

Please be advised that you should have some programming knowledge to attempt this.

3.1 GUIDES ON WOOCOMMERCE SHIPPING

When running a WooCommerce store, shipping methods are important to look at. You need to have a set plan for shipping options and integrate your store properly with the right shipping methods.

This step-by-step guide will help you get instructions, with proper screenshots, on how the WooCommerce Shipping options work and how to integrate it accurately.

• How To Set Up WooCommerce Shipping?
  — by RexTheme

You will be educated about Basic WooCommerce Shipping, Different Shipping Methods of WooCommerce and their definition, and how to integrate the ideal one with your products.

However, if you want to study more in-depth about each and every bit of WooCommerce Shipping, then you can go ahead and read the following knowledge-based article.

• WooCommerce Shipping – A Complete Tutorial
  — by PluginHive

3.2 LEARN WOOCOMMERCE FLAT RATE SHIPPING

In order to run a store with a flat shipping rate, you have to assign the rate to either on ‘per item basis’, ‘per shipping class’ or ‘per order basis’.

Here’s are a couple of guides to give you a better picture of how flat rate shipping works and how you can set it up properly.

• How To Set Up Flat Rate Shipping in WooCommerce
  — by ModernMarketingPartners

• Guide To Set Up Flat Rate Shipping In Woocommerce
  — by Themesgrove

You will also get set-up instructions and plugin suggestions for setting up flat rate shipping.

**If you want to add special shipping rates based on the city, you can use the plugin WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro.

Here’s a guide to using this plugin to help you configure the shipping rate based on various cities.

• Configure WooCommerce Shipping Rates by City
  — by PluginHive

3.3 CREATE CUSTOM SHIPPING METHOD

WooCommerce offers only 3 shipping methods by default:

• Flat Rate
• Free shipping
• Local pickup

If you need to add more shipping methods, there is no option to do it within WooCommerce.

However, you can achieve this manually. Here is an article that will guide you on how to add custom shipping methods manually using the Shipping Method API.

• Creating A New Shipping Method
  — by TycheSoftwares

Please be advised that you should have some programming knowledge to attempt this.

As you can see, the article used API to set up a new custom shipping method.

To learn more about the WooCommerce Shipping Method API click here.

There are some WooCommerce extensions to help you create a few extra shipping methods such

• Table Rate Shipping
• Bundle Shipping
• Weight Based Shipping.

**There in-fact is a plugin that helps you with Custom Shipping method.

These plugins are very efficient and useful.

4.1 MANAGING INVENTORY IN WOOCOMMERCE

Managing a WooCommerce store with a large number of products can get challenging. Hence, WooCommerce allows you to perform inventory management without much hassle.

This is a nice article that explains how inventory management works.

• How to Manage Inventory in WooCommerce
  — by WPFloor

4.2 SINGLE PRODUCT INVENTORY

Once you understand how inventory management works, now you should learn about individual product inventory management, so that you can manage stock, backorders and other required details.

Hence this article will get you a proper understanding of how to manage inventory for single products.

• Managing Product Inventory in WooCommerce
  — by LiquidWeb

**There is a great plugin available for stock management.
Check out ATUM Inventory Management for WooCommerce.

5.1 GUIDE TO WOOCOMMERCE DROPSHIPPING

There are several WooCommerce guides that explain drop shipping, however, these particular articles will give you in-depth knowledge about how drop-shipping works and how to implement it for WooCommerce better than anywhere else.

• The Ultimate Guide To WooCommerce Drop Shipping
  — by CommerceGurus
• Complete guide to WooCommerce dropshipping
  — by Barn2 Plugins
• WooCommerce Dropshipping: The Ultimate FAQ Guide
  — by NicheDropshipping
• WooCommerce Dropshipping: The Complete Guide to Building a Successful Dropshipping Store Using WooCommerce & WordPress
  — by SourceLow
• What Is Dropshipping? How Dropshipping Businesses Work
  — by Ecommerce CEO
• How-To Start A Dropshipping Business In 2021
  — by Doba

These are a pretty long article with every detail you need about drop-shipping. However, you can directly go to the step-by-step guide to set up drop shipping in case you have a lack of time (but we strongly advise you to read the whole article to successfully set up drop-shipping).

Setting up drop shipping manually is great because you have complete control of the system. However, you can also get great plugins that are dedicated to dropshipping.

**Here is an article (by Cloudways) which gives you a list of 11 Must-Have WooCommerce Dropshipping Plugins in 2019.

6.1 UNDERSTANDING AND CONFIGURING PRODUCTS

It is important to set up and configure the basic criteria of Products on your WooCommerce Shop. Hence, there are a couple of WooCommerce guides that will explain all the options for setting up products.

• Product pages, Product images, and shop configuration
  — by YiThemes

• How to set up product settings in WooCommerce
  — by Beeketing

6.2 A GUIDE TO ADDING PRODUCTS IN WOOCOMMERCE

Once you have set up the basic product settings, then comes the time to add products. Manually adding products is not so difficult, but you may often end up forgetting to add or assign certain details that are important.

When you’re adding products, you can take help of some product description writing tools to have optimized descriptions for your WooCommerce products.

And the following guides will give you easy instructions on how you can add products to WooCommerce manually, without missing any vital information. It will also give you an overview of all the product types and their properties.

• A Guide to Adding Products in WooCommerce
  — by ModernMarketingPartners

• How to add Products to Your WooCommerce Website
  — by WPFloor

• How to Properly Add Products in WooCommerce
  — by WPKlik

7.1 GUIDE ON PRODUCT IMAGE

The main selling point of a product on your WooCommerce store is the image. Here is a guide to creating quality images to upload on your site. It discusses different ways you can process and optimize the images before uploading them.

• How To Create The Best WooCommerce Product Images
  — by WholeSaleSuitePlugin

7.2 SETTING UP A PRODUCT IMAGE GALLERY

It is always wise to add multiple images of a product from different angles, for better exposure to prospects. WooCommerce allows you to set up a product image gallery.

Here is a guide that helps you set it up.

• How to add multiple product images and manage product images gallery
  — by TemplateMonster

**If you want, you can rather use some photo gallery plugins to get a better product image gallery.

Here is a list (by Kinsta) of some of the Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins which you can use to create a lucrative image gallery for your products.

7.3 MANAGE WOOCOMMERCE PRODUCT IMAGE SIZES

You may have great images for your products, but how will you manage the size?

This article will give you a complex way you can set image sizes for the products. It provides code snippets that you can use.

• How to Manage WooCommerce Product image Sizes
  — by IconicWP

(Please be advised that you should have great knowledge in editing theme back-end, in order to attempt this.)

8.1 PAYMENT METHODS IN WOOCOMMERCE

The first thing you need to do is to set up the payment methods. Within WooCommerce, you can set up 4 different payment methods by default:

• Direct Bank Transfer
• Cheque
• Cash on Delivery (CoD)
• PayPal

The following article will help you to get accustomed to these payment methods and get detailed steps to follow, when setting up your payment methods, through the following article.

• How to configure the Payment Methods
  — by FastComet

• Set Up WooCommerce Checkout and Payment Options
  — by Woovina

8.2 PAYMENT GATEWAYS FOR WOOCOMMERCE

Now, to be able to accept online payments, you have to set up payment gateways in WooCommerce.

The following articles will let you know of the major payment gateways that you may choose to use, in order to accept online payments and an overview of payment gateway integration with your WooCommerce store.

• Guide to WooCommerce Payment Gateways
  — by StorePro

• 8 Top WooCommerce Payment Gateways for WordPress
  — by 000WEBHOST

8.3 CUSTOM PAYMENT GATEWAY

You might come across a local payment gateway service which you won’t be able to integrate with WooCommerce, even using plugins.

So, you have to follow a complex way to do so. This article will give you instructions and codes to be able to add a custom payment gateway to your WooCommerce store.

• How to Create a Simple WooCommerce Payment Gateway
  — by SkyVerge

(Please be advised that you should have good knowledge in PHP and WooCommerce to attempt this.)

9.1 SETTING UP TAXATION IN WOOCOMMERCE

It is important that you know how to set up taxation properly for your WooCommerce store.

You need to learn to set up how the taxes will apply and how it will be displayed to prospects. This detailed guide will help you to set up taxation.

• Setting Up Taxes in WooCommerce
  — by PluginHive

**There are a few plugins that offer great features to help with tax management. Check out this article (by GoldenOakWebDesign) which gives a list for the Top 4 Sales Tax Plugins for Your WooCommerce Website.

10.1 SETTING UP WOOCOMMERCE UPSELL & CROSS-SELL

Most people think they need plugins to run cross-selling and upselling campaigns but guess what, WooCommerce already includes these features.

Here is an article that helps you set up these powerful marketing features within WooCommerce. It includes screenshots and proper guidance for you to be able to set up upsell and cross-sell easily.

• How to Create Up-sells and Cross-sells in WooCommerce
  — by BobWP

This article also suggests some alternative ways to use the upsell and cross-sell features which you may implement for greater marketing results.

**There is a plugin that can help you create custom upsell and cross-sell suggestions for your customers on your WooCommerce store. You may try checking out WooCommerce Boost Sales.

11.1 CREATE COUPON CODES IN WOOCOMMERCE

It is always wise to use run some sort of coupon discounts every now and then to attract more prospects. WooCommerces has an easy interface to help you create coupon codes to serve the purpose.

This article gives a proper step by step guide so that you can create a coupon code for your store easily.

• How To Create Coupon Codes With WooCommerce
  — by Pagely

Now, the coupons can be set up for many different purposes when you use the default coupon code feature from WooCommerce. It’s best to learn about the type of coupons can you create and use.

Although most people prefer using the default Coupon feature within WooCommerce, there are many plugins that help you with it as well.

With different plugins, you also get some unique extra features such as dynamic product pricing or setting up coupons for specific categories, and many more.

**Here is a list (by Flycart) of 10 Best WooCommerce Coupon Code plugins that you can check out.

(Please be advised that editing Add to Cart button requires codes and so you should have some programming knowledge to follow any of the guides suggested in this section.)

12.1 VIEW/HIDE THE “ADD TO CART” BUTTON

There could be many reasons why you might wish to disable an Add To Cart button, either because you wish to view a product that’s not available in stock, or you wish to highlight upcoming products on your product listing page.

This article will give you great guidance to achieve this.

• How to Hide, Remove or Disable Add to Cart Button
  — by Cloudways

12.2 REPLACE “ADD TO CART” BUTTON

Often you might wish to replace the “Add to Cart” button with a different button, probably to link to another page.

This article includes a video guide and code snippet that you can use to achieve this.

• Replace the Add to cart button on the WooCommerce shop page
  — by PootlePress

12.3 CHANGE “ADD TO CART” BUTTON TEXT

You may wish to change the text “Add To Cart” to something else such as “Add To Bag” or “Choose Me” or anything that might help grab the attention of prospects.

This is an article that will help you out with the specific codes required to achieve this.

• How To Customize Add To Cart Button In WooCommerce
  — by CodeAstrology

You may also use our popular plugin, “Change WooCommerce Add To Cart Button Text” to add custom text and theme library icons on the Add to Cart button.

12.4 COMBINE CART PAGE AND CHECKOUT INTO A SINGLE PAGE

It is often more convenient to skip a step and let customers view their carts and process the checkout from one single page.

This article will give you a proper guide in merging your cart page and checkout page efficiently.

• How to Put Cart & Checkout on the Same Page
  — by BusinessBloomer

12.5 REDIRECT TO ANOTHER PAGE AFTER ADD TO CART

You can set it up so that after someone adds a product to the cart, they will be redirected to the Cart Page or Product Page, or some other web page. This article will guide you with setting it up.

• Redirect users after add to cart
  — by JeroenSormani

Through this article, you will also be learning to set up parameters, for example, only adding a certain number of products will redirect them to the Cart Page, or only products from a specific category will cause the redirection. These can be very handy.

13.1 CUSTOMIZATION OF CHECKOUT PAGE

You might wish to make changes to the checkout page by re-organizing fields or adding custom fields, or other possible changes.

This guide will cover most of the customizations you can make along with suggested codes to make the changes. Plus you will also get suggestions on WooCommerce extensions to help with these methods.

• The Ultimate WooCommerce Checkout Customization Guide
  — by AppPresser

(Please be advised that you should have good knowledge in CSS to attempt this.)

You can also use the following guide which gives you exclusive codes that you can use to customize your WooCommerce Cart, Checkout, and Account Pages using CSS.

• Customize Cart, Checkout, and Account Pages using CSS
  — by Woovina

13.2 CART BASED EXTRA FEE DURING CHECKOUT

Often there are cases when you have certain products that require extra fees for any special reason.

For example, if you are delivering internationally, then other than taxes and shipping fees, there might be extra packaging or customs fees.

WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to add any such conditions and it can get complicated to add these conditions to your store. So your best option is to use a good plugin to meet this purpose.

The following article is an overview and guide on using the plugin WooCommerce Conditional Product Fees for Checkout Plugin. You will be able to add any conditions to add extra fees, based on the cart, during checkout.

• How To Charge Cart-Based Extra Fee In WooCommerce
  — by TheDotStore

The plugin is very reliable. Other than the basic conditions, you may also include payment gateway fees to the checkout total using this plugin.

14.1 LEARN WOOCOMMERCE DEFAULT E-MAIL TEMPLATE CUSTOMIZATION

WooCommerce, by default, allows you to edit the e-mail template. It’s easy but you have to be smart about it. Here are a couple of articles to help you with changing the e-mail format and the text, plus tips on making it more compelling..

• How to Easily Customize WooCommerce Emails
  — by WPBlog
• How to Customize WooCommerce Emails
  — by SendInBlue

14.2 CUSTOMIZE E-MAIL TEMPLATE IN WOOCOMMERCE USING CODES

You can change the features in the default email template in WooCommerce and customize it in your own ways. This article gives you codes you can use to tweak the e-mail templates.

• How to Create Custom Email Templates in WooCommerce
  — by TycheSoftwares

(Please be advised that you should have good knowledge in programming in order to attempt this.)

14.3 WOOCOMMERCE EMAIL CUSTOMIZER

Other than creating custom e-mail templates on your own, there are plugins that are dedicated to helping you create attractive email designs.

It is more convenient to use a tool that is specialized to customize e-mail if you are no so confident with your design or coding skills. Here’s an article highlighting one of those tools.

In this guide, you will find proper instructions on how to use the Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer and create amazing e-mail designs for your WooCommerce store.

• WooCommerce Email Customizer Guide
  — by CommerceGurus

**There are other plugins as well that can help you create attractive email designs. You may check out YITH WooCommerce e-mail templates that come with several pre-built e-mail templates for you to use.

15.1 WOOCOMMERCE MEMBERSHIPS

WooCommerce has an extension you can use called WooCommerce Membership. Here is a step-by-step guide that will help you with setting up a Membership Site for your WooCommerce store using this extension.

• How to Set Up a Membership Site Using WooCommerce Memberships
  — by WPHero

Apart from creating a membership site, there are more things to manage regarding member or customer portals. You need to be able to manage subscriptions, recurring payment models, purchase history, and other such vital data.

So here is an article for you that will suggest you some of the best tools that you may choose to use and manage your site’s subscriptions and other members.

• Guide to WooCommerce Subscriptions
  — by CollectiveRay

16.1 CUSTOMER TRACKING AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS

You can set up a way to track customer activities on your WooCommerce store and get full analytics on product performances, which will let you take important marketing decisions.

This article will show you how you can use the MonsterInsights plugin to get analytics of your store through Google Analytics.

• How to Enable Customer Tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics
  — by WPBeginner

16.2 AUTO-SYNC WOOCOMMERCE PRODUCTS WITH GOOGLE MERCHANT SHOP

Most people promote their store products on other major merchant shops such as Amazon, Google Merchant Shop, Facebook Dynamics, eBay, etc. Hence there is a plugin that can help you to generate a feed for the major shops.

Also, you can auto-sync your store products with Google Merchant Shop. Whatever changes you make in the products of your store, they can be automatically updated on your Google Merchant Shop using this plugin. This article will give you a complete guide.

• How to Auto-Sync WooCommerce Products to Google Merchant Shop Using WPFM
  — by RexTheme

16.3 FACEBOOK INTEGRATION FOR WOOCOMMERCE

You can also integrate your WooCommerce store with your Facebook store. This article will explain how you can do it using a great WooCommerce extension.

• How to Use Facebook for WooCommerce Integration Properly
  — by WeDevs

16.4 INTEGRATE WOOCOMMERCE WITH AMAZON

It is possible to integrate your WooCommerce store with Amazon in many ways such as stock and inventory sync, order tracking, product updates, etc. This article will let you know of extensions that will help you out.

• How to Integrate WooCommerce with Amazon
  — by WooMultistore

17.1 TECHNIQUES TO BOOST WOOCOMMERCE SALES

There are several techniques you can follow to boot sales for your WooCommerce store. For example, one new trend to increase sales is to create promo videos of your popular products and sharing them on social media. Just like that, there are tons of other methods to follow.

Here’s an article to help you know of the most orthodox techniques to follow to increase your sales.

• Definitive WooCommerce Guide to Boost eCommerce Sales
  — by Kinsta

You can also choose to try a few other unique ways to promote your products that most others aren’t aware of.

For example, you can promote your products on large local online marketplaces, or promote on popular market places such as eBay or Amazon, or going live on Facebook and displaying your products.

** If you want to boost your WooCommerce sales, you can use the plugin WooCommerce Sales Booster Pack. As customers want that special push, or motivation to purchase a product. With Sales Booster Pack, you can easily set up effective conversion strategies onto your store.

**Did you know, you could even create a WooCommerce store of your own out of Amazon Affiliates? You can try it out as a side hustle.

Here are a couple of articles that will give you such unique ideas to promote your WooCommerce Products.

• 6 WooCommerce Marketing Techniques to Increase Sales
  — by WPExplorer
  
• The Top 25 Referral Program Examples That Matter
  — by Referral Rock

• 5 Unique Ways To Promote WooCommerce Products And Increase Sales
  — by MarkUpTrend

Ideally, most WooCommerce stores start getting more traction by promoting their products on Google Merchant Center through Google Shopping Ads, Google Adwords, or Google Dynamic Re-marketing. But success in Google really depends on following their rules when creating and submitting product feed.

** If you want to automate your marketing strategy, here’s a free Google Ads and the Google Shopping plugin that can do all the work for you with the guarantee of a Premier Google Partner. Upload your products to your Google Merchant Center, and Clever e-Commerce will create your Smart Shopping campaign. It can also create and optimize your Google Shopping Feed for you.

Here’s a guide that will help you prepare your store’s product feed to be more appreciated by Google.

• A Complete Guide To Generate WooCommerce Product Feed
  — by RexTheme

17.2 SEO GUIDE, HELP & TIPS FOR WOOCOMMERCE

One important part of marketing is SEO. Now SEO is not limited to keyword optimization and backlinks. There is more you can do to get better SEO traction on your WooCommerce store.

Here are a few guides that will help you optimize your WooCommerce store for SEO.

• Definitive Step by Step SEO Help & Tips for WooCommerce
  — by ElegantThemes

• WooCommerce SEO Made Easy
  — by WPBeginner

• WooCommerce SEO: Your Ultimate Guide
  — by OptinMonster

• WooCommerce SEO: Easy Way to to Rank Your Products in #1 Page
  — by TemplateMela

All of these articles will help you learn WooCommerce SEO techniques to improve your store performance, plus you will be introduced to SEO plugins that you can use effectively.

17.3 MARKETING AUTOMATION

With so many things to do together such as handling prospects, optimizing sites, improving product data, applying marketing techniques, and many more, automation could really come in handy.

The first step is to make sure you have an e-mail automation campaign set. Whether it is for e-mail out to recurring prospects, or promoting to new prospects, set up proper e-mail automation for increased conversion rate.

Here’s an article that you can take help from.

• Marketing Automation for WooCommerce: The Definitive Guide
  — by Dbdc

**You can also consider sharing your popular products on your social channels for more attraction. Try using the social automation tool, Social Booster to save your time and schedule automatic sharing of your products to all of your social media in just a few clicks.

MORE VALUABLE RESOURCES

18.1 GUIDE ON MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce is a large platform with many relative topics to cover. There is no definitive guide that covers all aspects of WooCommerce in the most optimal way. Hence we have pointed out several articles above that are specialized for each section.

However, there is this one guide that covers all the important areas of WooCommerce to a good extent. You may read this guide to understand the overall idea of setting up a WooCommerce store and then use the other articles above to improvise on the areas you are not confident with.

• How to Set Up eCommerce on WordPress
  — by Hostinger

18.2 WHY USE WOOCOMMERCE OVER OTHER PLATFORMS

There are several eCommerce platforms other than WooCommerce, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.

However, WooCommerce proved to be the best platform to help online stores flourish recently. It is very organized in adding products to the site and easy to customize. There are so many more reasons why WooCommerce is an ideal choice.

Here are a couple of articles that can help you remove any doubts about WooCommerce.

• WooCommerce vs Shopify – which eCommerce platform is best?
  — by CollectiveRay

• Why WordPress is the ultimate choice for eCommerce
  — by WPCrib

These are articles that act as honest reviews and you will find them credible when using WooCommerce.

18.3 PLUGINS, EXTENSIONS, ADDONS AND THEMES

Being a plugin of WordPress, WooCommerce comes with tons of plugins, extensions, and addons dedicated to improving the experience with WooCommerce.

Here are a few lists which tested and collected the best of these plugins, extensions, and addons.

• Top 20 Free Plugins to Power Up Your WooCommerce Shops
  — by Themify

• Best WordPress plugins for your business
  — by WPCrib

• 10 Best WooCommerce Plugins That Can Boost Your Shop
  — by RexTheme

• 32 Must-Have WooCommerce Plugins: Every Store Needs To Have These
  — by Astra

The last one is a listicle with 32 must-have (And most useful) WooCommerce Plugins. These plugins will help you improve your store’s performance, send emails more reliably, do better communication, convert more visitors into customers, and a lot more.

At the same time, WordPress comes with tons of themes specialized to optimize WooCommerce store design. Here are a few lists to help you choose among the best available themes for WooCommerce.

• 10+ Best Free WooCommerce Themes
  — by RexTheme

• 12 Best and Most Popular WooCommerce Themes of 2021
  — by Astra

This article will help you select the best WooCommerce themes to build a profitable online store.

It is a listicle of top WooCommerce themes listed based on factors like speed and performance, design and customization options, mobile-friendliness and plugin compatibility, and SEO friendliness.

• 52 Best Responsive WooCommerce WordPress Themes
  — by ColorLibs