Cart-abandonment research reveals that diet-related purchases require the least encouragement from marketers

In contrast, consumers shopping for recreational products had the highest cart abandonment rate (76 per cent), followed by home and office products (75 per cent), fashion and beauty products (73 per cent) and DIY and garden products (68 per cent).

The research from Ve also revealed that an average of 52 re-engagement emails were sent to prospects per diet-product conversion, significantly lower than the majority of other retail-sector products. Only recreational retail products required fewer re-engagement emails (43) per sale closed. More than twice the number of re-engagement emails were required per sale of beauty products (127), with only electronics requiring more (159).

The findings suggest that consumers’ insecurities may be playing a larger part in consumer re-engagement strategies than typically thought. While diet and beauty products often occupy similar price ranges, diet products required on average less than half the amount of re-engagement emails to generate a sale.

Neela Ahmed, director of retail at Ve, said, “This data demonstrates that diet products require less marketing engagement than other sectors, which implies that consumers are faster to spend money on dieting. Considering the sensitive and personal nature of these products, diet product advertising must be ethical, responsible and open to public scrutiny.”

Ve compiled the research between 1st Jan – 31st Dec 2014 drawn from Ve’s client base of over 10,000 companies globally.