Live-event organizations invest considerable effort in attracting audiences to their events. Yet many interested customers abandon their carts before completing a purchase, leaving potential ticket revenue unrealized. Making the most of that investment means addressing the barriers that prevent customers from completing checkout.
Customers leave checkout for different reasons. Sometimes they’re still coordinating plans, comparing seats or checking their budget. Other times, unexpected fees or confusing steps get in the way.
Understanding why customers abandon their carts can help organizations improve the purchase experience and recover missed sales. Here are six ways to address both.
Make the Total Cost Clear
Ticket buyers often have a budget in mind before selecting seats. When additional fees appear late in checkout, the final cost may be higher than expected.
Organizations should review how ticket prices, service fees and other mandatory charges appear throughout the purchase process. Customers should be able to understand:
- The total cost of their tickets, including mandatory fees.
- Price differences between seating sections or ticket types.
- Whether discounts or package benefits have been applied.
- Which additional purchases are optional.
Clear pricing is particularly important when customers are comparing seats or coordinating group purchases.
AudienceView helps customers understand total ticket costs, including mandatory fees, at key stages of the purchasing process.
Simplify the Path to Purchase
2. Simplify the Path to Purchase
A long or complicated checkout process can cause customers to abandon their orders. Organizations should review the journey from ticket selection through payment, looking for repeated information requests, confusing account requirements or unclear next steps.
Can customers change their seat selections without starting over? Are forms limited to necessary information? Can buyers easily review their orders before paying?
Additional purchases should be equally straightforward. Parking, merchandise, donations and packages can add convenience or value, but optional offers should be relevant, clearly priced and easy to skip.
AudienceView’s event commerce solutions support online ticket purchasing and opportunities to offer relevant extras, such as parking or merchandise, as part of the transaction.
Make Mobile Checkout Easy
Mobile-friendly purchasing is now a basic expectation. But live-event ticketing introduces additional complexity when customers need to navigate seating charts, compare ticket options and select seats together on a smaller screen.
Organizations should test the entire mobile purchasing process, paying particular attention to:
- Seat selection: Can customers compare seats and prices without excessive zooming or scrolling?
- Order summaries: Are ticket quantities, dates, fees and totals easy to review?
- Form completion: Are fields readable and easy to navigate?
- Payment: Can customers complete their orders without unnecessary steps?
AudienceView offers mobile-responsive ticket purchasing experiences that help customers browse events, select tickets and complete transactions across devices.
Testing on different devices can reveal difficulties that aren’t obvious on a desktop computer.
Support Confident Purchasing
Not every abandoned cart results from a technical problem. Customers may hesitate because they need to confirm plans or understand important event details before paying.
Make performance dates, entry requirements, accessibility information, ticket delivery and exchange or refund policies easy to find. Convenient, supported payment options can also help customers complete their purchases.
Clear information and accessible assistance can help resolve these questions before customers abandon their orders.
Follow Up With Relevant Cart Recovery Reminders
Even a straightforward checkout process won’t eliminate cart abandonment. Customers may leave because they’re interrupted or need more time to make a decision.
Relevant reminders can help them return to complete their purchases. Consider:
- Timing: Follow up while the event is still relevant, without overwhelming customers.
- Relevance: Where supported, reference the event or tickets they were considering.
- Availability: Account for changes in seating inventory, pricing or event availability.
- Accuracy: Use genuine event dates and inventory information rather than unsupported urgency claims.
- Communication permissions: Respect applicable consent requirements and customer preferences.
Because event tickets are tied to specific dates and inventory, reminders shouldn’t imply that previously selected seats remain reserved unless that’s actually the case.
CartStack, an AudienceView integration partner, helps organizations recover abandoned ticket purchases through automated, personalized emails. Using abandoned-cart information, it can tailor reminders to the tickets customers were considering. CartStack also supports on-site targeting campaigns, including exit-intent offers.
Use Checkout Data to Identify and Reduce Abandonment
Tracking checkout completion rates, abandonment by checkout step and device, and recovered purchases can help organizations identify where customers are dropping off.
For example, higher abandonment on mobile devices may indicate problems with seat selection or payment, while customers leaving at the same checkout step may point to unnecessary friction.
It’s important to distinguish cart abandonment from overall website conversion. A visitor who browses an event without selecting tickets hasn’t necessarily abandoned a cart. Measuring these behaviors separately helps organizations identify where improvements are needed and assess whether changes are working.
Make Every Purchase Opportunity Count
Reducing cart abandonment means making it easier for interested customers to complete their purchases and reconnecting with those who leave. A completed order also creates an opportunity to build a longer-term audience relationship through continued engagement.
AudienceView’s event commerce solutions support convenient ticket purchasing, with integrations that can help organizations recover missed sales.
Explore AudienceView’s Product Tour Library to see how connected event commerce can support ticket sales and audience engagement.