Before we discuss the 5 areas that can help boost ATB (add-to-basket), let’s first explain what it is and how important it is as a performance indicator for your website performance.

What is the ATB rate

The ATB rate is the percentage of visitors who add at least 1 item to their basket in a given session.

In order to calculate your add-to-basket conversion rate, you take the total number of sessions where someone adds an item to the basket and divide it by the total number of sessions.

What is a good ATB rate

Littledata benchmarks suggest that this rate will also vary from industry to industry, however for an average on UK sites you are looking at around the 4% mark. If your website is crazily below this %, then it may be an area worth investing in.

Here are our 5 top tips to help you increase your ATB rate:

1. Sticky ATB Button

A sticky call to action (CTA) follows the site visitor as they scroll the page. It allows you to display much more content on the page, in the full knowledge that the CTA is always there. When used properly the sticky CTA is unobtrusive, yet obviously there and available for the user to click in their own time when they are ready.

2. Use urgency messaging

Creating a sense of urgency or scarcity can really help improve your add to basket rate as users worry they might miss out on the product if they do not purchase immediately. You can do this by adding notifications of how much stock is available, having limited time offers, or by selling limited edition offers.

The FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real thing that people experience so by making your products seem rare or time sensitive you can play into this and persuade more people to buy.

Tactics to create urgency are:

Make it clear what your stock levels are: “Only 2 left in stock!”
Include countdown timer for offer expiry: “12 hours left till offer expires!”
Show customers how many other users are looking at the product.
Add a countdown timer for same-day shipping.

3. Encourage User Generated Content (UGC)

UGC includes ratings and reviews, as well as visual content like photos and videos posted online or submitted to your website by customers, fans, and visitors. In a study of five main eCommerce industries, conversion rates increased by an average of 161% when shoppers saw or interacted with UGC on their paths to purchase.

Product reviews in particular play an important role in a customer’s decision to buy. Before making a purchase, potential customers first check the product rating and consider the product. According to a testimonial engine report, 72% of consumers will wait until they’ve read reviews before taking action.

4. Add microcopy to promote value

If you can add some text next to the add to basket button this can really help to reassure users that they are making the right decision. Sometimes people just need one gentle push to make the ‘I want to buy decision’.

By tweaking the small things it really can make a huge difference. Promoting the value of your unique selling points will give your customers confidence you are a reputable retailer and have been already trusted by many other customers.

5. Display at least 3 product images

This might seem obvious but having several really high quality images that clearly showcase what users are buying is a must. The more accurately people can see the products, the more likely they are to purchase.

Ensuring that your products has the zoom feature on it as well is also really useful. This allows users to see the product from all angles.

When people buy online they cannot touch and feel the products first hand so providing as much detail in the images is really important and instills confidence.

To find out in more detail about how to improve the overall flow for your checkout process - please see our ‘Expert Strategies to Boost Checkout Conversion’ whitepaper (updated for 2023). This includes key stats, platform comparisons and lots of top tips and advice on how to avoid basket abandonment.

Please contact us if you have any further queries or want to arrange a free demo of the Remarkable commerce platform.

5 Ways to Boost ATB (Add to Basket Behaviour)