Often, budding ecommerce entrepreneurs don’t know what they need to build an effective funnel and shopping cart experience for their platforms. It’s not their fault; the problem is challenging. According to a source, the average shopping cart abandonment rate across all industries is 69.57%. That means about seven out of ten shoppers don’t complete their transaction, leading to an estimated $18 billion in lost sales revenue across the segment per year.
Startup founder Josh Bartlett proposed a solution several years ago ThriveCart, a toolkit that small and medium-sized businesses can use to build ecommerce carts and funnels. ThriveCart quickly caught on with businesses, it seems, growing to tens of thousands of customers and more than $1 billion in sales annually.
The rapid growth aroused the interest of investors. ThriveCart announced today that it has raised $35 million in a funding round led by LTV SaaS Growth Fund, the company’s first public outside investment. Kevin McKeand, who was recently named CEO of the company, said the new money will be used to further develop the ThriveCart platform and triple the company’s workforce.
“The pandemic has pushed many people to start their own digital businesses. The recent slowdown in technology has not been seen among small businesses and entrepreneurs, the main users of ThriveCart’s technology,” McKeand told businessroundups.org in an email interview.
ThriveCart allows businesses to create upsell funnels, promotions (i.e. offers for other services shown during checkout), trials and “pay what you want”, split payments, monthly subscriptions and more. The platform offers embeddable shopping cart codes that can be added to existing websites, as well as backend dashboards that can be connected to tools such as third-party fulfillment services.
ThriveCart can calculate sales tax rates based on location and product type, keeping totals with reports. It also enables automation rules, such as automatically tracking visitors who abandon a shopping cart, adjusting affiliate commissions based on the refund rate, and sending notifications to let customers know when payments are due.
“ThriveCart’s solution does the heavy lifting for site engagement, funnel and checkout experiences, freeing entrepreneurs to focus on developing great ideas,” said McKeand. “Our affiliate partners talk to experienced and new entrepreneurs every day, guiding them through best practices for launching digital-first businesses and acting as ambassadors for ThriveCart’s solutions.”
ThriveCart presumably collects a fair amount of personal customer data to accomplish what it does. businessroundups.org asked McKeand about the company’s data usage policy, but somewhat discouragingly declined to answer.
ThriveCart’s competitors include Gum Road and SamCart on the shopping cart and checkout side. Other rivals include Snipcart, the web building platform Duda acquired in September 2021, and Carrot, a plugin that automatically categorizes what customers add to their cart.
While McKeand declined to disclose ThriveCart’s revenue numbers, he said he is pleased with the company’s current growth trajectory and believes ThriveCart is “poised for growth” due to the “emergence of the digital entrepreneur.”
In an emailed statement, Marina Vizdoaga, VP of Investments of the LTV SaaS Growth Fund, added: “ThriveCart is one of the most exciting e-commerce investment opportunities we have seen in some time and will deliver a strong growth profile with attractive economic aspects. Loyalty among their affiliate network and their end customers is second to none. We firmly believe in the company’s growth trajectory and we are already seeing how capital inflows enable them to think and plan big in terms of product roadmap, market penetration and expansion, and strategic alliances. The popularity of the creator economy made this a perfect time to invest in a shopping cart and funnel solution for digital products.”
